<p>Recently, I hear good things about Harvard Engineering. Apparently, the university has seen a dramatic rise in the number of applicants in engineering. Also, they seem to be a lot more serious about the field. According to their web-page, they have lower admits rates than any other school. Also, they claim the stats of the admits are extremely high. I appreciate any feedback and real experiences on this matter.</p>
<p>You can find out more — granted from the institution itself — here:</p>
<p>[Prospective</a> Undergraduates ? Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences](<a href=“http://www.seas.harvard.edu/audiences/prospective-undergraduates]Prospective”>Prospective Undergraduate Students | Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences)</p>
<p>and check out <a href=“http://www.seas.harvard.edu/facebook[/url]”>www.seas.harvard.edu/facebook</a></p>
<p>Thanks, mrutter.</p>
<p>It so seems that top technical schools have to compete against Harvard from now on!</p>
<p>I know of two people who got into Harvard expecting to major in engineering but promptly switched majors shortly after their first semester. One switched to econ and the other switched to government. Anyone have any ideas why that happened? I mean, it could have been a coincidence, but then again I only know three or four Harvard alums/students.</p>
<p>@Lobzz</p>
<p>It could be because of many reasons. Perhaps, they found engineering to be more difficult than what they could handle. Also, they might have always wanted to do so, and they thought engineering at Harvard was less difficult to get accepted to. But, apparently these days Harvard engineering is just as difficult to get admitted to. When did your friends do that?</p>
<p>Just to be clear – It is just as difficult to get admitted to Harvard engineering as it is to any other part of Harvard college because there is no separate admissions, and no slots reserved for engineering students. Prospective engineers are in competition with prospective math theorists, prospective politicians, and prospective Latin scholars, and no one is admitted who doesn’t meet the standard set by the class as a whole. It’s not like Columbia, or Penn, or Cornell, or indeed almost everywhere else, where prospective engineers apply to an engineering school that admits a class of engineers.</p>
<p>As to why people leave engineering for other fields at Harvard? Maybe because when they get a taste of the other fields, and see the sorts of people who are interested in those fields, and the kinds of things graduates do in them, all of a sudden engineering doesn’t look as exciting as it once did. Harvard is practically the center of the world in economics and political science, in a way that it just isn’t for engineering. (It’s 10 or 11 blocks from the center of the world in engineering, or at least one of them, which must be a little disconcerting for everyone.) The excitement and electricity around econ and government there is enormous. And while your parents and your uncles and aunts may think that engineering is a much more secure career than others, Harvard students quickly figure out that their predecessors are doing crazy-cool things with their social science degrees, and not risking starvation, either. Hence a certain current of migration out of engineering.</p>
<p><a href=“It’s%2010%20or%2011%20blocks%20from%20the%20center%20of%20the%20world%20in%20engineering,%20or%20at%20least%20one%20of%20them,%20which%20must%20be%20a%20little%20disconcerting%20for%20everyone.”>quote</a>
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<p>Kind of thought so, but decided not to mention it so as not to incite rowdiness :P</p>