<p>If you could fill GT engineering with all Princeton engineers then you would see how not so difficult GT engineering is to get out of. Obviously, the likely hood that an engineer at Princeton who had a 2340 SAT and a 3.9 gpa in high school has a far better chance of making it through engineering than does a student from a school like GT. And I am not saying GT is sub par by any stretch of the imagination. I am just saying that the caliber of engineering student at top overall schools in the country are, as a whole, better qualified.</p>
<p>True. I was just getting lazy with typing names.</p>
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If you could fill GT engineering with all Princeton engineers then you would see how not so difficult GT engineering is to get out of. Obviously, the likely hood that an engineer at Princeton who had a 2340 SAT and a 3.9 gpa in high school has a far better chance of making it through engineering than does a student from a school like GT. And I am not saying GT is sub par by any stretch of the imagination. I am just saying that the caliber of engineering student at top overall schools in the country are, as a whole, better qualified.
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Yep. And then compare that to MIT or Cal Tech...I'd tend to think the curriculum might be a tad harder at those schools than Princeton.</p>
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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?
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<p>Because it's Cornell. Fair or not fair, it is a school with a high-prestige brand name that tends to attract many of the top consulting and banking firms. </p>
<p>You have to understand that a lot of success in consulting and banking is really about networking. By going to Cornell, even if you major in engineering, you have a networking connection with other Cornell alumni, even if they weren't engineers. A lot of Cornell alumni occupy top positions in consulting or banking, or are in corporate positions to determine which consulting or banking firms to engage. Going to Cornell gives you access to that alumni network. Not so much if you go to, say, Purdue.</p>
<p>A lot of consulting/banking success is also based on branding. Let's face it. It's easier to win a sale for a consulting/banking engagement when you can tout that your team consists of Ivy graduates (or MIT or Stanford graduates, etc.) than if they consist of graduates from Purdue or GT. Fair or not fair, that's the way it works.</p>
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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..
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<p>Not only do they choose more selectively, but as stated by others, it is also probably easier to get out of an Ivy. The Ivies don't go around trying to weed out their students. Even if you don't do well at an Ivy, you will still probably graduate. You won't graduate with top grades, you might have to end up majoring in something easy (i.e. not engineering), but hey, at least you'll graduate. Contrast that with other schools like Georgia Tech or Purdue where flunking out is a real danger. </p>
<p>Hence, you (or somebody else) asked before why those engineering schools have such low yields, and I think the answer is simple. They're risky. By choosing one of these schools, you run the risk of not graduating at all. A lot of people, rationally, don't want to take that risk and would rather matriculate at a less risky school. After all, why take chances if you don't have to?</p>
<p>It just seems that a number of the statistics being bandied about in this thread have little relationaship to engineering and instead to a college's overall stats. For example, Despite that Yale and Princeton's usual admission rates are in the 9 to 10% range, Yale admits its engineering admission rate is usually at least double that and Princeton admits it is significantly higher than its regular rate. UPenn's admission rate for engineering is usually in the 35% range, and Cornell's 40%. Another example: UIUC's and Michigan's yield rates for engineering are usually in the 50% range, so is Caltech's; Purdue and Gtech are usually in the 40% range, so is Cornell for engineering. Only about 8% of all students who apply to college apply for engineering so engineering is picking from a much smaller pool than other programs. However, it is also the case that engineering applicants as a whole generally have higher 50% ranges in test scores and class rank so colleges which have higher admission rates for engineering are still admitting a large group of statistically high applicants.</p>
<p>the demand for engineering is high and the supply is low
they can accept a bunch but not everyone can graduate as an engineer.</p>
<p>drusba..Penn's engg. admit range is in 20s..caltech<20..
also..i dunno bt GT nd purdue..bt every othr person i meet here(in india) gt into georgia tech or purdue..not so bright ones included..however i find few ivy admitted engineers here..
to be honest..i have yet to meet sum1 rejected frm purdue..
