How bad really is science/engineering at Yale?

<p>If I indeed decide to go to Yale (which is very possible) and want to major in a science/engineering, will I be doomed? Are the science/engineering programs there bad, or just not as good as Stanford, MIT, Caltech, etc.?</p>

<p>At the graduate level, Yale's programs in the physical sciences are not at the level of Stanford, MIT, or Caltech. As an undergrad, there is little difference. Top LACs with absolutely no graduate programs provide excellent education in areas like physics, chemistry, and math. Moreover, though describing the physical science departments as weaker than those of Yale's peer institutions is accurate, describing them as "bad" is not. They are among the top 10-20 in the country, and, as I mentioned earlier, the quality is virtually indistinguishable from an undergrad perspective. Yale will provide plenty of research opportunities, and no employer or grad school will look down on a Yale degree in the physical sciences.
In the biological sciences, Yale is as good as almost any school in the country at the graduate level. Again, at the undergrad level, differences in quality among the top schools are not really meaningful, but, regardless, an education in the biological sciences at Yale at any level is a very good education.
In engineering, Yale is significantly weaker than places like Stanford, Caltech, and MIT. If you want to go to a school with a large, nationally recognized engineering program with top faculty and students, Yale is not the right place. On the other hand, because Yale is a top school in general, going to Yale as an undergrad, even in engineering, is not going to hurt your ability to go to grad school or to get a good job. When considering your undergraduate education, people will be more interested in the overall strength of the school than in its strength in specific areas. That said, a very strong desire to pursue engineering, rather than a pure physical or biological science may be good reason to choose Stanford, MIT or Caltech over Yale (though it wouldn't be good reason to choose a school of lower overall undergraduate strength, even if that school had better engineering. The reason the three schools I mentioned have an advantage is that, academically, they are on par with Yale at the overall level, so their huge advantage in engineering could be a tip in their favor).</p>

<p>In terms of science/engineering, if you have gotten into Yale and one of Stanford, MIT, Caltech, The choice is really clear. You should be smart enough to figure that out.</p>

<p>
[quote]
In terms of science/engineering, if you have gotten into Yale and one of Stanford, MIT, Caltech, The choice is really clear. You should be smart enough to figure that out.

[/quote]

Would you care to explain what makes a science education at Stanford, MIT, or Caltech better at the undergrad level than one at Yale. So many on CC are firmly convinced that it is, but I've never actually seen an explanation as to why (other than arguing that the superior graduate programs in the physical sciences - in the biological sciences, Yale is basically as good - somehow create a better undergraduate experience). Personally, I deny that the strength of graduate programs has very much effect at all on undergrads. As I have said before, if graduate programs matter so much, why do the top Liberal Arts colleges produce such good students (including many future PhDs)?</p>

<p>For US NEWS undergraduate ranking in engineering, see
<a href="http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:GB2xgqoeMM4J:www.sandiego.edu/engineering/news_events/news_details/cbeng06.pdf+Best+Undergraduate+Engineering+Programs&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:GB2xgqoeMM4J:www.sandiego.edu/engineering/news_events/news_details/cbeng06.pdf+Best+Undergraduate+Engineering+Programs&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>For US NEWS graduate ranking in engineering, see
<a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/eng/brief/engrank_brief.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/eng/brief/engrank_brief.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>school/graduate<em>ranking/undergraduate</em>ranking
MIT/1/1
Stanford/2/2
Berkeley/3/2
Georgia Tech/4/6
UIUC/5/4
CMU/6/8
Caltech/7/4
USC/8/?
Michigan/9/6
Cornell/10/10
.........
Yale/37/43</p>

<p>So there is no big difference between graduate ranking and undergraduate ranking. The ranking of LACs is a different story. If a LAC doesn't have a graduate program, of course you can not use its graduate school ranking to infer its undergraduate ranking. But Yale is different. It has both graduate program and undergraduate program in engineering.</p>

<p>US News rankings in specific programs are entirely based on reputational rankings. Reputational rankings are based on quality of graduate schools. Ergo, US NEws undergraduate program rankings are worthless.</p>

<p>Well. Any ranking that ranks my school low or not high enough sucks.</p>

<p>Yalie here. Biomedical engineering here is particularly strong. No, Yale's not the best in engineering, but as an undergrad you really won't feel the difference. Also, if you're interested in Biology, all of Yale's bio and chemistry departments are very strong.</p>

<p>Actually, Yale is among the top universities in the country for engineering, biology and chemistry.</p>

<p>According to the Chronicle of Higher Education's 2007 rankings, Yale is #1 in engineering, #2 in chemistry (behind #1 Harvard), #1 in neurosciences, and near the top in many other areas as well. These rankings actually measure departmental quality. The other rankings out there, especially ones such as US News, are based mostly on the SIZE of programs. Since Yale is generally a bit smaller than places like UC Berkeley, it doesn't score as highly in some of those rankings (neither does Caltech, always). But on a quality basis, Yale is easily one of the top universities in the world in every area of the sciences and engineering. </p>

<p>For undergrad science, Yale and Caltech are your best bets. They have the most research going on per student, which means science majors have unlimited access to world famous labs and professors, that they would be shut out of anywhere else.</p>

<p>In tems of faculty reputation, if you check in USNEWS graduate school ranking, the percentage of faculty membership in National Academy of Engineering, you will find MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, Harvard, and Princeton are on the top. Yale is not among the top ones by this metric. I believe this metric is a good indicator of the quality regardless the size. But for science and engineering, size is also very important. In a big engineering school, you have the chance to learn different areas and different subfields.</p>

