The thread only started 3 days ago. I think staying on topic is probably still ok.
IMO, ABET accreditation is essential for engineering programs whether one is intending to sit for the PE exam or not. Caltech, Stanford, et al display arrogant hubris if they are claiming that they do not need to be accredited “just because we are Caltech/Stanford/et al”. Many employers (including my own for example) will not hire from non-ABET schools, and federal and state government engineering positions almost always require the applicant to hold an ABET accredited degree. What would one think for example if Harvard or Yale medical school decided it no longer needed the AAME (Association of American Medical Colleges) accreditation “because we are Harvard/Yale”? Would you want to be treated by a physician who graduated from an unaccredited medical school? Accreditation enforces a solid foundation and standard of quality. Caltech and Stanford have no divine annointment that legitimizes their belief that accreditation is irrelevant to them. Without accreditation there is no independent oversight of the program quality and effectiveness.
You may find that you need to repeat undergraduate coursework if it wasn’t part of an abet program for some graduate programs.
You may find your employment options limited. Utilities, power generation, communications, government agencies, government contractors, regulated industries, etc. expect and have started to list the requirement that the BSEE is abet in their job listings.
It is hard to predict the future, but easy to read the trend that credentials are more important than ever.
@Data10 re: Post #32.
I am guessing you are looking at US News? If so, Industrial/Manufacturing/Systems are lumped together in that ranking. All the top 12 are currently ABET accredited in Industrial, except for Stanford, MIT, and Cornell. And none of these three offer Industrial Engineering as a major! Northwestern is accredited in Industrial through this year. If they are dropping accreditation, maybe the department is moving in a different direction -couldn’t find any info on that issue.
Undergrad 2018 Industrial/Manufacturing/Systems
1.Georgia Tech
2.Michigan
3.Berkeley
4.Purdue
5.Stanford
5.Wisconsin
7.Penn State
8.Virginia Tech
9.MIT
10.Cornell
10.Northwestern
12.Texas A & M
Stanford’s MSE major was titled Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management a few years ago. The major was created by merging 4 smaller departments, one of which was IE. Students choose which of these areas to specialize in today. Similarly Cornell has a “Department of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering” department, with a major titled “Operations Research and Engineering.” While the major title is sometimes not “Industrial Engineering,” there is a reason why academic peers still rank them as top schools in undergraduate Industrial Engineering, which is the sole criteria for the linked ranking.
Looking at it a different way, suppose a student wants to work in an Industrial Engineering related field and would like to attend a private, non-religious focused college in the continental US, rather than a public one. If he also limits his search to ones that are likely to ABET accredited in IE when he graduates, then there are only 10 possible schools on the list, many of which are not commonly known as good schools in engineering and most of which are not especially selective. Self limiting yourself to considering only 10 possible colleges has a huge impact on college options, and a severe impact on related life and career options. Before imposing such a severe restriction on your life, it’s good to consider whether that restriction is necessary rather than blindly thinking., “you’ve got to have ABET.” Yes, ABET is important in some fields. However, there are also plenty of other fields where it is not important. Look at whether it is important for your field and your planned career. Look at the career outcomes of graduates at the specific college you are considering, not just whether they have ABET. Look at which companies recruit on campus and most frequently hire grads.
But you could be “severely restricting” your life if you don’t go to an ABET school and then want to get a job with an employer who requires a PE. You really don’t know who might hire you. Do you think that I expected a company in Portland, Maine would hire a graduate of UT-Austin? Do you think as a student, I ever expected to need to send out 273 resumes all over the country to get a job? I didn’t expect oil prices to plummet the month I got my master’s degree. Life is unpredictable. I wouldn’t advise my kid to limit his/her opportunities by going to a non-ABET accredited school.
This is the current undergraduate ranking, not graduate. Cornell has Operations Research and Information Engineering , also Systems. No Industrial. Stanford has Management Science and Engineering, not Industrial. But, I do agree that there are other programs that might be good and might yield similar results that may not have the title industrial engineering in them.
And there is nothing that stops any high school kid from looking beyond any top “10” ranked school in any field. The rankings only provide a general guide. There are many great schools out there.
@Engineer80 the reason top schools are dropping ABET is because it’s a huge hassle to have accreditation people to come in who are not even as well qualified as the professors in the department and evaluate your program. This is like having underclassman evaluate grad students on how capable they are in their fields, doesn’t make any sense and top schools won’t put up with this time/money consuming ridiculousnous. Some of the ABET people don’t even understand what your teaching in upper level courses and it’s ABET that needs to worry about whether it will remain relevant, or as I see it, subjugated to civil/mechanical/infrastructure type engineering areas.
This is why Stanford BSEE isn’t abet… the EE dept. wanted to drop the abet required math and physics classes.
"OCTOBER 2014
The electrical engineering department implemented new curriculum changes and introduced several extracurricular activities for its students this year. The overhaul was intended to give the students a greater degree of control and flexibility over their major.
“The old curriculum required students to go through a series of prerequisite courses, such as those in math and physics, without being able to get into application until deeper in the program,” said Abbas El Gamal, chair of the Electrical Engineering department.
