Engineering Colleges to Aim Higher Than?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I used the forum search to look for some previous threads about colleges for studying engineering. Many threads here ask about top programs, and I think I have a pretty good list of highly regarded engineering colleges. Now I'd like to ask a more bottom-up than top-down question: where would you draw the line for NOT applying to an engineering college if you were sure you had a good chance to get into a better (in your opinion) college? </p>

<p>I'll mention two specific examples to make the question a little more clear. </p>

<p>1) Let's suppose an applicant has a strong interest in engineering, an in-state "safety" college already lined up, and has a reasonably good shot at getting into one of {Caltech, Stanford, MIT}. Would such an applicant, if uninterested in nonengineering courses, have much reason to apply to Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Science? </p>

<p>2) Let's suppose an applicant lives in a state like California with an in-state public university with a highly renowned engineering program, like Berkeley. If the applicant had a reasonable shot at getting into the state flagship, would the applicant have any reason to apply to another state engineering college, e.g., U of Missouri-Rolla? </p>

<p>I hope I'm making clear that I think highly of all of the colleges I am naming here. I'm just wondering when an applicant needs to start paring colleges off the bottom of the application list (ALWAYS leaving on at least one sure-bet "safety" college) just to avoid applying to too many colleges. All suggestions gratefully accepted.</p>

2

<p>From another parent:</p>

<p>Question 1: Why bother with Harvard, period, if the student is not at all interested in non-engineering courses? One might look at next-level-down universities that are stronger in humanities/liberal arts than engineering IF one is interested in obtaining a large merit scholarship, but Harvard doesn't give those.</p>

<p>Question 2: If the student has the record to have "a reasonably good shot" at CalTech, Stanford, MIT, I would think a student's safety engineering school would be more along the lines of Purdue, much higher ranked.</p>

<p>For the record, I don't think anyone has a "reasonably good shot" at MIT. It is too unpredictable. Perhaps the same for Stanford. CalTech, if one has the scores, grades and appropriate ecs, may be a safer bet. JMO based on what I saw this year with my son and his friends.</p>

<p>(Also, University of MO-Rolla has renamed itself in an attempt to make it clearer that it is an engineering school. I'll have to look up the new name, though.)</p>

3

<ol>
<li><p>There are many things to a college experience other than just the curriculum. Perhaps the applicant found that he really enjoyed being around the Harvard student body way more than the Caltech nerd-clique. Though I might suggest looking at Stanford as well, the applicant would be perfectly in-range to apply to Harvard; its not like it will not give him a top education.</p></li>
<li><p>Applying to oos state engineering school is also a good idea. THough if he cannot get into say Cal, he will have a difficult time getting into U of Mich., but its all possible. Also, they might have certain sporting preferences and what not. Though I would also suggest applying to lower UCs as well, such as UCSD and UCI, for reasons including the possibility of getting smexy financial aid. PUrdue could be a deep safety if anything (oos its about as hard as a bottom UC (IS) to get into, though its program ranking gives it the reason. easy to get in, hard to get out) </p></li>
</ol>

<p>And I don't care what firefox says, 'smexy' is a word.</p>

4

<p>The cross-admit statistics certainly suggest that MIT-caliber students do apply to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, the comparative quality of engineering programs notwithstanding -- of students who get into MIT and choose not to go, about half of them go to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. It's probably reasonable to assume that the truly hardcore engineering applicants are less well-represented in the group that chooses HYP over MIT, but I don't think they're entirely absent.</p>

5

<p>


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<p>I stated the extreme case, because some of the students I'm thinking of as examples are MOSTLY interested in engineering, and mostly doing pre-engineering kinds of high school extracurricular activities, but is Harvard so bad in engineering that an avid engineer would be disappointed at Harvard, or is it just a strong engineering college that happens to be overshadowed by that Brand X college in Cambridge, MA? </p>

<p>


</p>

<p>Am I correct in interpreting this as a statement that Purdue engineering is much stronger than Harvard engineering, or is this a statement that Purdue is stronger than U of MO Rolla? </p>

<p>


</p>

<p>That's what I think too. It will be interesting to see what MIT admissions looks like under new management. </p>

<p>


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<p>So the statement here is that Harvard is certainly good enough as an engineering school not to let down an applicant who wants to study engineering, right? </p>

