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<p>680 here and I would literally kill 10 Iraqi peasants if it somehow exempted me from calculus. It's not that I'm lazy either. Point is, SAT=/=math skillz</p>
<p>^ that's not nice.</p>
<p>How hard is very relative. How easy is also relative. But the big question is will you enjoy the journey?</p>
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^ that's not nice.
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<p>nor are my professors.</p>
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Your math SAT I score is in the top 2%. Plenty "great" at math.
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<p>I was good at math back then, but once I got to college I realized I was just good because I had great teachers through my high school education. Once I hit college math I typically struggled to maintain a low B in my math classes.</p>
<p>Heck, on the GRE math I actually did quite a bit worse than SAT I math even though they cover the same material.</p>
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What percentile is a 3.5 GPA?
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<p>No clue what percentile it is, but 3.5 is enough for university honors, though a 3.75 is needed for college honors. I'd say I did better than average in materials, but I still had a decent number of friends with higher GPAs than me.</p>
<p>What school you go to must not matter that much because the past 24 years I worked with engineers from many different schools in the U.S. and many from around the world and I can say that I've seen great engineers from "mediocre" schools and mediocre engineers from "top notch" schools.</p>
<p>A lot of that has to do with the individual's effort during their education and career and motivation to be a good engineer. If you are technically curious and want to improve things or systems that humans interact with, and can communicate and collaborate with others you'll be a good engineer, no matter your choice of school.</p>
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compared to say the 45 - 60 schools (from the USNEWS engineering rankings).. generally.. I know each is different and can't truly be compared but I just want get your opinion...
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<p>I went to a school that was ranked in the 30's for engineering for undergrad and now I go to a "top 10" program for grad school. While the "top 10" program covers a bit more material, they're still both jokes in terms of difficulty. Grad classes in ECE here are curved to a 3.1-3.3 average (30% A's, 60% B's and 10% C's), so it's pretty easy to make a B if you just do the homework. The undergrad classes are typically curved to a 2.8, which really isn't all that bad because in undergrad you have a sizeable population who just do not care about succeeding. I don't think difficulty correlates highly with US News ranking.</p>
<p>The biggest difference I noticed between the schools had not to do with difficulty but type of student. There tends to be a lot more discussion in classes here.</p>
<p>I agree with comments here that going to a "top notch" school doesn't mean you are prepared for the real world. And this doesn't apply to just engineering schools. Look at all the idiots from our Ivies who thought they were hot stuff- Bush (Harvard, Yale), SEC Chairman Cox (Harvard), Fed Reserve Chair Bernanke (Harvard, MIT), Former Treasury Sec Paulson (Dartmouth. Harvard), and the new one who is so stupid he either couldn't figure his taxes or is a big tax cheat - Geithner (Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins). There are lots of other duds from these schools who were ill prepared for using common sense and helped sink our economy.</p>
<p>I would be more concerned about the real world application of the engineering education than about difficulty of a top 30 program.</p>
<p>I am a prospective chemE enrolled in cornell next year I was wondering if cornell is considered to be part of the "real world" schools or a bastion of academia like other Ivy engineering programs.</p>
<p>While there are some academic-centered programs and some industry-centered programs, the biggest factor would be your involvement in internships / co-ops. Don't just take classes every summer break. Get out there and work if your goal isn't to be in academia.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your insight! We would like some opinions here on son's choice for an engineering school. He has been accepted at Michigan State University, University of Illinois, University of pittsburgh, and Purdue. Waiting on duke, Vanderbilt, MIT and Harvard. He has SAT of 800/800.</p>
<p>Would he be miserable at MSU or Pitt from the standpoint of intelligence of student body? Both have offered good scholarship money, and I understand you can x-register at CMU if you go to Pitt. This thead isn't very complimentary of Illinois--Is there anyone who disagrees with posts? Thanks for your opinions!!</p>
<p>While I think it would be very hard for anyone, including myself, to differentiate between engineering programs (as most of us only ever attend one of them), I can say that it probably depends highly on the individual student in question. I know that for me, I have heard lots of negative comments about the students at Purdue. This comes mostly from the relaxed acceptance rate, which leads many to believe the quality of students here is somewhat less than other top programs. However, it always surprises me that such a misconception exists. I guess if youre like me, and you came to college wanting to seek out people who are motivated and interested in receiving a good education, in my experience finding those people is not hard by a long shot. I have numerous friends that I would call very smart, meaning, they are able to take challenging theoretical academic lessons and apply them to real world problems with ease. Of course you are going to have students who are not the crème of the crop, but I would say it is very easy not to surround yourself with them. As is usually the case in life, it all boils down to the individual. Perhaps you will not find classrooms here full of students who scored an 800/800 on their SAT, however, you will easily find students who are intelligent, capable of analytical thought, and motivated to succeed.</p>
