<p>If you're to advise an affluent (rich) International Student who (assuming) got into Duke engineering as well as Berkeley engineering, Cornell engineering and CMU engineering, which school would you recommend?</p>
<p>Comparing the engineering departments at those schools is just one data point.
What else matters to this student?</p>
<p>the student is open-minded. no personal preference so far.</p>
<p>Stanford engineering student here. Applied and got in to some of the schools you listed. I would choose in this order: Cornell, Duke, CMU, Cal. Cornell over Duke for the stronger engineering program while not sacrificing any undergrad strength. Duke over CMU and Cal because even though their engineering options are not as strong as the others the student may not even stick with engineering after a year or two. And with engineering jobs it’s not a huge deal whether you went to Cal or Duke, as opposed to you completing the program with a strong GPA. Duke as an undergrad school is stronger than both CMU and Cal. It also has a good BME program, however I would tell the student to probably not major in it (too limiting) unless he/she is in love with it. CMU over Cal because Cal has huge budget crisis issues, and of course, Kal sucks.</p>
<p>^ Thanks for your post. The kid is 101% that he wants to become an engineer. The kid’s parents is willing to pay the full fees.</p>
<p>Cornell hands down.</p>
<p>The kid will graduate from an extremely competitive special science high school in his country and he will graduate in the top 10. He does have any particular liking or preference at this point in time. He does not care about the size of the school. What he cares about is the academics and the strength of the engineering program. He has impressive stats, excellent ECs, football varsity, math club president, and his parents are very wealthy.</p>
<p>If ever he’ll get into Berkeley and enroll, he will be the first from his high school in the last 10 years. Historically, their top students attend MIT or Harvard. (There are probably about 20 from his high school at MIT now.) This is the first time that a kid who belong to the very top of the graduating batch is very interested in Berkeley. I’m biased to Berkeley that’s why I’m not giving him a personal advice. I’m sure MIT students aren’t, or not as much as I am. :)</p>
<p>I’m not sure what the others are saying, but Berkeley engineering is typically either tied for #2 with Stanford (after MIT), or it’s #3 (after Stanford). Check NRC and US News rankings. Cornell engineering’s great too, though Berkeley’s easily first among the schools you mention. I’d say it’s: Berkeley, Cornell, CMU, Duke. That’s about what the rankings show–Berkeley > Cornell > CMU >>> Duke</p>
<p>In any engineering fields, Berkeley is the best choice among these 4 schools, hands down.</p>
<p>For computer science, Beerkeley = CMU > Cornell > Duke</p>
<p>For BME, Duke and BVerkeley are the best choices.</p>
<p>Overall, Berkeley > Cornell > CMU > Duke </p>
<p>In terms of the strength of faculty at Berkeley engineering school, here is the membership in the prestigious national academy of engineering (NAE) for each school, + MIT + Stanford:</p>
<p>MIT (110 members in NAE)
Stanford (90)
Berkeley (75)
Cornell (23)
Duke (3)</p>
<p>source: [Members</a> By Parent Institution](<a href=“http://www.nae.edu/nae/naepub.nsf/Members+By+Parent+InstitutionD?OpenView]Members”>http://www.nae.edu/nae/naepub.nsf/Members+By+Parent+InstitutionD?OpenView)</p>