<p>
How many Harvard engineering students do you think have taken full advantage of that? And how many of them can compete in advanced engineering courses with their MIT peers?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s a rather unfair question, don’t you think? After all, how many engineering students at any school take full advantage of the course catalog at their own school? For example, I know quite a few engineering students who became so disenchanted and exhausted with engineering - but had completed enough of the coursework to render it foolish to switch majors - that they were interested in only in performing the bare minimum necessary to finish the engineering degree. The school could have doubled the engineering course offerings and they wouldn’t have cared; they just wanted to graduate.</p>
<p>Harvard does not suffer from a deficiency of engineering course breadth for engineering students could take full advantage of the MIT cross-registration course offerings. Whether they actually do so is irrelevant and is no different from engineering students at other schools who are not really interested in taking full advantage of the breadth of offerings at their schools. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Again, I fail to see how that’s relevant. After all, how many engineering students at any school would be able to compete in advanced engineering courses at MIT? For example, since Berkeley was previously used as a point of reference, allow me to continue to invoke it: I’m quite sure that the bottom 50% of Berkeley engineering students would have great difficulty with advanced MIT engineering coursework. </p>
<p>Furthermore, let’s bear in mind that Harvard is one of the premier science and math undergrad schools in the nation. The bulk of the Intel STS winners choose Harvard over any other school - including MIT - as their first choice school. Harvard is by far the best school in the history of the Putnam Competition with 27 championships, triple that of the nearest competitor, Caltech. Harvard is one of the most well represented schools at the International Math Olympiad. Hence, I see no reason why the more quantitatively oriented Harvard undergrads couldn’t succeed in MIT engineering coursework, whose difficulty usually stems from advanced mathematics and science concepts.</p>
<p>Now to be fair, many Harvard students probably can’t handle MIT engineering coursework. But many MIT students find that they can’t handle MIT engineering coursework either. Many MIT students matriculate intending to major in engineering… and then find it simply too difficult and so switch to an easier major (i.e., ahem, Sloan management).</p>
<p>2 kids enrolled in EECS have told me that during one of their gatherings, they were asked which other elite schools have accepted them. About 35% of them (more or less) didn’t apply to schools outside of California. Of those that have applied to other elite (private) schools, however, every single one of them has received acceptances. I’m not talking exclusively to HYPSM schools, but a mixture of Rice, Chicago, Northwestern, lower ivies, Duke and the like’s level. I figure that the lower 25% of the EECS students have come from California and have not applied to schools outside of California. </p>
<p>As for those students on FB, I think they’re quite legit people.</p>
<p>On Topic: I remember Harvard once published articles about their plans of expending their engineering programs so that they could compete with MIT, Berkeley, Caltech and Stanford. I don’t know what happened to that plans. But if the plans had pushed through, Harvard would have been respected in the engineering circles by now too.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A guy I know has a young sister who ‘swears’ on her Facebook profile that Twilight and its sequel are the two greatest achievements in cinematic history. </p>
<p>On the other hand, when you talk to her in real life, she freely concedes that she doesn’t really believe that. She freely concedes that The Godfather and Schindler’s List are far better movies. Her pronouncements on Facebook are simply her way to bond with her friends and should not be taken literally. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The cross-registration program has been a brilliant intermediary maneuver until such time as the expansion is completed.</p>
<p>“On Topic: I remember Harvard once published articles about their plans of expending their engineering programs so that they could compete with MIT, Berkeley, Caltech and Stanford. I don’t know what happened to that plans. But if the plans had pushed through, Harvard would have been respected in the engineering circles by now too.
The cross-registration program has been a brilliant intermediary maneuver until such time as the expansion is completed.”</p>
<p>I think Harvard needs to pass about 30 schools in engineering before they can even consider matching up with the top four as stated.</p>
<p>If you really want to be an engineer, the best engineering program in the Ivies is at Cornell. It is nearly on par with MIT in terms of selectivity. Princeton is also very good. Columbia and Penn fall into a second tier of Ivy engineering schools. Brown has a pretty strong program in biomedical. I think Harvard only grants degrees in general engineering and is probably one of the weakest engineering programs in the Ivies along with Dartmouth. Yale is slightly better than Harvard, I would say. I don’t think Harvard and Yale have many engineering faculty. I think many of the faculty are “borrowed” from other disciplines. The curricula are limited.</p>
<p>Among engineers, Cornell and Princeton are prestigious. Harvard and Yale are not.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Like I said, I think Harvard engineering does just fine through the cross-reg program. The combined engineering resources of Harvard and MIT, which is available to all Harvard engineers, is arguably superior to any other school’s, and certainly to any of the Ivies. Cornell and Princeton engineering students are not allowed to take engineering courses at MIT, but Harvard engineering students can and do.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not quite true. Harvard students are not allowed to take part in MIT undergrad research projects (UROPs). :(</p>
<p>Re: Harvard students’ access to MIT courses</p>
<p>This may be a school / major arbitrage opportunity that is not well known enough among high school students selecting universities to attend or apply to. If it were well known, perhaps more students would go to Harvard for the purpose of attending MIT courses. Granted, both schools are very highly selective, but a student who wants to go to MIT may find that two application chances (applying to MIT directly and applying to Harvard) is better than one (applying just to MIT).</p>