<p>So, if you are the type who determines intelligence by an SAT score, I would say go to MIT, or hell, for that matter, if you can get in, go to MIT. But for people like me, who didnt necessarily put there all into high school, but matured quite a bit since, just go to a school with a decent reputation for the program, and take advantage of all that there is to offer. There are many people here who are highly intelligent, and Im never at a loss for finding them.</p>
<p>As a corporate recruiter and MIT grad I think you'd be surprised how similar the student quality is at a large number of quality publics and privates. One mistake people often make is looking at the SAT scores of a large diverse public, broken into many different colleges, and comparing that with the scores of a highly specialized private. In any specific engineering department, the SAT scores will be much closer than most people would believe...especially looking at people surviving to their senior year. One data point, that is commonly available to the public, is to look at GRE quant scores of grad departments....all schools in the top 30 or more are with +/-20 points of each other...and all are over 750. Great students are abundant in all these schools...not just places like my alma mater.</p>
<p>Thank you PurdueFrank and rogracer for your thoughts. S. believes he would be happy and do fine anywhere. Reading the earlier posts on this thread (particularly the comparison of student body at Rice vs. Illinois, and how the differences affect the learning environment) makes us wonder if quality of student body, particularly selectivity, truly makes a difference. </p>
<p>It sounds like both of you believe that the quality of student body in engineering programs is similar across the board. Or at least, that the difference does not affect the quality of education or the experiences gained. Fair to say?</p>
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Awhile back, one of my Asian friend got something like 790 math and 510 verbal<br>
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Asians are expected to get 800 math,not 790.</p>
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Bush (Harvard, Yale), SEC Chairman Cox (Harvard), Fed Reserve Chair Bernanke (Harvard, MIT), Former Treasury Sec Paulson (Dartmouth. Harvard), and the new one who is so stupid he either couldn't figure his taxes or is a big tax cheat - Geithner (Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins). There are lots of other duds from these schools who were ill prepared for using common sense and helped sink our economy.
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<p>While I may agree with you on the fact that those men have not done the best for our economy, I strongly disagree with your implications on them being duds. Just the positions that those men have attained are enough proof that they are/were well accomplished. I'd like to see how well your "common sense" would steer you in a position such as theirs.</p>
<p>^^ agreed. Most of those men probably would not have made it to that point w/o the connections they made at their alma maters.</p>
<p>D101parent</p>
<p>Yes, that would be my belief. At any top engineering school I believe that the level of education is going to vary only slightly. I know that at Purdue the average engineering students SAT score is well above the overall school average SAT score, even in the first year. This, coupled with the fact that there is approximately a 40% drop rate from the engineering program, would mean that students who graduate from Purdue engineering would have even higher scores. Plus, when you look at the correlation between success in life and test scores/grades, you will find that there really isnt much of one. </p>
<p>Where I do think there is a difference, is in the name recognition of a school. Obviously, just the name MIT is going to open a lot of doors in the future. This was actually my main reason for choosing Purdue over a school like Umich or Illinois. I am from FL, and if you ask most people in FL about either of those schools you will likely get a blank stare, or a comment about Umich football - but nothing about engineering or education. However, everyone I asked about Purdue knew of the engineering reputation, and many even thought Purdue was an IVY school. Therefore, I decided to choose the school that I felt would best serve me down the road. I really dont think there is any difference between Purdue, Umich, and Illinois educationally, however, Purdue has by far the best name recognition between the three. My advice, if you get into numerous top schools, think about things like size, location, name recognition, etc As far as the education, and finding intelligent people, I doubt that would be a problem at any top program.</p>
<p>purduefrank. You are kidding right? Then again, if you get blank stares from people in Florida when you mention Michigan, it's more of a testament of who you hung around with then anything based on reality. I can almost assure you that you would not have been accepted into Michigan or Illinois from OOS. They are much harder to get into. Finally Purdue has a better name recognition by far over the other two? Yeah sure.</p>
<p>Yea, I come from Illinois, so we know all of these schools, and Purdue is known as the engineering school that people go to when they can't get into UIUC. A lot of my indiana friends perfer UIUC to purdue any day of the week. Their education quality is the same, but as far as it goes around here, its definitely UIUC #1, Purdue #2</p>
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purduefrank. You are kidding right? Then again, if you get blank stares from people in Florida when you mention Michigan, it's more of a testament of who you hung around with then anything based on reality.
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<p>His point was that in his region Purdue is better known, and he is 100% right from my perspective. You can't argue with him about the "reality" of school notoriety in his own region. As a fellow Floridian, I knew the name Purdue far before Michigan. Michigan, if anything, is known as a football school in Florida. Does it mean Purdue is better than Michigan? No, it just means that Purdue has more notoriety for whatever reason in academics in our area.</p>
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I can almost assure you that you would not have been accepted into Michigan or Illinois from OOS.
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<p>That's pretty presumptuous of you. I don't know why you felt the need to state this.</p>