if its so easy r international students..i doubt their acceptance rates r in the 40s..</p>
<p>Just like Sakky said, the prestige of the university is what matters most of the time when you're out looking for a job. Employers want students from WELL-KNOWN universities. I wouldn't consider Purdue a university that is even near the level of the top 25 universities in terms of prestige. Few people place it as their first choice. That's why it's so easy to get in.</p>
<p>It's because the engineering rankings in USNEWS are heavily based on faculty and department reputation rather than selectivity. Those two criteria are not the same thing for undergraduate. For graduate school, however, the lines between the two are more blurred (but still not completely the same). </p>
<p>In general, the belief is that the overall school is more important than the department, which is why Yale would still beat Purdue in cross-admit battles for engineering students who applied and got accepted to both and also why Penn engineering is far more selective than GA Tech's.</p>
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Just like Sakky said, the prestige of the university is what matters most of the time when you're out looking for a job. Employers want students from WELL-KNOWN universities. I wouldn't consider Purdue a university that is even near the level of the top 25 universities in terms of prestige. Few people place it as their first choice. That's why it's so easy to get in.
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For engineering, this is not very true. I highly doubt Yale engineering grads are more sought after than lowly Purdue or GaTech grads. Or perhaps I'm just making your point because Purdue & GaTech are more well known by engineering employers.</p>
<p>Yale engineering grads obviously won't be sought more than Purdue and GaTech Grads for engineering jobs because few engineering recruiters come to Yale, but the former have a lot of other options too.</p>
<p>At the undergraduate level, I don't think engineering students should entirely entrench themselves in engineering just because they study engineering. Just like how people study history without the intent of becoming historians, I think it's fine to study engineering and go off to a different field.</p>
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Yale admits its engineering admission rate is usually at least double that and Princeton admits it is significantly higher than its regular rate.
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so is Caltech's;
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<p>Uh, wrong. Dead wrong. Caltech, Yale and Princeton undergrad admissions are unified, meaning that nobody is admitted by major. Hence, I would like to see evidence that Caltech, Yale and Princeton engineering undergrads are admitted at a rate significantly higher than their regular rates. </p>
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In general, the belief is that the overall school is more important than the department, which is why Yale would still beat Purdue in cross-admit battles for engineering students who applied and got accepted to both and also why Penn engineering is far more selective than GA Tech's.
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<p>While that's part of it, I think the other part of it is that, frankly, a lot of engineering students don't * really * want to be engineers, but figure that it's the best thing they can do with the choices that they have. A lot of people (justifiably) just see engineering as a 'backup career' - something they do if they can't get anything better. </p>
<p>As a case in point, take MIT. I think we can all agree that MIT is an indisputably elite engineering school. But even so, plenty of MIT engineering students do not take engineering jobs. Just take a gander at some of the employers of MIT engineers (p.10-11 of the following pdf) and notice all of the consultancies and banks that hired engineers. I'm not talking about the Sloan management students or the econ students, I'm talking about the * engineers*. This is not some scrub engineering school we're talking about. This is MIT. You know these graduates can all get good engineering jobs. But a lot of them apparently don't want to. </p>
<p>And keep in mind that that's just talking about those guys who actually got consulting or banking offers. Plenty of students at any school, MIT included, would like to get into consulting or banking, but just don't get an offer. Hence, the above document actually * understates * the number of people who actually * wanted * to go to consulting/banking.</p>
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For engineering, this is not very true. I highly doubt Yale engineering grads are more sought after than lowly Purdue or GaTech grads. Or perhaps I'm just making your point because Purdue & GaTech are more well known by engineering employers.
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<p>See my above post. I suspect that a lot of Yale engineering grads never really intend to work as engineers, but intend to work in other fields (especially finance). </p>
<p>As for why somebody would major in a field that they don't actually intend to work in, that's actually quite common. Most people don't end up pursuing what they majored in undergrad for a career. This is particularly true of the liberal arts majors - like Aurelius said, most history majors won't become historians, most poli-sci majors won't become political scientists, most psych majors won't become psychologists. </p>
<p>Engineering, if nothing else, at least gives you a good backup career in case you can't get the job that you really want. Yale engineering is still better than most engineering programs out there (as there are literally hundreds and hundreds of programs), so you should still be able to get a decent engineering job from Yale if you really need one. But of course the intended strategy would be that you would leverage the opportunities at Yale to find some other career and only fall back onto engineering if nothing else works out.</p>
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See my above post. I suspect that a lot of Yale engineering grads never really intend to work as engineers, but intend to work in other fields (especially finance).
