<p>The engineering forum generally does not know what changes have been made at these universities in the past five years. </p>
<p>Also, I am not putting down those other great universities, and all of my data is from Sciencewatch, published by ISI, by far the world's most respected organization in science. I even said that Caltech, in addition to H&Y, is considered one of the top three schools in science overall, according to Sciencewatch.</p>
<p>Ok so if they're soo good why are they not ranked highly in USNews Rankings which are:
1. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology
2. Stanford University (CA)
University of California–Berkeley *
4. California Institute of Technology
U. of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign *
6.Georgia Institute of Technology *
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor *
8.Carnegie Mellon University (PA)
Purdue Univ.–West Lafayette (IN)*
10. Cornell University (NY)
11. Princeton University (NJ)
University of Texas–Austin *
13. Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison *
14.. Johns Hopkins University (MD)
Northwestern University (IL)
Pennsylvania State U.–University Park *
17.Texas A&M Univ.–College Station *
Virginia Tech *
19. Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. (NY)
Rice University (TX)
Univ. of California–Los Angeles *
Univ. of Minnesota–Twin Cities *
Univ. of California–San Diego *
University of Washington *
25.Columbia Univesity (NY)
Duke University (NC)
North Carolina State U-Raleigh *
Univ. of Maryland–College Park *
Univ. of Southern California</p>
<p>funny for such great engineering programs why are they not in the top 30?</p>
<p>Even in departmental rankings, Yale is nowhere to be found in any of them.</p>
<p>The USNWR engineering rankings are virtually useless, if you consider the methodology. Their methodology is grossly biased in favor of huge engineering schools with more graduates.</p>
<p>The Sciencewatch rankings are done by an organization that's actually respected in science (the ISI, actually the most respected scientific info organization in the world), not by some third-tier magazine trying to sell copies. And they are based on quality, not quantity.</p>
<p>Furthermore, superwizard, do the following - take the top 50 programs in USNWR, and then rank the four or five smallest in terms of enrollment. You might be surprised.</p>
<p>[posterX] According to the 2005 THES specialty rankings, the top 20 schools ** in the United States** in ** engineering and information technology ** based on peer evaluation are (scores under parenthesis):</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Massachussetts Institute of Technology (100)</p></li>
<li><p>University of California, Berkeley (98.7)</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford University (84.9)</p></li>
<li><p>California Institute of Technology (78)</p></li>
<li><p>Carnegie Mellon University (65.8)</p></li>
<li><p>Georgia Institute of Technology (58.7)</p></li>
<li><p>Harvard University (58.3)</p></li>
<li><p>University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (54)</p></li>
<li><p>University of Texas, Austin (53.4)</p></li>
<li><p>Cornell University (51.5)</p></li>
<li><p>Purdue University (51.2)</p></li>
<li><p>University of California, Los Angeles (50.6)</p></li>
<li><p>Princeton University (49.8)</p></li>
<li><p>University of Massachussetts, Amherst (46.2)</p></li>
<li><p>University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (42.5)</p></li>
<li><p>University of California, San Diego (40.9)</p></li>
<li><p>Yale University (40.5)</p></li>
<li><p>University of Wisconsin, Madison (39.2)</p></li>
<li><p>Texas A&M University (38.8)</p></li>
<li><p>Boston University (37)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Do you have a link to those rankings? Also, it is once again interesting to note that Yale is by far the smallest school on that list (in engineering enrollment).</p>
<p>If someone really cares about this, please do the following:</p>
<p>Post right here how many courses are actually being offered this semester in the engineering department, to undergraduates, at Yale. Not some other department, but the engineering department, given by engineering faculty. Not in the catalog, but actually being offered this semester. To undergraduates.</p>
<p>Then do the same thing for, say, Cornell.</p>
<p>Breadth of course offerings literally define what kind of engineer you can become, and greatly influence your direction, and possible directions, in the last two years of engineering school. It's one thing to be a researcher, or an investment banker, it's another thing to become a real practicing engineer.
