How to compare engineering programs: elite private universities vs. top flagship publics

College Search & Selection
1

My D is a HS junior and plans to major in engineering (not sure which type of engineering yet). She has stellar academics so we are aiming for top schools. While researching I realized that many top 20 private universities rank far lower in engineering compared to many state flagships. So what’s the most sensible way to compare them? I know the private schools will have smaller class sizes, more access to professors, etc. But what about course offerings (both breadth and depth), internship and research opportunities, and eventually job placements?

I’ve read on this board that all ABET accredited engineering programs are fine and don’t have much difference in quality of education offered. But something ranked in top 5 just can’t be the same as something ranked in the 50’s. What should I look for in detail? What’s the most important factors to consider?

The specific schools I’m looking at now include Notre Dame, WUSTL, Vandy, Rice, vs. UIUC (in-state), Michigan, and Purdue.

D’s basic stats: ACT 36, SAT subject Math II and Chem both 800, 4.0 uw, 8 AP’s, two time AIME qualifier, PSAT 1510

Any insights are greatly appreciated.

2
  1. Check your financial planning and the various colleges' net price calculators.
  2. If she is not sure which type of engineering she wants by next fall, pay attention to each school's engineering major declaration procedures.

Some schools like UIUC have applicants apply to specific majors; some of them may admit to general undeclared status if they do not get into their majors. In this case, getting into a heavily desired major (like most engineering majors) after enrolling as general undeclared may be quite difficult.

Other schools like Michigan and Purdue admit to a first year pre-engineering program, where students declare their majors later. Some of them like Michigan have enough capacity in all majors to give all students who pass the prerequisites whatever engineering major they like, while others like Purdue have competitive admission to get into the more desired engineering majors.

3

The most important thing you can do is take the ranking goggles off. The USNWR ranking for engineering is useful as a data point, but that’s about it. Their methodology is simple. It’s 100% based on institutional reputation as opined by other institutions. It’s highly vulnerable to confirmation bias and self perpetuation. Plus, what they are ranking is the quality of the research output and the graduate faculty names. It has nothing to do with the undergraduate experience.

So, what’s one to do? I’ll share my son’s experience with you as an illustration. He was a 4.0 student with lots of APs. He was a high level classical musician and scored 700+ on all sections of the SAT. He had the stats to at least be competitive at all the “top” schools, but he didn’t apply to any of them except Stanford (he wasn’t admitted, but a well qualified legacy from his school was. They’ve never taken more than one).

He didn’t want a tech only school, but rather a more typical college experience. That meant schools like MIT and Caltech were out. Plus, two Caltech professors advised him against applying to the UG program based on the quality (or lack there of) of the UG experience.

Next he started to vet more rounded schools like Berkeley, Cornell, Illinois, etc. and found something he didn’t like, giant classes, with profs who have little motivation to teach and who rely heavily of graduate assistants, some of which have a tenuous grasp on English. He ruled out all schools that weren’t undergraduate centric.

Next he wanted programs with direct admit to major, in his case ME. He didn’t want to start as a pre-engineer and compete again. That was partly because of the risk. Anything can go wrong, even for top students, but mostly because he wanted more depth in ME which means starting earlier.

Lastly, he wanted some connection to the outdoors. He’s been a lifelong skier, but hiking, biking, even surfing were all OK.

We visited LOTS of schools and paid careful attention to the engineering facilities. Everyone is great on the web. In person…not so much.

So, with little attention to rank, he developed a list, and it was a curious one to anyone who has the ranking goggles on. It was Oregon State (home state flagship), Colorado State (WUE safety), Utah (WUE, has innovative Spiral ME curriculum), Cal Poly (prototypic learn by doing school, awesome ME program), Case Western, WPI (very unique project based curriculum), RPI (he was a Rensselaer Medalist) and Stanford. He got in everywhere except Stanford and got big merit money from most of them ($100k at Case, a year free at UT, etc.)

He narrowed to three very different schools, all held together by his methodology, Utah, WPI and Cal Poly, an easy admit, a moderately competitive admit and a very competitive admit (ME acceptance is roughly 14% at CP).

He chose Cal Poly. They do not offer PhDs, so all the attention is on undergrads. All instruction including lab and discussion is run by professors. Classes are small. Certainly there are other programs like that (Bucknell, Lafayette, Olin, HMC, etc.), but what sets Poly apart is the facilities, the toys if you will. They have 80+ labs dedicated to engineering only! some of which solely exist for student projects.

So, rankings have a place, but only a little one in determining a best fit list.

Good luck.

4

When ignoring the rankings, how do I make a meaningful comparison of those engineering programs? My husband and I are not in the engineering field, and I have a thread in the Parents forum about D completely not motivated or involved in researching schools. We are going on college visits next month during spring break and I’m looking for some ideas so we can ask some intelligent question while visiting.

What’s are the important factors in comparing quality of different engineering programs, especially available resources for undergrads and job placement at graduation? Or more simply, is engineering at WUSTL, Vandy and ND weaker in these areas compared to UIUC and Michigan? How big of a difference is there?