<p>The students in my state (which happens to be Minnesota) MAY have a strong enough in-state college to be content with it as a "safety," although Berkeley is plainly more illustrious than Minnesota in several engineering specialties. One thing students can do here is get a very early read on their safety prospects by applying at the earliest date in the rolling admission process. The admission answer will come soon enough to leave time to make early action applications at other colleges.</p>

6

<p>Am I correct in interpreting this as a statement that Purdue engineering is much stronger than Harvard engineering, or is this a statement that Purdue is stronger than U of MO Rolla?</p>

<p>The latter (or so it seems obvious to me)</p>

<p>So the statement here is that Harvard is certainly good enough as an engineering school not to let down an applicant who wants to study engineering, right?</p>

<p>Correct.</p>

7

<p>Yes, seiken and tokenadult, I meant that given a choice between U of MO-Rolla and Purdue, Purdue probably has a stronger program, or at least one with a bigger national reputation.</p>

<p>As for the Harvard engineering program, I'm certainly not attempting to be dismissive. tokenadult's hypothetical student is "uninterested" in non-engineering courses. When students state that they are uninterested in a given subject matter, it generally means they aren't motivated to do well. Since most of the students at Harvard ARE interested in the other courses, it didn't seem like a good match between this particular engineering student and the school. For engineering students with broader interests, Harvard would be great. I suggested it to my son, in fact, but he didn't take my advice.</p>

8

<p>Harvard is not a good place to study engineering unless you really want to be something other than an engineer.</p>

<p>On a costs-benefits basis, it would be hard for an in-state engineering student to pass up Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois, Purdue, Maryland, Georgia Tech, Texas , Wisconsin, Minnesota, Penn State, Washington. There are maybe 5-7 private engineering schools that trump the costs-benefits of an in-state flagship.</p>

<p>But, for out-of-state students, the difference in costs-benefits of attending a flagship public versus a top private are negligible.</p>

9

<p>


</p>

<p>I wouldn't mind seeing your list of those, as a reality check on what I have read in other threads in this forum. </p>

<p>Thanks for the comments.</p>

10

<p>The private engineering schools that top all publics:
MIT
Caltech
Stanford
Cornell
Princeton</p>

<p>That top almost all publics:
Northwestern
Johns Hopkins
Carnegie Mellon
Rice</p>

<p>depends somewhat on the particular engineering field.</p>

11

<p>
[quote]
The private engineering schools that top all publics:
MIT
Caltech
Stanford
Cornell
Princeton

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Debatable. While I agree with MSC, I think Michigan/GT/Illinois/Berkeley are on par with Cornell and Princeton.</p>

12

<p>GatorEng23-
I am thinking undergrad engineering here. I am actually not so sure about Stanford with its major emphasis on graduate engineering programs.</p>

13

<p>Cornell being so high was news to me.</p>

14

<p>
[quote=]
The private engineering schools that top all publics:
MIT
Caltech
Stanford
Cornell
Princeton</p>

<p>That top almost all publics:
Northwestern
Johns Hopkins
Carnegie Mellon
Rice</p>

<p>depends somewhat on the particular engineering field.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm not really sure how you came up with that. By strength of engineering faculty, that's certainly not the case. Here are schools ranked by the number of faculty in the prestigious National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Membership in the NAE is essentially the highest academic honor an engineer can achieve, and members are leaders in their fields. By this measure, the publics appear to dominate. </p>

<p>Faculty NAE Membership (as of January 2007)
* = public</p>

<p>MIT 107
Stanford 84
*Berkeley 72
*UT-Austin 48
Caltech 29
*Georgia Tech 25
*Illinois 25
*UCSB 25
Cornell 23
*Michigan 21
Columbia 20
Carnegie Mellon 19
Princeton 19
U Southern California 19
*Texas A&M 19
*Minnesota 18
Northwestern 18
*UCLA 17
*UCSD 16
*Wisconsin 16
*Purdue 15
Harvard 14
Rice 13
*Washington 13
*Maryland 12
Rensselear 11
*Colorado 10
*Arizona 10
*Va Tech 10
Case Western 9
Johns Hopkins 9
Penn 9
*Virginia 9
*NC State 8
*Utah 7
*Florida 6
*Houston 6
*UC Davis 6
*UNC 6
*UC Irvine 5
Rochester 5
Yale 5
Brown 4
Dartmouth 4
*Kansas 4
*U Mass 4
*Pittsburgh 4
Duke 3
*Tennessee 3
*New Mexico 2
Notre Dame 2
*Tulsa 2</p>