Graduate school is a great option for an engineer, but it would be a shame to be forced into it due to a dearth of available offerings at your undergraduate college.</p>
<p>Next take one huge department that is one of the core areas of engineering. Like civil engineering. An entering engineering student might well find that they want to be a civil engineer, as his/her interests change through exposure. List the total number of undergraduate civil engineering courses actually being offered at Yale. And Cornell. This is no small matter; it is a major area of engineering.</p>
<p>Then if somebody can please list:</p>
<p>The number of engineering companies that recruited on-campus last year at Yale for engineering jobs. </p>
<p>Then do the same for, say, Cornell.</p>
<p>I didn't say investment banks, I said engineering companies, for engineering jobs.</p>
<p>Those questions are mostly irrelevant because of the fact that virtually all of the best engineers eventually get M.S/E. and/or Ph.D. degrees between 2-10 years out after completing their undergraduate degree (if they want to have really good jobs in the field and/or have a leadership position, anyways), because engineering companies hire many engineers who do not have a B.S. in their particular category of "engineering" (e.g., a brilliant physicist, electrical engineer or mathematician would be hired by a computer engineering firm), and because top engineering students -- even civil engineers -- usually choose to specialize later on after getting essential core skills in physics, math, chemistry, electrical, thermodynamic and other core engineering concepts. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the question about the number of classes is somewhat irrelevant, because what matters is the quality of classes and the quality of student interaction with faculty, including independent research at places like the schools in the top 10 of Sciencewatch -- not just the sheer number of classes, which, in a large school, are more often than not apt to be boring and overcrowded, or both.</p>
<p>Remember, I'm talking about the "best" undergraduate schools in terms of the ones that produce future leaders and topo engineers. If you want to pick up an undergrad engineering degree and go right to work making $45,000 a year, and don't have any ambition to be a leader or researcher in the field, obviously one of the huge engineering schools might be your best bet.</p>
<p>That's not to say Cornell isn't a great school. As you saw from the Sciencewatch ranking I posted above, like Caltech, Stanford, Yale and Harvard, Cornell is clearly one of the top 10 places in the country to study engineering as an undergraduate if you want to have access to very high research quality.</p>
<p>A more relevant question might be to visit the schools, and ask professors about the students who, after earning their B.S. in engineering degrees and intent on advancing in that field, went on to graduate school. Ask and see if they went to the top programs, or even how many of them are now leaders in the field. Again, you will find that engineers from schools like Caltech, Yale, Harvard and Princeton (and perhaps Cornell), which are smaller but higher quality than some of the huge programs, do better than almost any of the huge engineering diploma mills.</p>
<p>Hope this helps!</p>
<p>olin is ridic and onyl takes like 10-20 kids a year, so even with great scores your chances are small</p>
<p>Yale has a number of faculty from other departments like physics, medical school, environmental science, radiology, chemistry, comp sci, and so on who also teach in "engineering". Most of Yale's so-called engineering is bioengineering, environmental engineering, applied physics. I think there are only 20 or so faculty who are primarily engineering; the rest are joint appointments. The vast majority of the engineering faculty are joint appointments. </p>
<p>The Sciencewatch ratings mean almost nothing about the quality of undergraduate engineering education. They are counts of publication citations.</p>
<p>as the size of the engineering program increases, so do resources, course options, research opportunities, benefits of an engineering "community", professional contacts, recruiting, and so on</p>
<p>number of bachelors awarded 2004</p>
<p>engineering specialty, Yale, Cornell</p>
<p>bio 10 80
chem 7 46
elect 9 155
environmental 4 0
mech 4 112
eng sci 13 10 (general eng)
eng physics 1 24
civil 0 53
materials 0 12</p>
<p>"Those questions are mostly irrelevant [snipped]</p>
<p>Based on my actual experience, as an engineering student and then a practicing engineer, I don't agree. At all.</p>
<p>The readers may read the prior posts and decide for themselves.</p>
<p>Collegehelp: Cornell's Civil engineering program is actually called "Civil and Environmental engineering". So their number of environmental engineers is not zero. They are just within the Civ. E. department.</p>
<p>OR at least this used to be true.</p>
<p>GEORGIA TECH!</p>
<p>haha, but im biased</p>
<p>otherwise id go for Olin, because its free</p>
<p>OMG! Why are we talking about Yale? I thought this is about engineering/science programs, not history/literature. LOL!</p>
<p>i don't recommend georgia tech for undergraduate and this is coming from current enrolled gatech student. </p>
<p>If you have the money for the private college go to MIT or stanford.
