<p>Our son was admitted SCEA to Harvard. He expressed an interest in electrical engineering in his essay. He just received acceptance to the school of engineering at UC Berkeley, as part of the Regents Scholarship application. We live in northern California and he applied to Stanford and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and recently submitted his Regents Scholarship application to UCLA engineering. Truly, not expected. When he told me about Harvard, I actually thought he was joking and would not congratulate him until he showed me the e-mail.
Although our family feels extremely grateful for this embarassment of riches, I think our 17 year old son feels a bit overwhelmed with the possible options. And, given his quite limited exposure to engineering, it is not clear if he will definitely major in engineering after all. Math, physics and chemistry are strengths for him but his passions are really jazz guitar and tennis. He played with Legos for a couple of years but was never the type of kid who liked taking apart and putting together things. My husband and I see him as less tech-y and more possibly suited for something like engineering/ business management (I think there is some sort of major like that at Stanford.) He will visit UC Berkeley for an overnight stay at the end of February and likely visit Harvard in mid-April. We have heard Harvard has been pouring much energy and resources in the past 5 years into its engineering department, but it seems its greatest strength is providing an excellent liberal arts education. I think if he got into Stanford, given its longstanding reputation in engineering and proximity to Silicon Valley and great tennis weather,that might provide more clarity. But of course that is not a given. Can anyone with experience in undergraduate engineering education make some comparisons between these schools, especially Harvard, UC Berkeley and Stanford, but also UCLA engineering and Cal Poly? Would any program be significantly more intense/cut-throat or more theoretical versus practical? (He also applied to USC engineering and Northeastern, and is a National Merit finalist so there would be almost certain merit money there.) Rather than muddle the issue with financial aid concerns, please just address their relative merits irrespective of cost. Also, he has seen the Harvard, UCB and Stanford campuses and rather likes them all so far (although he found the Stanford tour the most appealing). Thanks ahead of time for any comments!</p>
<p>Congrats to your son on his acceptances. </p>
<p>Berkeley EECS is a great program and Regents adds special perks. I would say if your son is definite on EECS, Berkeley Regents is one of the best programs - especially when factoring in the cost. Berkeley being a larger school is more bureaucratic and a bit tougher to explore other alternatives. But your son is a very bright and motivated student and likely one of the top admits so my concerns for him succeeding and getting access to research opportunities, etc. are nil.</p>
<p>Harvard is obviously a great opportunity. It will also allow him to see another part of the country, spread his wings, and connect with the best and brightest. If your son is not dead set on a specialized engineering degree, he would probably be best served by Harvard.</p>
<p>Stanford sounds like it would be a great fit for him as well - giving him the specialized engineering degree in a smaller, more resourced setting.</p>
<p>With regards to focus, the research universities: Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford, Harvard will be more research and theoretical focus in their teachings. Cal Poly SLO and CSUs in general are more practical in teachings because they are not so much hard core research schools. Their professors are usually less theory oriented and more application oriented. Definitely a great choice if your son wants to be an engineer. His classmates mostly will not be at an academic level of a Stanford or Harvard or Berkeley EECS though…but this could allow opportunity to shine. </p>
<p>I would wait till all acceptances and financial aid offers are on the table. The decision will likely become much clearer at that point.</p>
<p>Hello UCBCHEMEGRAD, Thank you very much for your thoughtful, helpful comments!</p>
<p>^ Welcome!</p>
<p>I thought of another question. Harvard currently offers only one ABET certified degree, a B.S. in Engineering Sciences. Although they began offering the undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering this past fall, apparently they cannot seek ABET certification in EE until they graduate their first undergraduate students. So, if our son attended Harvard and majored in EE, I assume his degree would not be ABET certified. What difference would that make in applying for jobs at graduation? Would there be an argument to major in Engineering Sciences as it is currently ABET certified at Harvard? Thanks again for your input!</p>
<p>^ I wouldn’t worry about the ABET certification. Harvard will get it eventually and doubt the lack of cert will have any impact on employment prospects. That being said, if your son is very strongly leaning to study electrical engineering, Berkeley or Stanford would likely be better options - the faculties are very strong and renowned in EECS and being close proximity to Silicon Valley helps. Not to say your son wouldn’t get an EE job out of Harvard. I’ve also heard Harvard students could take classes at MIT…but I’m not at all familiar with how that works.</p>