<p>The total number of faculty members in national academy of engineering is a good metric to gauge the overall strength of an engineering school. See
<a href="http://www.nae.edu/nae/naepub.nsf/Members%20By%20Parent%20InstitutionU?OpenView&Start=59%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nae.edu/nae/naepub.nsf/Members%20By%20Parent%20InstitutionU?OpenView&Start=59&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>MIT (110 NAE members)
Stanford (88)
Berkeley (73)
Texas-Austin (49)
Caltech (29)
UCSB (25)
Cornell (23)
Princeton (21)
Columbia (18)
UIUC (27)
Michigan (21)
UCLA (18)
UCSD (17)
Minnesota (18)
...............
Yale (6)</p>

<p>In my opinion, quality is more important than quantity:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.sciencewatch.com/nov-dec2002/sw_nov-dec2002_page2.htm#Engineering%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.sciencewatch.com/nov-dec2002/sw_nov-dec2002_page2.htm#Engineering&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>(Engineering: Yale #1, Stanford #3, Caltech #4)</p>

<p>Talk to students and professors at the schools you've been admitted to, and see what they say about your undergrad studies & future career paths. You can probably even email the professors, and if they write back it's a good sign. The fact is, graduates of some of the smallest engineering programs, like Harvey Mudd, Yale, Harvard, etc., do significantly better than graduates of some of the largest and most "well known" programs. I'm not discounting the prestige of engineering at Stanford or MIT, which are clearly the two largest and most well known, I'm just saying that for undergraduate quality of education, you need to dig deeper than what appears to be on the surface.</p>

<p>Also, that's just for engineering. Outside of engineering, which is relatively small there, Yale's science programs (chemistry, biology, neuroscience, geology, physics, math, environmental sciences in particular) are among the five or ten largest and most well-known in the world. Another consideration is that the amount of scientific research funding per undergraduate science major is among the three highest, with Caltech and MIT.</p>

<p>What have Yale engineers invented in engineering? Have they created any notable new technology in last 50 years?</p>

<p>Yes. Why don't you email the professors there and ask them about it?</p>

<p>You are the one who kept posting that link which ranked Yale #1 in engineering. So even you are not able to tell any notable technology created by Yale engineers in last 50 years. Right?</p>

<p>I can think of many, but I'm somewhat of an engineering buff. One that you might have heard of is the Palm Pilot, developed by Dubinsky.</p>

<p>Come on, posterX. Give me more examples. One example does not prove Yale is #1 in engineering. As I know, the #3 Stanford on your list has plenty of contributions to lots of new technology breakthroughs. Your "#1" Yale should be at least comparable to "#3" Stanford.</p>

<p>Here is the list of Stanford's contributions to internet related technologies alone:
Internet protocol TCP/IP
56 K modem
DSL broad band internet connection
first website in the world (SLAC)
multiprotocol internet router
YAHOO
Google search engine
ALTAVISTA search engine
Netscape
SUN workstation</p>

<p>I bet you have at least heard of some of them. If you think Yale's engineering school is the real #1. At least you need to give us some evidence beyond that silly chronicle ranking. </p>

<p>By the way, what is Palm Pilot? It sounds strange to me.</p>

<p>The ranking is based on quality, datalook, not quantity. I have already said above, the largest engineering schools (MIT, Purdue, Stanford, etc.) are great but in terms of quality and research and quality of education, they are surpassed by Caltech and Yale.</p>

<p>Let's forget about the ranking for the moment. Based on what are you claiming Yale surpassed MIT and Stanford? Only that questionable ranking? Why can't Yale's superb engineering education create famous inventors and breed modern technologies? Why have only few Yale's engineering faculty members selected into the national academy of engineering?</p>

<p>I am still waiting for you to give me the list of Yale's contribution in technology. Is that too difficult for you?</p>

<p>Read how some of these students explain it for themselves:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.eng.yale.edu/images/genericPDF/UGStudentProfiles.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.eng.yale.edu/images/genericPDF/UGStudentProfiles.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Also a few other notes on the "irrelevant" rankings - I suppose the rankings are only "irrelevant" for you because your school isn't #1, though!</p>

<p>YALE ENGINEERING RANKED FIRST IN RESEARCH IMPACT</p>

<p>The Jan./Feb. 2007 (Vol. 18, No. 1) issue of Science Watch, which tracks trends and performance in basic research, ranked Yale Engineering No. 1 in the citation impact of its faculty research papers for the latest five year period. The study focused on 100 federally-funded U.S. universities from 2001 to 2005. Science Watch rankings are "based on relative citation impact' that is, each university’s average-citations-per-paper score for the five-year period compared, on a percentage
basis, against the world impact average in each field."</p>

<p>Yale Engineering papers were also ranked first in citation impact from 1997 to 2001 and were among the top ten universities from 1993 to 1997.</p>

<p>YALE MECHANICAL AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING PROGRAMS ACHIEVE TOP LEVEL RANKINGS</p>

<p>The Chronicle of Higher Education recently (1/12/07) announced their Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index™ rankings for U.S. doctoral programs. Yale’s Mechanical Engineering was ranked third in the nation (after Berkeley and Caltech)
and our program in Electrical Engineering was tied with MIT for fourth.</p>

<p>The study reviewed 177,816 faculty members and 7,294 individual programs in 104 disciplines at U.S. research universities (Carnegie Research Extensive and Research Intensive). It took into account faculty publications, grants, honors and citations (normalized to per faculty amounts).</p>

<p>virtuoso, go to Stanford! Yale's eng. can't compare with Stanford if you want to do comp. sci. Stanford's engineering is overall ranked right with MIT and Caltech. Unless you are really in love with Yale, go to Stanford for engineering. However, if you are interested in the natural sciences, then it would be a much closer call b/c both have top bio and chem departments, but I would still pick Stanford.</p>