“The goal of EE, I think, is not to define itself in how rigorous it is, but more in enabling a broad set of applications for interested students – I think new students should find it more accessible, for sure,” Omid-Zohoor said."
It’s true that students do not have a crystal ball that perfectly predicts the future, and different decisions can limit options. Choosing a particular major is going to limit career options, as some career options prefer/require specific fields of study. Choosing a particular college is also going to influence career options, with different companies recruiting on campus and/or preferring grads of particular colleges. All kinds of college related decisions can limit options. However, it’s important to consider the degree of that potential limitation and weigh it against potential advantages, rather than assuming a simple broad and global rule applies to all situations, such as you always need ABET.
For example, not attending an ABET civil accredited college is likely to be s severe limitations for civil engineering. However, not attending an ABET CS accredited college is unlikely to have notable career impact. I’m sure there is some company that prefers ABET for CS, but statistically it’s unlikely to have a noteworthy impact. Instead of ABET, choice of particular college for CS is likely to have a larger impact. Stanford may not be ABET accredited in CS (or most other non-civil and mechanical engineering fields), but being located in Silicon Valley is going to give a huge advantage for many types of CS careers, particularly at companies locating in SV. In this case, the choice of college is likely to have a larger influence than ABET vs non-ABET, and in my opinion the advantage of preference at that company somewhere that favors ABET for CS is not worth the cost of dismissing Stanford. I’d make a similar statement about various other sub-fields of engineering, rather saying you always need ABET.
My post mentioned that there are 10 ABET IE accredited private colleges in total of any ranking (excluding religious schools with “Saint” in their name and schools in Puerto Rico), not top 10 ranked. There may be many great schools out there, but if you are looking for private colleges and/or do not want out of state publics, then requiring ABET can notably limit selection among those “great schools.”
There are 98 accredited Undergrad IE programs. If you limit yourself to private schools, your options would be more limited. But, you could study something else at other schools. It just would not be called IE. Systems, operations research, etc. Penn and UVA are accredited in Systems. There are 69 accredited programs altogether.
@cu123 - Stanford really believes the standard physics and math sequence in an ABET accredited engineering program aren’t necessary? Every engineering course uses math and physics. Oh please. I laugh at that even coming from Stanford. With respect to the ABET accrediting evaluation team, they do have members who are typically engineering professors in other universities, in addition to people who represent the associated functions such as evaluating libraries, course content, administration oversight, student satisfaction, etc. The accreditation team is certainly well qualified, and if Stanford claims otherwise again simply demonstrate arrogant hubris. One of the required components for ABET accreditation is student evaluation of courses and faculty. Perhaps Stanford doesn’t like the idea of being evaluated by its “customers”. Many corporations and almost all government agencies for example will not hire non-ABET accredited degree holders, even from Stanford, not to mention if one desires to sit for the PE exam he/she will have a much tougher time or may be shut out completely in some states.
I am an EE and never did work for which a PE was legally required, but I still sat for the exam. It benefits all engineers whether or not they are doing work for which it is required. I hope Stanford explains to its applicants that if they want to be a PE in electrical engineering or any of the other disciplines for which they are dropping the accreditation, that they should go to school elsewhere.
Past graduates of Stanford who are applying for jobs requiring an ABET accredited degree may run into difficulties if Stanford is not ABET accredited at the time the person applies for a job, even though it may have been when they attended there. Their alumni should be concerned about that and question their decision.
If Stanford thinks they don’t need accreditation just because of a nebulous “Stanford brand”, well, they are wrong. One of the characteristics of a “top” school should be accreditation.
I’ve been out of this forever, but back in antiquity at least I think it went like this, people correct me if I am mistaken:
The “traditional” electrical engineering jobs related to, e g, supporting building of big projects (eg power plants) did, often times, require ABET for hiring and PE for advancement. Because they were part of firms, with other engineers in other disciplines who all required this, and where supervising PEs had to sign off on schematics, etc, for the types of projects they were doing, A lot of EEs were on this path.
Electronics became an ever large part of what EEs also were involved in, then also computers. Those newer industries often did not need any PE sign-offs so did not need those requirements. For some of those people the extra science, math and engineering breadth requirements needed for PE seemed like an undesired burden.
To the extent that some engineering departments have drifted away from the first camp and are more firmly ensconced in the second camp they could well be motivated to give up ABET. Or at least make it optional.
The thing is though, one never knows for sure where a career may lead. For example. the power plant building company may desire to in-house their ash handling control systems design (or whatever) , and might want computer types to do that work. But only guys who have ABET would get those jobs. (probably bad example, but that’s the idea anyway).
There’s a ton of employment related to military work related to electronics, and computer stuff, do people need a PE to advance in those fields? (In other words, does military work require PE sign-off?) I’m asking, I don’t know.
But it seems like a lot of computer-related guys stay in areas and companies where ABET and PE is not important, and those people accordingly don’t think it is important.
And that’s likely true. For their companies, in their sub-fields of electrical engineering.
