<p>If your intended major was Biomedical Engineer, and you got in to both Harvard and Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, which one would you chose?</p>
<p>I'd almost certainly take Harvard, ceteris parabus. True, Harvard is not one of the very top engineering programs, but then, neither is RPI. Both of them offer pretty good engineering, hence I would take the one with the (by far) better brand name. </p>
<p>Now, if it was between Harvard and a indisputably elite engineering school like MIT or Stanford, then that would be a different story. Also if RPI is offering you a full ride and Harvard is not offering you anything, then that might again be a different story. But at first blush, I think the clear winner is Harvard.</p>
<p>RPI is a MUCH better engineering school than Harvard. Harvard is a MUCH better school than RPI, overall.</p>
<p>RPI is ranked #18 in the undergraduate engineering rankings. Harvard is ranked something in the 20's. Whether that's 'much' better is up to you.</p>
<p>Besides, think of it this way. Given the Harvard-MIT cross-reg policy coupled with the fact that it takes about 10 minutes to get from Harvard to MIT by subway, you can go to Harvard and basically get a quasi-MIT engineering degree. This obviates most of the concerns about engineering course breadth and depth at Harvard. </p>
<p>So I think that solves most of the problems right there. The Harvard brand name is unbeatable. And anybody who inspects your transcript or interviews you will find out that did a lot of your engineering coursework at MIT. It's still not as good as just going to MIT, but I have to imagine that that combo is preferable to RPI, unless RPI is giving you a lot of money.</p>
<p>anagarcia:
Aren't you jumping the gun a bit, since you are only a junior?</p>
<p>sakky, dont mentioned that ceteris parabus. my economics teacher spanked me everytime i forgot to mention that on the test for supply and demand.</p>
<p>"anagarcia:
Aren't you jumping the gun a bit, since you are only a junior?"
haha, I by no means think I could get into Harvard, I had an arguement with a friend of mine about which school would be better for BME, since you'd have much more opportunities at RPI that wouldn't be available at Harvard, et al. So I just wanted to see what you guys would think since most of you are engineers, or soon to be engineers. </p>
<p>So let me just hope and cross my fingers that Harvard would even consider me...ahhh</p>
<p>Man, I just got finished doing battle in the RPI vs. Purdue board and now I found this!!!</p>
<p>RPI is in fact one of the very top engineering schools. For biomedical RPI's new Center for Biotechnology will let it go ead to head with the Harvard/MIT alliance. </p>
<p>Also, Rensselaer is about to install the world's most powerful university based supercomputing center</p>
<p>Bottom line: Both the Harvard/MIT route and the RPI route are both world class. If you want the name brand, go to Harvard but RPI is of similar quality .</p>
<p>rico2 sounds to me like your just shamelessly promoting the school you attend. It's ok, we all do it.</p>
<p>I am promoting RPI. It deserves it. I'm not just sitting here cheering, I try to provide links to show examples as to why I think the school has great programs. If you checks my posts usually I have either a link or some data to support my points. I just trying to expose others to a great engineering university and I am excited about doing it.
Also, I give credit where credit is due as above where I said that both Harvard and MIT are world class. That's obvious. My point was that RPI is as well. I don't run other schools down as others on these boards do.
In the Purdue talk I said that I thought Purdue was a fine institution but I would take RPI for engineering. No harm intended.</p>
<p>I would add another factor in here. The truth is, the majority of students that start off as engineering students will never get engineering degrees. Many people switch majors when they find out what it really means to be an engineering student, as they find it is either too difficult or too hard or they just find something else that they enjoy better. So think about how you would feel if you turned down Harvard for RPI for the engineering, and then discover later that you don't want to study engineering anymore. I suspect you might want to have that Harvard admission offer back. </p>
<p>So it seems to me that, if nothing else, Harvard is the safer choice. If you go to Harvard and find out you don't really like engineering, you just study something else as all of the other majors are top notch. </p>
<p>Of course, the safest choice of all would be something like Stanford, in which all of the majors are truly top-notch. But that of course presumes that you can get into Harvard or Stanford.</p>
<p>RPI is a very good school for Engineering. Harvard isn't far behind. However, overall, they are not comparable. RPI is a good university but Harvard is one of the top 5 universities in the World. Unless there are personal factors at play (financial or social), I cannot imagine chosing RPI over Harvard.</p>
<p>I would choose the one with a better engineering program. Unless you want brand name..... But seriously I dont think brand name matters so much for undergrad study. Anyway if u choose RPI, you can always tell people that u turned down harvard (there goes ure brand name :D)</p>
<p>HE'S NOT GOING TO EITHER ONE -- HE'S ONLY A JUNIOR!</p>
<p>Read the 7th post...</p>
<p>weenie-
-I'm OBVIOUSLY not going to either one, May 1st passed passed a while back.
-Like I said before, I had an arguement with a friend, and since mostly everyone here is an engineer or soon to be one, your responses would be more informative, based on knowledge.
-I'm a SHE not a he...</p>
<p>Sorry anagarcia, I just feel bad when people take the time to respond thoughtfully to posts like this which are rather misleading.</p>
<p>MIT Engineering is not that hard to get into. Some department has ridiculously high admit rate. Ocean's engineering has 75% admit rate, Nuclear engineering has 60% admit rate, Civil & Environmental Engineering has 60% admit rate </p>
<p>Harvard Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences is extremly selective school with about 10 % admit rate</p>
<p>About 1000 students are getting Engineering degree from MIT per year and about 50 students are getting degree from DEAS.</p>
<p>Harvard DEAS is a lot smaller than MIT but DEAS alumnus seems to be better off than MIT Alumni. Bill Gates, Steven Balmer (CEO of microsoft) went to DEAS. Ann Wang who invented magnetic tapes and was once considered as most successful electrical engineer. Many MIT start-up companies were funded by Dr. Wang, an Harvard Alumni, but none of them were as successful as Dr. Wang's company. Fischer Black, who created Financial Engineering and former partner of Goldman Sachs also went to Harvard DEAS. </p>
<p>None of MIT Alumnus are as successful of these Harvard Alumnus mentioned above..( even though MIT is 20 times bigger than Harvard DEAS)</p>
<p>mdx49-hmmm... I always thought that it would be a lot easier to get into Harvard's engineering school than it would be to get into MIT's.
MIT doesn't offer BME, am I correct? What MIT offers is Bioengineering, but isn't that different from BME?</p>
<p>oo yeah I thought so too, does anyone have any insight on this ?</p>