High Prestige Overall vs. High engineering prestige

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Well, my question for me personally, is if it is better to go to UT, which has a top ranked engineering school, or UVA, which has higher prestige overall. The more generalized question I guess is should a student chose an engineering specialty school ranking in the top 10 in engineering over a school ranked 10-25 in overall rankings. </p>

<p>My cousin went to Notre Dame over Michigan, and ended up getting a job as a ChemE, but I am wondering how you guys would view this decision. For me, Cockrell is around #5 for ChemE, and #10 for engineering, however it does not have the reputation UVA does.</p>

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<p>I never knew that UVA had such high prestige…and I live in the Washington DC area.</p>

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<p>Companies hiring graduates of a specific major are likely to actively recruit at universities that are known to be good in that major, as well as universities local to them.</p>

4

<p>Where I live, UT has greater overall prestige than UVA.</p>

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<p>Higher engineering prestige.</p>

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<p>In this case, I believe UT > VT no matter how you look at it.
Neither are extremely prestigious in non-engineering so that shouldn’t be a big factor for you. Its like choosing to go to Jupiter instead of Neptune 'cause its closer to home.</p>

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<p>^^^^JamesMadison, is VT even discussed in this thread?</p>

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<p>^ The U in UT could understandably be seen as a V.</p>

9

<p>I also had the same dilemma, choosing between Princeton and Johns Hopkins for biomedical engineering/biology. I’d say go for the undergraduate experience now and go more into depth for engineering in grad school.</p>

10

<p>JHU and Princeton are both pretty prestigious overall: #13 vs. #2 and I bet that Princeton’s BME program is in the top 15 or top 20. So I wouldn’t really call that a dilemma of prestige vs. engineering prestige. They’re both pretty high on both counts.</p>

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<p>If your goal is to be a successful engineer, the higher engineering ranking will bring in more exclusive firms and will be more respected by other engineers. If your goal is to move into business or finance, the higher overall ranking will open more doors.</p>

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<p>Thanks for your input guys. I have decided on UVA for mainly personal reasons, but also because they make it easier to take classes in the business school than UT does. I see myself fitting in better at UVA, which in turn should make me more successful there. UVA’s chemE program is probably around #20, and I have come to the conclusion that if it is not Stanford, MIT, or Caltech, it does not make that much of a difference. Where I live, no one thinks UT is better than UVA, and if I want to get a job in the east, I feel like most opportunities from UT are in the south. </p>

<p>Probably some confirmation bias going on here, but UVA feels right.</p>

13

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<p>Princeton’s BME program is taught in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, which is ranked #6 in the country for ChE schools and has been in top 5-10 for over 40 years now. A little bit on the department and the program:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/cbe/undergrad/Undergrad_Handbook.pdf[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/cbe/undergrad/Undergrad_Handbook.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>this says it all</p>

15

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<p>That is an incorrect conclusion.</p>