<p>“Also, Columbia and Duke engineers can get lucrative banking jobs that engineers of those two public schools simply can’t get a crack at.”</p>
<p>Oh where are you bearcats?</p>
<p>^^ Employers are going to treat grads from those unis equally. If it came down to a choice between the two, I’d choose Cornell for other factors (like location, more variety of majors, etc.)</p>
<p>You would choose Cornell because of its location and prestige, even though Georgia Tech is actually a few spots better in the engineering rankings?</p>
<p>^ I don’t particularly care for Atlanta…and I’d want a school that offers more variety. But, that’s just me. No right or wrong answer here.</p>
<p>“Also, Columbia and Duke engineers can get lucrative banking jobs that engineers of those two public schools simply can’t get a crack at.”</p>
<p>Again vengasso, can you please clue is in on which company, looks like a bank, you recruit for? You seem to have some sort of experience in this area that you haven’t clarified, and for your own credibility, probably should.</p>
<p>Do engineering rankings even count for anything? Aside from the elite universities like Stanford and MIT, are the others in the top 25 fairly similar and a selection ahould more be made on “fit”?</p>
<p>I say, yes…choose for cost, potential employment location and environment.</p>
<p>The more prestigious engineering colleges will be targets for on campus recruiting by more national based firms…that’s about it.</p>
<p>Also, some schools offer more specialized programs in certain engineering disciplines…Texas for petroleum engineering…Duke and Johns Hopkins for biomedical engineering. Differences can be parsed out, but I think other factors relating to cost and fit should be weighed more heavily.</p>
<p>there are some programs in the upper half of the rankings that are clearly better than those closer to the bottom of the top 25 rankings, and that becomes more apparent when you visit the school. but as UCB said, fit should definitely be the top concern (is it a puritanical engr program vs one that integrates a broad liberal arts curriculum, the nature of the school overall, etc) and cost should be next. </p>
<p>the most important thing for students are the opps upon graduation and for top students, they are largely similar (although MIT and Stan grads of course have the upper hand). in this sense, companies do an excellent job at evaluating the student as a whole and not making judgements based just on the school they attend.</p>
<p>i would advise you to visit the schools that interest you and select the ones that you would enjoy to apply to.</p>
<p>Ok! Thanks for the great information, I learned a lot!</p>
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<p>Actually, if you look at Berkeley’s career reports, you’ll see a couple of people in each engineering major and computer science go into IB or consulting. It’s probably only 5%, but on the other hand you have no idea how many engineering majors even care about those jobs. The b-school places a non-trivial percentage into IBanking and consulting.</p>
<p>John Chambers spent little time and Duke and did not get a degree from there. His degrees are from WVU and Indiana U.</p>
<p>@Vengasso</p>
<p>“Also, Columbia and Duke engineers can get lucrative banking jobs that engineers of those two public schools simply can’t get a crack at.”</p>
<p>This needs to be qualified a lot.</p>
<p>Both Berkeley and Michigan have undergrad b-schools that Columbia and Duke do not have. The vast majority of people interested in banking from those schools chose to go to the undergrad b-schools. Should the OP become interested in that, he can always look at transferring to them. </p>
<p>The placement from these schools for banking is on par with Columbia and Duke. I can take Michigan as an example, which sends over 50+ a year (out of around 150-200 finance majors) to Bulge Brackets and top boutiques (<a href=“http://www.bus.umich.edu/pdf/EmploymentProfile2010.pdf[/url]”>http://www.bus.umich.edu/pdf/EmploymentProfile2010.pdf</a>). Additionally, as mentioned earlier for Berkeley, people from engineering can get into those firms, it just depends on what their interests are.</p>
<p>My experience, from being in both the Engineering and Business schools at Michigan, is that the vast majority of people in Engineering don’t really care about finance jobs. I woud expect the same for Berkeley. I have also seen people from Michigan engineering go to both MBB and BB firms, though not at the rates of the business school and probably of the likes of Columbia and Duke Engineering (this again has a lot to do with interests).</p>
<p>To the OP: You have to decide what type of line you are interested in pursuing (traditional engineering or something else). All of the schools you mentioned above will give you great opportunities, and the top ranked engineering schools will be good for traditional engineering (For traditional engineering, places like Michigan, UIUC, Georgia Tech will in general be > Duke or Columbia Engineering because of the resources provided at those schools towards engineering. However you won’t be screwed by going to one over the other).</p>
<p>great information goldenglobe! i should really find what type of engineering i like before i choose which universities will provide the best engineering education for me. thanks!</p>