@ucbalumnus thanks for pointing out the major declaration issues. Yeah the apply by major thing at UIUC is what I don’t like. How many 17 year olds know for sure what career they want to take?!

5

At the level you’re considering, particularly the schools on your list, there is no meaningful comparison of engineering programs. There doesn’t need to be. All are excellent, and all will get you anywhere you want to go. Your decision comes down to overall fit. What is important to you (size, location, vibe, activities, etc.)? Most importantly, of course, what is your budget?

6

UIUC does have an engineering undeclared option to apply to as frosh (as opposed to applying to a specific engineering major). However, it is not assured that the student will get into his/her first choice major later, although it should be easier than for frosh admitted non-engineering undeclared in general studies.
https://engineering.illinois.edu/academics/undergraduate/first-year-engineering-undeclared.html

While ABET accreditation ensures a relatively high minimum standard for the curricula, each school can structure its curriculum differently. For example, some schools introduce engineering design much earlier than others. Another difference is that schools where frosh are mostly admitted to major may include more specialized courses (e.g. EE versus ME versus …) in the first year compared to those where frosh are mostly admitted to first year pre-engineering.

7

A few suggestions/observations I can make:

  1. USNWR engineering undergrad rankings are a joke. They just ask deans to rate other colleges or chairs to rate other departments. They are too much like grad rankings, because deans/chairs tend to know about research at other schools, and not undergrad classes.
  2. A methodology I find quite useful in comparing undergrad programs is to take an average of the overall rank of the university for undergrads and graduate ranking for the college/department. Overall ranking tells the quality of student body, which clearly impacts the level of challenge in non-major (and (introductory) major) classes, and captures student-faculty ratio. Graduate ranking tells you the level of research accomplishments of the faculty, and quality of graduate courses (which is close to the quality of junior and senior level classes also).
  3. I do not subscribe to all ABET accredited engineering school are the same. No where close - ABET does very basic quality control and there can be a lot of variance after that.
  4. Regarding your list:

Notre Dame, WUSTL, Vandy, Rice, vs. UIUC (in-state), Michigan, and Purdue.

Among top 20 or so private schools, I will consider the first three you have relatively low for engineering (together with U Chicago (no engineering program), Dartmouth, Brown, Yale, and Harvard). Rice is a good school for engineering. If you are not inclined to spend much time on very top schools (MIT, Stanford, CalTech, Princeton), in the next group I can suggest Cornell, Northwestern, CMU, and Johns Hopkins as being strong for engineering, closely followed by UPenn, Columbia, and Duke.

  1. Congratulations on your daughter's accomplishments. Top engineering schools are really looking at increasing number of women in engineering, and she should have excellent options.
8

USNWR tends to offer at least some insight into the quality of engineering programs. For example, their rankings seem to recognize the breadth of the curriculum at a school like RHIT and the depth of the offerings at a college like Harvey Mudd. Therefore, I wouldn’t recommend you ignore them entirely.

For a complementary perspective, you could read through this article:

http://college.usatoday.com/2016/11/18/top-engineering-colleges/

In terms of a school that would be tops for physics, math and engineering, and which would be ranked highly by general factors as well, look into Cornell.

9

You look for personal fit for your child. For a daughter, the gender ratio at the school and support for women in STEM are important. You don’t want a department with “bro culture” or an administration that doesn’t believe that women have not faced barriers to success in these fields.

You look for financial fit as well, unless you are very rich. WUSTL is a pretty good wake up call on costs; run their Net Price Calculator. If you don’t like the price tag, move down a smidge in the ratings and you’ll get scholarships, or stick to in-state publics with lower price tags.

10

Thanks everyone for the info. Yeah I understand rankings can only be a dubious reference and hence I’m looking for more concrete areas to compare and evaluate. To be honest I picked those four private schools because they offer chance of merit scholarships. We don’t qualify for need based FA and I prefer not to pay sticker price anywhere unless it’s a great fit and daughter really loves it. She will likely apply to MIT when the time comes but unlikely to apply to any other super elite schools that offers no merit scholarships…

Right now I’m just concerned that Vandy ND WUSTL are much weaker in engineering compared to UIUC that maybe I should remove them from our list. Or are they really all decent enough to provide her all the opportunities available at UIUC and Michigan?

11

@carbmon: I think Vandy, ND, and WUSTL are relatively weak schools for engineering. I will consider public schools like UIUC, Michigan, and GATech well above them.

USC has some merit-based financial aid, I believe, and it is a strong engineering school, you may want to consider that.

12

With your daughter’s stats apply to Cornell (best engineering school for IVY). They try to accept 50/50 men vs. women. As for the schools you listed, I agree with osuprof “Vandy, ND, and WUSTL are relatively weak schools for engineering”. Michigan, UIUC, GATech and even Purdue are excellent engineering schools. I would suggest that you look at Pay Scale for a particular engineering major to compare and contrast. Large schools like Michigan and UIUC have thousands of companies that recruit on campus, therefore it is easy to get a job.