Whether OP’s career will go the same way, I don’t know. But of course it will be more likely go that way if OP does not get ABET. Because certain paths/ employer groups will be foreclosed.
Which is no biggie if OP would not ever want those paths, and knows this for sure at age 19.
Excellent posts, @Engineer80 and @monydad.
As far as employers looking for the “brand,” remember that most engineers are very practical and really don’t care about school names.
This is it in a nutshell. With the uncertainties in the world, why block off any paths unnecessarily?
@Monydad - The military does not require PE signoffs. Military work is regulated by the MIL standards, which contractors and suppliers must adhere to. Some military agencies have formal certification programs for certain types of hardware or systems. Some safety critical products are regulated by federal law, and do not require PE signoffs. The manufacturer must demonstrate that the design of the product conforms to the applicable regulations. In those cases, the regulated products must have passed the particular agency’s certification program. Examples include aircraft (which are type certified by the FAA), nuclear reactors and equipment (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), radio transmitters and emissions from electronic equipment radio and otherwise (FCC), railroads and train equipment (Federal Railroad Commission), medical devices and equipment (FDA), automobiles (DOT), auto and plant emissions (EPA), many consumer products (CPSC), and others. The individual engineers who design those products do not have to be PEs but the product must meet all the requirements of the federal agency. Infrastructure that is regulated by state law (highways, bridges, etc.) require that the approver of the design be a PE.
In my opinion all engineers should be PEs, even if not doing work for which a PE is required. It makes one a better engineer and enforces the professionalism of engineering. Incidentally, Texas some years back implemented a professional licensure program for software engineers, similar to that for PEs. The trend in the future may be regulation of programming and software development, as it becomes more and more influential in product safety and security.
@MaineLonghorn - Stanford apparently believes they should be taken as a “top school” without accreditation just because “we are Stanford and we say so”. I disagree. I won’t hire a non-ABET graduate even from Stanford.
Interesting article related to ABET.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i48/time-leave-behind-chemical-engineering.html
There is an old (and long) thread on this (ABET) topic, so I’m not going to go into too much detail but I think a few things are clear. There are some career paths where ABET certification may be a benefit and there are others where it is irrelevant. In general a school that holds ABET accreditation is not necessarily a bad thing, and could actually give a level of confidence to some students.
However, for many of field like CS, ABET is pretty much irrelevant. And, I don’t think that Stanford CS students stay up at night worrying about graduating from a non-ABET certified program 
If you compare the EE requirement from when Stanford was ABET accredited and when Stanford was not, they both require math up to Ordinary Differential Equations, physics up to Electricity & Magnetism, and a stat course. The difference is while ABET accredited Stanford required EE majors to take additional math and science electives such that the total credits for math and science courses was 45+ (1/4 the credits required to graduate from Stanford). Now they do not require the additional math/science electives and do not set a minimum of requiring 45 credits. I expect this requirement that math and science credits must be at least the equivalent of 1 year is an ABET requirement.
Are taking those additional unnamed electives really critical to being successful in engineering? ~40% of Stanford engineering majors simultaneously pursue a co-terminal masters degree. It’s likely the majority for EE. Allowing grads to use their electives to assist with things like a master’s in EE is likely to be more beneficial that requiring that EE majors spend their limited electives taking additional lower level math and science classes, beyond Stanford’s ordinary differential equations and electricity & magnetism requirements.
I am a past graduate of Stanford who majored in EE. In my career path, I’m not aware of any ABET influencing any hire, getting chosen for interview, etc. I’m not aware of any company where I have worked for giving preference to ABET. This includes companies that have contracted for the government and projects requiring security clearance. At most of the companies where I’ve worked, the private colleges with the largest numbers of alumni are ones that are not ABET accredited. The students I know from my Stanford class who went in to my EE subfield mostly work in the same area of California, among companies that as far as I know, have similar lack of preference for ABET. I have no doubt there are various other subfields of EE and various other career paths where ABET prefernece is more common, but both current and past Stanford grads seem to be doing fine as whole, as indicated by recent grad and alumni surveys, and job placement stats. The industry seems to also think highly of Stanford EEs, as reflected by typically being rated among the top ~2 colleges in EE and doing well in employer surveys. I wouldn’t assume attending a different college is going to give grads a big leg up over Stanford due to ABET.
I don’t know but your reference to tiny little privates struck me because tiny little Hope College in Michigan is ABET accredited with their engineering programs…but we are in the midwest which is without question where the powerhouse engineering programs are concentrated so makes sense even a “tiny little private” would ABET accredit it’s engineering programs to stay competitive for regional students. I would just say if a student has two equal choices, choose the ABET program.
If Stanford is sending hundreds of kids to Silicon Valley in CS and ABET is not important then it probably doesn’t matter. And clearly it didn’t matter a generation ago (I have NucE, EE, and ME siblings none of whom bothered with a PE back in the day) but my youngest who is structural/civil says it matters to his employer and potential employers. I think a student should consider just what they want to do with their engineering degree and which concentration they are interested in…it might not matter at all or it might matter alot if you are working on state or federal contracts. Does it matter to the OP? Hard to say since the original question was specifically about one school.