How come its so easy to get into some top ranking engg. colleges??

<p>Beside MIT, Stanford, Berkeley,Cornell and to an extent..CMU..
how come acceptance rates r so high (nd yield rates so low) for top ranking engg. colleges like umich, Gatech, purdue, UIUC??
the yield rates fr these colleges r very low..
thy r lower thn ivy engineering yield rates..its harder to get in2 ivy engineering colleges thn getting into higher ranked engg. colleges..
why is this so??
why do many ppl prefer to not go to these colleges in spite of their high rankings?</p>

<p>it just seems wierd to me that its pretty easy to get into a top 10 engineering college..just wanted to know if there is a general trend as to why this is the case..</p>

<p>When you look at tech schools in general, they are easier to get into. Probably because there is always room for more engineers. But also, those top schools you at talking about are either public schools, and seem to be very large schools. Thus, as Purdue for example, has 30-40k students, they take a LOT of people. Same with the others. There just isn't really the equivalent of LAC for engineering, Rose and Mudd excluded.</p>

<p>taking the large student body into account..they still accept many more people..
basically, their yield rates are very low compared to lower many ranked colleges(ivies)..
wts the reason fr tht?</p>

<p>a lot of people literally apply to, say, all top 10 engineering schools, right down the US News rankings list. and why shouldn't they, considering how "easy" admissions is? since they can only chose one, this results in a much lower yield for all of the top 10 engineering schools (especially gatech/umich etc, not so much at caltech/cal/mit/stanford). in contrast, many people apply to ivies as "reaches." if they do manage to get into an ivy, they usually take up that offer over one of their non-ivy "match" or "safety" schools. therefore, ivies have a higher yield rate.</p>

<p>they just want the "ivy prestige"</p>

<p>a graduate from a top engineering school can get a GREAT engineering job.</p>

<p>a graduate from an ivy school can get a GREAT engineering job OR a GREAT i-banking job OR a GREAT consulting job etc..</p>

<p>so while other schools might be best at straight up engineering and research, overall higher ranked schools allow for more career variety. A BS in Engineering is a sought after degree in a variety of fields beyond Engineering.</p>

<p>The way I see it, individual undergraduate rankings by major is not nearly as meaningful as overall ug rankings. And I agree with that because you learn more when you're around more talented people. UG education, even in engineering, is mostly textbook, notebook, computer. In large research schools, the profs will be mostly busy doing research, will travel during the semester, and so it's even more important to learn amongst yourselves. </p>

<p>The schools you mention, partly because they are large state schools that must accept a certain # of instaters, are not that highly ranked overall. It's more beneficial to go by the overall rankings unless if the school doesn't really have an engineering program, like NYU.</p>

<p>^^ BostonEng: I don't think that is strictly true. A good friend of mine is a recent Elec Eng from Cornell and is working in finance in NYC (and making the big bucks). So happens he hated pure engineering. I don't think that's unusual either - lots of those engineering types will go on ot get MBAs.</p>

<p>Cornell is an ivy.
Tho of course, finance jobs prefer schools that are ranked high overall and that includes more than the ivies.</p>

<p>Fact is that for the majority of the population, it's not easy to get into a top engineering school. I'm in Georgia (and going to Georgia Tech in the fall) and many of my peers just didn't apply for Georgia Tech because they know they wouldn't be accepted. I've seen the acceptance rates (around 60% if I remember correctly), and you have to remember that that's 60% of people from the top 25% of their high school class. It's easy to get in if you've done well in high school, and that's about what it comes down to.</p>

<p>WaxTheories, but ivies are accepting 10% from the top 3% (Give or take a few percentage points).</p>

<p>to weenie, thats exactly what im saying.</p>

<p>the reason to go to Cornell over, say, Cal Poly is that you have more diverse career opportunities.</p>

<p>While both may have a shot to enter General Electric or Raytheon as an Engineer..the Cornell graduate will also have a chance to enter other and perhaps more lucrative fields like Mgmt Consulting or I-Banking</p>

<p>He has a degree in Electrical Engineering. He did an engineering co-op at IBM. Why would that be any different than the same degree/experience from any other good school?</p>

<p>These schools, uiuc, mich, gt, are easy to get in, hard to get out</p>

<p>ive heard tht argument b4..but iv seen a lot of just above average students graduate frm these colleges..
y wud u say they r tougher to get out of thn a lower ranked school..</p>

<p>with such high acceptance rates..the student body at these places would be,on average, of lower quality thn more selective ones..
maybe thts y thy find it difficult to pass out as compared to other colleges where students have a better aptitude(i am generalizing here)..</p>

<p>Compare like with like. It's much easier to get "out" of an Ivy than a highly ranked engineering school. Given the same student intelligence, it's just plain harder to graduate with an engineering degree than another major. Hence, why fewer people go into Engineering from high school.</p>

<p>An example of being harder to get out: a low percentage (I'm not going to guess, but its definitely less than half) of undergrads at GT get out in 4 years. The majority take 5 years, and more than that if they did Co-Op.</p>

<p>but thats what im saying..
nobody put the same person in say, an ivy and georgia tech..
maybe more ppl pass out in 4 yrs frm an ivy because of higher student quality(in general) as the ivy chose more selectively in the first place..taking its best applicants..</p>

<p>Compare the classes of schools. Harvey Mudd, Stanford, Cal Tech, MIT, Cal (Engineering). These schools are comparable student quality with any Ivy. They require extremely high test scores, etc.</p>

<p>Add UMich, Rice, UM, Olin, UW, UCLA, USC, UT. If you look at the distribution for test scores in the engineering schools you will see they are high.</p>