<p>Here’s how I would order your schools for engineering:
Stanford
Berkeley
Harvard
(others)</p>
<p>If Engineering is possibly not his thing, and you/he think that he might switch to something like science, I might move Harvard up to a shared #1 with Stanford.</p>
<p>For employment or grad school, none of these schools will hurt, no matter what major. I also think that they are all demanding but not cut-throat.</p>
<p>Good luck making the decision, and congrats to your son for having earned the position that requires a difficult one!</p>
<p>My son faced a similar dilemma. Of the schools on your list, Cal and Stanford are strongest in Engineering. If your son wants to experience a different part of the country, Harvard is a good choice, but its engineering reputation is not as strong. Here are some considerations in deciding between Cal and Stanford. Stanford cost is roughly double that of Cal (~$60K+ vs $30K+). Because Cal is larger, the classes are offered multiple times a year. For example, at Stanford, students need to start Physics series in Winter quarter, otherwise will need to wait a full year before class is available again. At Stanford, there is more flexibility in deciding major and selecting classes. At Cal, engineering majors are impacted, thus student must declare early to get priority for class registration. In the first two years, Stanford students receive more personal attention than at Cal since class size is smaller. Your idea of having your son spend an night at the schools is a good one. After overnight visits at Cal and Stanford, my son selected Stanford because it “felt right”. He is really happy with his choice. Good luck and congratulations to your son on his admissions success.</p>
<p>you need to put MIT there. Stanford and MIT probably are the best choice if he has not committed to STEM yet.</p>
<p>If your son is not sure what he wants to pursue and engineering is a possibility, Stanford is hard to beat, if only because of the breadth and depth of its departmental offerings (top 5 or 10 in most departmental rankings). Harvard is trying to bolster its engineering and so is pouring resources into it, but that will take quite a while to accomplish; your son will probably have graduated before Harvard raises the money to build its new STEM complex. For comparison, Stanford is just completing an engineering complex that it’s been working on for the last decade, and that’s with perennially superior fundraising. STEM infrastructure is very slow to build (by contrast, facilities and resources for the humanities and social sciences tend to be easier to build up). In the meantime, Harvard simply cannot compare to Stanford or Berkeley in terms of engineering resources already in place.</p>
<p>But he certainly wouldn’t be at a “disadvantage” on an absolute scale in employment if he went to H for engineering. ABET isn’t important for all engineering, and no employer worth his/her salt will throw out a Harvard resume simply because it’s not ABET accredited yet. That said, relative to Stanford, he could possibly lose out some at Harvard simply because it doesn’t have nearly the connections to the tech industry that Stanford does. So it’s not that H would be an unwise choice, just that at Stanford the likelihood of doing well in the industry is higher. </p>
<p>Many from Cal Poly like to claim their school is more “practical” and therefore its engineering degrees are better (‘learn by doing’ and all that). What that really means is that Cal Poly is strong in terminal degrees, which is the whole purpose of non-PhD-granting state universities: they’re degree mills. It doesn’t make an engineering degree better, just different in focus. I wouldn’t say there’s much difference among H, S, B, and UCLA in regard to theoretical vs. practical focus.</p>
<p>All that said, it’s hard to compare them until you have the offers on the table, and Stanford is harder to get into for engineering than Harvard since it has a glut of applicants interested in it. Neither admits by major per se, but it’s no secret that Harvard is pushing hard right now to attract stronger undergrads in engineering, and because of that, it’s not unheard of for a student interested in engineering to get into Harvard but not Stanford, MIT, Berkeley engineering, etc. all of which are more competitive for engineering.</p>
<p>Congrats & good luck choosing :)</p>
<p>Good grief what a post? Why are you trying to figure out the minutiae of your son’s life? That’s his job. Also it might be a clue as to why he applied 3000 miles away.</p>
<p>Thank you everyone for your thoughtful, helpful posts! Sosomenza, you provide worthy grist for the mill as well. BTW, our son applied to 10 schools, 8 in California where we live, UMichigan and Harvard. I graduated Harvard undergrad and showed him the school but it was his decision to apply. And it will be his decision if he decides to go. It can be challenging for a kid who just turned 17 to try to understand issues that may affect the next four years of his life. My husband and I are not engineers and, as concerned parents, would like to understand the issues better. However, we fully realize that our input can only influence our teen to a degree.</p>