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Yeah, I agree. But still, Yale engineering doesn't have a good name. I doubt most companies are even know of the existence of Yale engineering.</p>
<p>Schools build good names two ways: quality and quantity. Cal, Michigan, GT, Purdue are strong programs but they are also huge programs. Yale might be good, but they don't put out enough graduates for anyone to even make a judgment.</p>
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Yeah, I agree. But still, Yale engineering doesn't have a good name. I doubt most companies are even know of the existence of Yale engineering.
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<p>Oh, I don't know. Last time I checked, Yale engineering was ranked somewhere in the 30's-40's or so, depending on whether you are looking at grad or undergrad. I think that's pretty darn good considering that there are literally hundreds and hundreds of engineering programs out there. </p>
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Schools build good names two ways: quality and quantity. Cal, Michigan, GT, Purdue are strong programs but they are also huge programs. Yale might be good, but they don't put out enough graduates for anyone to even make a judgment
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<p>I don't believe that Caltech produces a whole lot of engineering graduates (or graduates from any major, for that matter). Princeton is also a rather small engineering school. </p>
<p>On the other hand, there are plenty of gigantic engineering schools that are relatively low ranked - Texas Tech, Michigan State, Oregon State, Washington State, the SUNY's, etc.</p>
<p>Hence it seems to me that quality is much more important than quantity.</p>
<p>Ditto on quality over quantity from the employer's perspective. Size is usually a non-factor but in very small program (< 50 graduates each year), the low number could discourage recruiters from even show up. </p>
<p>In my experience, the top 20-25 engineering schools usually receive the most attention from recruiters - engineering firms, corporations, IBC & MC firms etc - in part because of their reputation and the fact that most of their graduates are usually of high caliber. Beyond that, everyone has their favorite picks based on prior success and regional bias. E.g. my former employer always recruit at a nearby four-tier engineering department because their top graduates that we hired were as surprisingly good as everyone else.</p>
<p>Mr. Payne - Companies don't know Yale engineering exists? Tell me you wouldn't be surprised if you met a Yale engineering graduate that was unemployed...like it or not there's no way in hell Yale engineers don't have every opportunity to be successful. And let's face it: if any three schools in the world have the resources (read: money) to shoot up the rankings whenever they want, it will be Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.</p>
<p>I think I should also add that we have to keep in mind what engineering employers really want. They're not exactly looking for a capable and knowledgeable employee. Not exactly. What they're * really * looking for is a capable and knowledgeable employee * who is also going to be satisfied with the job and the salary that the company is willing to provide, and won't demand too much.*. Let's face it. A lot of engineering jobs out there are not very interesting, opportunities for cool projects are few, the technology they use is old and unsexy, the promotion process is highly political and seniority-based (as opposed to merit-based), and in short, they're just not very good jobs. As a result, a lot of the very best engineering students don't really want to take those jobs, when they have other options, and if they do, they will usually quit quickly. Hence, these companies who have these jobs have to find people who are actually willing to take these jobs, and that often times means hiring people who, frankly, aren't that good, but who don't have other good options and so won't complain. </p>
<p>I've seen this happening at MIT. Some of the, shall we say, 'less desirable' employers are now pulling out of the recruiting process. I think the reason is quite basic - you have so many MIT engineering students getting plum job offers from elite investment banks or consulting firms, or highly sexy and cool engineering companies like Google or Apple, or cool opportunities to start their own tech firm, and those other companies just can't compete against that. They either can't or just don't want to offer equivalent opportunities. So the best thing for these companies to do is to just go to a lesser engineering school where the graduates will actually be satisfied with those kinds of jobs because they don't have the glamorous and cool job offers as alternatives.</p>
<p>I'm quite certain that the same thing happens at Harvard and Yale. Regular engineering firms probably don't want to recruit at schools like that because they justifiably don't think they can entice the students away from their other opportunities, like consulting or banking.</p>
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I don't believe that Caltech produces a whole lot of engineering graduates (or graduates from any major, for that matter). Princeton is also a rather small engineering school.
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And CalTech and Princeton are much more well known than Yale Engineering.</p>
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On the other hand, there are plenty of gigantic engineering schools that are relatively low ranked - Texas Tech, Michigan State, Oregon State, Washington State, the SUNY's, etc.
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And? </p>
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Hence it seems to me that quality is much more important than quantity.
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I disagree. As far as getting good engineering jobs I'd think that GT is much better than Yale. And it has all to do with quantity. I'd doubt the skills are any different between Yale grads and GT grads.</p>