<p>source <a href="http://www.nae.edu%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.nae.edu&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

15

<p>I'm going to have to do some more research on Cornell.</p>

16

<p>I got this from the GT site so thats why all the rankings end at GT</p>

<p>Top Undergrad programs where the highest degree is a Masters or higher</p>

<p>Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronautical
1. California Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford University
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
4. Georgia Institute of Technology </p>

<p>Biomedical/Bioengineering
1. Johns Hopkins University
2. Georgia Institute of Technology
University of California-San Diego
University of Washington
Duke University</p>

<p>Civil
1. University of California-Berkeley
2. University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
3. Stanford University
4. Georgia Institute of Technology
University of Texas-Austin</p>

<p>Computer Engineering
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. Stanford University
3. University of California-Berkeley
4. Carnegie Mellon University
5. University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
6. California Institute of Technology
7. Georgia Institute of Technology
Princeton University
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Texas-Austin</p>

<p>Electrical/Electronic/Communications
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. Stanford University
3. University of California-Berkeley
4. University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
5. California Institute of Technology
6. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
7. Georgia Institute of Technology</p>

<p>Environmental/Environmental Health
1. Stanford University
2. University of California-Berkeley
University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
4. University of Texas-Austin
5. Johns Hopkins University
6. Georgia Institute of Technology
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor</p>

<p>Industrial/Manufacturing
1. Georgia Institute of Technology
2. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
3. Pennsylvania State University-University Park
University of California-Berkeley</p>

<p>Materials
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. Northwestern University
University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
4. University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Santa Barbara
6. Stanford University
7. Cornell University
Pennsylvania State University-University Park
9. Georgia Institute of Technology
University of Florida
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor</p>

<p>Mechanical
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford University
3. California Institute of Technology
University of California-Berkeley
5. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
6. University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign
7. Georgia Institute of Technology
Purdue University</p>

<p>Overall Rankings for Schools of Engineering</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford University</p></li>
<li><p>University of California-Berkeley</p></li>
<li><p>Georgia Institute of Technology</p></li>
</ol>

17

<p>
[quote]
I'm not really sure how you came up with that. By strength of engineering faculty, that's certainly not the case. Here are schools ranked by the number of faculty in the prestigious National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Membership in the NAE is essentially the highest academic honor an engineer can achieve, and members are leaders in their fields. By this measure, the publics appear to dominate.

[/quote]
UT Austin has almost 50,000 students undergrad and grad; Rice has about 5,000. UT Austin has 48 members in the NAE. Rice has 13. Per capita, they would be equal if UT had 48 members and Rice had just under 5. Looking at total numbers without considering size of student population is silly.</p>

18

<p>UT Austin: 48 NAE members / 247 total faculty = 19.4%
Rice: 13 NAE members / 100 total faculty = 13%</p>

<p>The effect of the total number of engineering students, undergrad and grad, is debatable. From a faculty standpoint, there is a larger percentage of NAE membership of the total engineering faculty at UT Austin than Rice.</p>

19

<p>The top private engineering schools are more selective than the top public engineering schools. That was the primary basis for my earlier list of unbeatable private engineering schools. On the other hand, the flagship publics have great resources and facilities (and many students are as good as anywhere). So, my list is a subjective attempt to balance everything.</p>

<p>SAT 75th percentile</p>

<p>Princeton 1560
Caltech 1580
MIT 1570
Stanford 1550
Cornell 1480 (Engineering is about 1550)</p>

<p>Northwestern 1500
JHU 1500
Rice 1540</p>

<p>UC Berkeley 1450</p>

20

<p>
[quote]

The private engineering schools that top all publics:
MIT
Caltech
Stanford
Cornell
Princeton</p>

<p>That top almost all publics:
Northwestern
Johns Hopkins
Carnegie Mellon
Rice

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I really don't understand your list above considering that, in the USN&WR general engineering rankings (all majors included):</p>

<p>1) Cornell and Princeton are ranked lower than several public universities (Berkeley, UIUC, Michigan An Arbor, GaTech) </p>

<p>and</p>

<p>2) Carnegie Mellon is ranked higher than Cornell and Princeton .</p>