<p>This isn't exactly a competitive school or anything. You don't have to be smart to get into WPI, yet the graduates make more money than engineers from many other much more prestigious schools. How does this work?</p>
<p>Maybe WPI engineers are less likely to enter academia? Maybe WPI graduates are weeded out more (I think WPI’s graduation rate is less than 70%)? Perhaps the statistics are not very accurate?</p>
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First of all, WPI is an engineering school in the Northeast. The Northeast pays more since it has a higher cost of living. Engineers are also paid higher than most other majors.</p>
<p>Secondly, you are trying to tie together the nebulous concept of “prestige” with average salary, which is a hard figure. Either there are are very few “prestigious” engineering schools (not exactly sure what this means) that are harder to get into (basically Berkeley, Cornell, Stanford, Princeton, and MIT) or there are many prestigious schools which have similar admissions standads to WPI. If the second is true, then it is unsurprising that WPI graduates are paid highly.</p>
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Being “smart” is very relative. I don’t think the average student from my HS could get into WPI. Nonetheless, I don’t think WPI students as a population are statistically weaker than students at good engineering other than the aforementioned schools. We have had a fair share of Goldwater and Udall scholarship winners as well as students who go on to attend top-tier graduate schools and get great jobs. There are many companies which highly respect the training WPI provides. </p>
<p>WPI ranks lower than many other comparable engineering schools because until now, there hasn’t been as much of a focus on graduate education and research. These two factors play a large role in academic rankings (this is the prestige I assume you are talking about – and it isn’t too strongly correlated with selectivity). One difference between WPI and comparable schools is that the academics at WPI have a distinctive applied skew.</p>
<p>But then, I also agree that there are many “filler” students here who are lazy and who barely scraped by the admissions requirements. However, some of them work hard and do very well. On a different note, I think you would be surprised at the talent of top WPI students. If you really want to stand out here, it certainly isn’t easy but it pays off when professors, recruiters, and graduate schools also recognize you.</p>
<p>if you’re planning on just going to a good school and getting a good job, and you’re thinking don’t deviate from the plan if everything goes smooth then you’ll walk away a rich man, well i got bad news for you: there’s more to it. WPI might not be known as an elite school, but this is mostly because the focus is on teaching rather than satisfying academia with research. as a result, many of those kids that were “good” and not “great” in high school get a great education and go on to do great things, especially when they arent burdened with several classes that don’t interest them (i’m looking at you, high school language classes…)</p>