<p>Other little known arbitrage opportunities include Berkeley EECS versus L&S CS (the latter generally being regarded as easier to gain admission to), and San Jose State’s Computer Science and Software Engineering majors (the latter being easier to gain admission to, even though most of the courses for both majors are the same).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>LOL. By that logic, maybe Wellesley should also be regarded as one of the top engineering schools, since Wellesley students also have access to the entire MIT curriculum. And Wellesley students can even do research with MIT profs through the UROP program. Indeed, we might say that the “combined engineering resources of Wellesley and MIT . . . is [sic] arguably superior to any other school’s.” Notwithstanding the fact that Wellesley’s engineering resources are non-existent; but combine them with MIT’s, and arguably they’re the best.</p>
<p>Do Wellesley students have access to the entire MIT curriculum? This is news to me! Even so, your point still doesn’t rebuke Sakky’s argument that Harvard undergrads have almost unfettered acces to MIT’s academic resources and thus enjoy the best of both worlds.</p>
<p>These sort of arguments are silly anyhow since engineering is not really a prestige obsessed profession and most good MechE and ECE firms recruit at a wide variety of schools besides Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Michigan and the like.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wellesley students may cross-register for any undergraduate or graduate-level course at MIT, and vice versa, provided they meet the prerequisites for the course. Grades in MIT courses appear on the Wellesley student’s Wellesley transcript. Some restrictions apply: for example, some departments may place restrictions on the MIT courses that count toward your Wellesley major, and approval of a Wellesley dean is needed to have MIT courses count toward certain other Wellesley requirements. Wellesley provides a free shuttle service to and from MIT to facilitate this process. Here’s more info:</p>
<p>[Cross-Registration</a> with Olin](<a href=“http://www.wellesley.edu/Registrar/mitcross-reg.html]Cross-Registration”>http://www.wellesley.edu/Registrar/mitcross-reg.html)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, obviously. It was a joke, just meant to point out the inanity of the argument that Harvard’s engineering ranking should be piggybacked on MIT’s because their “combined engineering resources” are the best in the nation. So are Wellesley-and-MIT’s, even though Wellesley has none. Sure, it’s to Harvard’s advantage that its engineering students can take classes at MIT, but that doesn’t make Harvard a top engineering school, any more than Hampshire can bootstrap itself into the category of “top 3 LAC” because its students can cross-register at Amherst—though Hampshire students are surely better off for having that opportunity.</p>
<p>“It was a joke, just meant to point out the inanity of the argument that Harvard’s engineering ranking should be piggybacked on MIT’s because their “combined engineering resources” are the best in the nation.”</p>
<p>…and yet the point is completely lost by prestige hounds.</p>
<p>I have to admit, I’m a little curious. People always say “if you can get into Harvard engineering, then you might as well go to Stanford/Princeton etc.” Is Harvard engineering nearly as hard to get into as those schools though? Is it the same as getting into Harvard college?</p>
<p>You don’t apply separately to Harvard Engineering, but rather you apply directly to Harvard College and choose to concentrate in engineering after being admitted.</p>
<p>You sure? I had thought the engineering college was its own school in Harvard. Weird.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is highly misleading. Yes, Harvard students can “in principle” access many of the courses at MIT but they are still limited by the degree offerings at Harvard.</p>
<p>Harvard’s only BS in engineering is in Engineering Sciences. It offers no engineering degrees in any of the fields covered by MIT such as aerospace engineering, civil engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, nuclear engineering, electrical engineering, materials science or biological engineering. So you couldn’t attend Harvard with the expectation of getting an engineering degree in any of these fields by simply taking some classes at MIT. Even if by some extraordinary effort a Harvard student took all the MIT classes required for BS degree in chemical engineering for instance (which is actually impossible because of the additional GIR requirements at MIT), that would not grant him a degree in chemical engineering from MIT (or Harvard). So it would be pretty pointless exercise. He would be no better off than if he had taken the MIT courses on OCW, the online MIT course library which is freely available to anybody. </p>
<p>Over 90% of all cross-registrations at MIT in engineering are by Harvard graduate students not undergrads. Undergrads at Harvard are severely restricted in how many classes per semester they can take through cross-registration and each department sets further limits. No advisor of an undergrad student in the school of engineering at Harvard would approve a course schedule where a substantial number of the classes where taken at MIT. They can only take a class at MIT if a similar class is not available at Harvard. There are also many practical limitations. The semesters don’t overlap and spring semester finals at MIT are given after degrees are already awarded at Harvard, so students could not take classes that would count towards graduation. Harvard students can’t participate in research projects at MIT which are often requirements to many courses and programs at MIT. In practice, the most a Harvard student could do is take a few of his elective classes at MIT. This is a far cry from the best of both worlds!</p>
<p>" In practice, the most a Harvard student could do is take a few of his elective classes at MIT. This is a far cry from the best of both worlds!"</p>
<p>Thank you for your knowledgeable opinion cellardweller. Hopefully, a supermoderator stickies your post as it serves as an excellent resource for students deciding between traditional engineering programs at large state schools vs. nontraditional engineering programs at prestigious private schools.</p>
<p>Hey guys, i read through this thread thoroughly. I managed to derive most of the answers to my questions, except one.
Pls guys tell me onething
Im an international and need aid.
So, what do you think about doing my undergrad. engineering from Harvard and my grad. from a more engineering-recognized school say Stanford, UCB, Gtech or cornell??
What do you think of this? Pls give me a proper explaination!!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That will significantly restrict your choices of undergraduate schools to those which give significant aid to international students, or have low enough total cost of attendance to begin with.</p>