<p>pierre0913,</p>
<p>I don’t believe NAE membership has any significant impact on undergrad education either.</p>
<p>I was just explaining the inconsistency between what menloparkmom said (USC has one of the top 10 rated schools of engineering in the US) and what UCBChemEGrad said (none of their individual engineering departments rank in the top 10). Menloparkmom referred to the overall engineering ranking while UCBChemEGrad referred to individual engineering departments ranking. I wondered just like UCBChemEGrad did; perhaps the chemE thing makes us think alike. 
There was a parallel question: why is its peer assessment score low if its NAE memberships fraction is reportedly this high? Being inquisitive and investigative, I did some work to uncover the “secret”.</p>