<p>im_blue,</p>
<p>it HELPS certainly to go to a top 10, but don't get carried away...
an acquaintance of mine from high school just got a faculty job at MIT coming out of Florida State with his PhD in engineering... FSU isn't even in the top 50!</p>
<p>anything in the top 50 is respectable and will give you a solid education... of course, higher ranked the better, but when comparing two schools that are separated by a difference less than 10, then other factors should come into play...</p>
<p>by the way, Princeton's engineering is well-respected... not as good as Stanford or MIT or Berkeley, but certainly solid... they are not in the top 15... yet they do quite well in academia, even in engineering...
other great schools not in the top 15 include: UCLA, Wisconsin, UWashington, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Penn State, Rutgers...</p>
<p>important caveat with these overall rankings which makes them less useful is that rankings in subfields and specialties matter somewhat more... you can have a school not in the top 20 overall, yet is in the top 5 in one or two
specialties... that is why I said lists like Us News should ONLY be used as a STARTING point... ultimately a student should consult with his academic and research advisors.</p>