for public i would choose in this order:
Berkeley
university of Illinois urbana or georgia tech</p>
<p>I never heard of Carnegie Mellon university for engineer school. I highly doubt a university without strong MS / PHD degree rank wouldn't possibly give good education but that's just my theory.</p>
<p>I think engineers also benefit from being in a great environment for science. Overall, the best schools for science, by average rating across all departments, are Caltech, Harvard and Yale (in the engineering subcategory, as I've posted above, these schools are also in the top five nationally).</p>
<p>Caltech, Harvard and Yale also have unbelievably high amounts of fellowship funding, research sponsorships, etc., on a per undergraduate basis, that would pretty much put all the other schools on the USNWR top 20 list to shame.</p>
<p>Remember, we're talking about undergraduate work.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think engineers also benefit from being in a great environment for science. Overall, the best schools for science, by average rating across all departments, are Caltech, Harvard and Yale (in the engineering subcategory, as I've posted above, these schools are also in the top five nationally).</p>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>PosterX, I can't open your link.</p>
<p>I also don't particularly understand why you've never noted schools like MIT or Stanford as strong engineering schools. </p>
<p>
[quote]
I never heard of Carnegie Mellon university for engineer school. I highly doubt a university without strong MS / PHD degree rank wouldn't possibly give good education but that's just my theory.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>First off, I would dispute your theory. Harvey Mudd College seems to produce the most or the 2nd most graduates (along with Caltech) who later attain technical PhD's, despite the fact that Harvey Mudd, as a LAC, doesn't have any grad programs at all. How are all these Mudd graduates able to do that if Mudd doesn't provide a good education? Are all these grad schools being stupid in admitting so many Mudd graduates? </p>
<p>Secondly, if you have never hard of Carnegie-Mellon as an engineering school, then you should have, especially if your theory is correct and schools need a strong MS/PhD program in order to provide a good education (a theory which I would dispute). After all, Carnegie-Mellon is ranked #8 in the USNews graduate engineering ranking. </p>
<p>1 - MIT
2 - Stanford
3 - UCBerkeley
4 - Georgia Tech
5 - Illinois
6- Purdue
6- Michigan
8- Carnegie Mellon
9 - USC
10 - CalTech
11 - Cornell
11 - UCSD
13 - Texas
14 - Texas A&M
15 - UCLA</p>
<p>The point is, Carnegie Mellon for grad eng is actually ranked HIGHER than many other highly prominent engineering programs, such as Cornell or Texas. So if Carnegie Mellon isn't good for grad school, then what does that say about all those schools that are ranked even lower? I guess that must mean that they are REALLY no good.</p>
<p>I hope you were kidding about Carnegie Mellon. Its engineering, sciences, and computer science are notorious around the world for both ugrad and grad work. Business is now also amazing (perhaps even better than engineering) but most students definitely think "tech" when looking at a Carnegie Mellon name.</p>
<p>PosterX, how can you say that Yale puts MIT, Stanford, Harvey Mudd, Cornell, Princeton and Chicago to shame in the sciences?</p>
<p>Here's the revised link for you:
<a href="http://www.sciencewatch.com/sept-oct2002/sw_sept-oct2002_page1.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.sciencewatch.com/sept-oct2002/sw_sept-oct2002_page1.htm</a></p>
<p>Alexandre, I didn't say that. Obviously, each of the schools you've mentioned are also all great places to study sciences (some more than others at the undergraduate level - I'd still say that overall, MIT, Yale and Caltech are the top three in the country for undergraduate sciences).</p>