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You do realize there a decent amount of engineers at Michigan who were rejected by Ross admissions so its not as simple as just “transferring in”. You have to join Ross by the end of the freshman year or you simply can’t from what I’ve heard. Also, all of the engineers at these schools will at least initially interested in engineering but they might change their mind about their intended career path. After all, most people change their mind about careers during college. However, if you’re a junior or senior at Michigan and suddenly become interested in high finance, its going to be very difficult for you to break into that field while at Columbia and Duke, all banks hire a wide variety of liberal arts and engineering majors so there’s no barrier to entry. That’s the advantage these elite private schools provide.</p>
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The placement from these u-grad biz schools is simply not on par with that of Columbia and Duke. These private schools send 100+ grads into banking every year and most of these students were liberal arts majors. That’s how highly respected the education at these private schools is.</p>
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My father is a MD at Barclays Capital.</p>
<p>vengasso, I’m really not sure what your fascination with finance is since the topic of this thread is about engineering programs.</p>
<p>Also, as a Michigan engineering student who is also in the Ross school of business, I can unequivocally say that no, very few Michigan engineers ever applied to the business school. I would advise you to be familiar with a school before commenting on it.</p>
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<p>It should also be qualified that a lot of those students had connections before going to school.</p>
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Is that the best you can do?</p>
<p>Peter Nicholas earned a B.A. in Economics at Duke; and an MBA from Wharton</p>
<p>John Chambers earned a BA/BS in business at West Virginia (1971); a JD at West Virginia (1974); an MBA from Indiana (1975). Chambers also studied engineering at Duke for one year (1967-68)</p>
<p>Scott Guthrie earned a degree in Computer Science at Duke</p>
<p>Tim Cook earned a B.S. in industrial engineering at Auburn; an MBA at Duke</p>
<p>How can you count these people as “successful engineering alumni” at Duke?</p>
<h2>Only William Hawkins (B.S. in electrical & biomedical engineering at Duke; MBA at UVa) is a bonafide engineering alum. But we already know that Duke has a top BME program and a top business school. So if you want to do BME, go to Duke.</h2>
<p>Edmund Pratt earned his B.S. in electrical engineering at Duke back in 1947, and an MBA from Wharton in 1949. He served as controller of IBM World Trade Corp from 1958 to 1962, controller at Pfizer in 1964, before becoming president and then CEO of Pfizer in 1972. It is not clear whether he ever worked as an engineer. His success was probably more due to his Wharton MBA.</p>
<p>Chambers clearly considers himself an alumni since he remains deeply involved in the school’s activities by having donated millions of dollars to Duke and delivering this year’s Commencement Address. He transferred for personal reasons (girlfriend I believe) but part of his heart clearly remains with Duke. At any rate GoBlue81, do you consider Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg and Matt Damon to be connected to Harvard in any manner? I’m pretty sure none of them donate to Harvard College.</p>
<p>Also, does it really matter if they studied at Duke Engineering or not? Bill Gates’ wife Melinda is also a notable Duke Alum and the Gates have also donated millions of dollars to the school in addition to helping establish an incredible service learning program that is an important part of the Duke undergraduate experience.</p>
<p>My point is Duke has strong connection to Microsoft, IBM, Microsoft, Medtronic, Boston Scientific, etc. etc. so a prospective engineer who wants to enter industry at a premier company will not be worse off choosing Duke for Electrical Engineering over Illinois or Michigan.</p>
<p>Also, can we stop talking about Duke? I’m tired of defending a school I have no connection to. You can chip away all you want at Stanford you Michigan lovers. I’m ready to counterattack.:D</p>
<p>neal - It very much depends on the specific type of engineering, the school, the price, and what you intend to do. The overall answer is that they’re all very solid choices in general. But when you get into specifics, it’s quite possible to build concrete answers.</p>
<p>For example, I’ll give you a strong opinion based on my field (Computer Science), for a person intending to work in the field, and assuming that cost is the same: Cornell > Illinois > Wisconsin = Michigan > Penn >> Duke. Only Duke doesn’t really belong in that conversation.</p>
<p>But I wouldn’t have a clue how to rank these places if you intended to go for an MBA after a CS degree. Similarly, I wouldn’t know what to say for other kinds of engineering; Duke might be great in BioMed, for example. And some folks say that all the engineering programs are somewhat the same anywhere - I know that’s complete nonsense for CS, but it could very well hold for some of the more established engineering disciplines. </p>
<p>So, the answer very much depends on the specifics.</p>