Here is an annual report (from 2015) on salaries for people who graduated University of Michigan (by major).

https://www.cse.umich.edu/eecs/about/articles/2016/annualreport1415.pdf

13

They’re strong schools but those aren’t super generous merit aid schools. Needing to win a big scholarship turns a “high match” to a “high reach” very quickly. No matter your kid’s stats and accomplishments, it’s best not to think of her as any sort of special snowflake. The biggest merit awards come from undermatching.

http://www.mykidscollegechoice.com/2016/02/13/top-8-ways-to-find-affordable-colleges/

Definitely check the yolasites:
Automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com
Nmfscholarships.yolasite.com

14

First, before you do ANYTHING else, read this: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/14/the-order-of-things

It is Malcom Gladwell’s take on really…ranking anything, especially colleges.

Next, decide what’s important to your daughter. Does she want a small, medium or large school. Is class size important? Does she care if she’s instructed by TAs. What about the campus environment? Engineering facilities? How important is the “typical college experience” to her? For some, it’s paramount. For some, it’s the last thing in the world they’d want. What about location? Weather? Extracurricular opportunities. Budget? Even if you can afford $250,000, what could you do with money saved? These questions and MANY more help narrow the search.

15

UIUC in-state would be your best bet, arguably the best engineering program out of all the schools you listed. I would only pick the privates or OOS publics if they offered you significant aid to make the cost less than UIUC.

16

Based on what?

Not one but two Caltech/JPL profs told my son that it’s not great for undergrads. In fact one said this “Caltech is not an undergraduate institution. I would not apply there.” My uncle who has a PhD from Stanford suggested he’d get a better education at Cal Poly or Iowa State. His beef, you pay lots of money to be taught by TAs.

Columbia? Penn? over GT, UIUC, Berkeley, Cal Poly, Olin, HMC, etc.?

This is an illustration of over reliance on bogus rankings.

17

My take is that rankings are fine, but consumers need to use them sensibly. Large differences in rankings do indicate differences in quality of student body and academics. Small differences in rankings are meaningless, and even if they mean, personal fit will easily outweigh those differences.

18

I will second the comments from @eyemgh about size of the school, classes and orientation for or against undergrads. I have a son at Cornell, costs a fortune and most profs in science and eng classes really have no interest in teaching undergrads, do a terrible job, and the TA grad students are often terrible as well. It is expensive self-study.

I know you don’t want a tech school, but my S2 applied to a few of them, and the smaller ones are very different from a big school like Cornell. We loved RPI and WPI, fortunately he got into both with merit scholarships, and attends RPI. He gets much more attention from profs than my other son at Cornell, and I pay less for the privilege. S2 got into the two biggest/best in state engineering schools, and I decided the smaller campus/student body and relative undergrad orientation at RPI were worth the cost. A small LAC would have NO grad students, but most have no engineering or a tiny engineering dept with few courses/profs. Too small (we looked at Swarthmore, Union). RPI and WPI were just the right size to have resources but small enough for some personal attention. A general university, to have good engineering, will often be a very large university. That’s why I favored the tech schools, modest size with heavy tech orientation. And my son says there are lots of happy girls who join sororities, play sports etc.
In fact may be easier to be on a team at a smaller school, certainly helped my son make a team.

19

Tell us a little more about your D. Interests, activities, peers, personality, etc. What is she looking for outside the classroom?

20

I agree with most of #17, but I’d just like to point out, on the other hand, some of the advantages of the larger programs, and some other points of distinction.

The larger programs may tend to have more comprehensive coverage of the engineering field. This can be critical to a student whose interests change as he/she learns more during the first two years. Some schools that show up relatively high in rankings, due to good production by particular research groups, do not have comprehensive coverage of the field of engineering. Better hope your kid does not get interested in, eg, anything related to civil engineering, at a school that does not even offer this entire huge field at all. There are some “engineering” programs that don’t, believe it or not.

This applies also to a potential developed interest in a particular sub-specialty of the more common areas. The sub-specialty I chose is not even taught at a number of colleges/universities that do offer the major area in general. At the larger program one is more assured at being to follow their interests and take advanced courses in their desired sub-specialty come senior year.

The larger programs that have a good reputation are likely to be well recruited, including substantial out-of-region recruiting.

Some universities have high repute in general, beyond engineering. This may be of assistance should one transition to an altogether different field down the road. For example I eventually transitioned from engineering toi investment banking, and I know my undergrad university “brand” helped my case for entry into this particular snobby industry.

Outside of engineering, social life and physical environment are two areas students in any field may legitimately want to consider.
For example, a prospective student, in any field, might consider the male/female ratio at the university as a whole.
As well as various other social aspects of campus life.
additionally, some physical environments/ campuses /locations may be more appealing to a particular student than others.

Some universities offer a richer extracurricular life than others.
Some universities offer a wider portfolio of courses available outside of engineering than others. Some engineering students may not care, but others might care.

Some programs do not really offer ABET accredited degrees across the major disciplines. Or one has to stay an extra year top get such degree. This may not matter depending on an individual’s particular interests. But it might. Particularly should those interests change.

These are just some things that come to mind. They are just general, not intended to apply necessarily to particular schools. Just some points to look out for as one screens schools.