<p>i received a likely letter from columbia seas a few weeks ago, and now that the initial shock has worn off i'm starting to look into whether columbia is actually the school for me. i like pretty much everything about columbia, but i want to make sure it's actually a good engineering school before i decide. i know that it's not ranked very highly by us news and world report, but i also know that their rankings are very subjective. i'm not expecting it to be the best engineering school in the country (i know that stanford, mit, berkeley, are better), but is it up there? basically, am i going to be unable to find a job after i graduate from seas because there are too many applicants who went to better engineering schools?
i plan on majoring in civil engineering, fyi</p>
<p>alien -</p>
<p>a) the ranking by usnews is mularkey on two accounts - 1) it is based on how folks rate schools on a 1-5 basis, bias is pretty strong, 2) columbia engineering is often undervalued because as an engineering school it is openly different, so those folks that do rate columbia don’t rate it as high as it should (based on quality of instructors and quality of students), 3) the ratings lag quite a bit behind actual indicators. i’d say columbia engineering is a top 10-15 program for sure, despite its lower status.</p>
<p>b) how/why is it different. because it is in nyc, and because it is so close to other departments (in the social sciences, natural sciences, school of inter/public affairs) it is more interdisciplinary than most engineering schools. many students that graduate from columbia’s engineering school don’t become your prototypical engineers (which is why places like illinois and ga tech score higher than columbia.</p>
<p>c) for undergrad a big factor should be for you is the quality of your peers. for a ‘standalone’ engineering school, columbia engineering is the second most competitive engineering school in the country (it is harder to get in than caltech and berkeley), which means that the quality of students you will consider peers will be very high. the quality of students who attend columbia college is very high. so you will be attending a university where the ugrad quality is easily in the top 6/7 in the country. so your peers, those who push you, will be plentiful.</p>
<p>d) columbia has made a niche for itself in the patent circuit, in the sense that the faculty of columbia (and mostly from seas) develop patented ideas with the help of ugrads (i might add) and those patents are owned by the university. columbia’s science and technology ventures initiative is the most lucrative patent holding entity in higher ed, beating out the likes of harvard and stanford.</p>
<p>e) probably the biggest advantage of columbia engineering is what makes it quirky/different above. the fact that 1) it really values and cares about hands-on experience as soon as you get on campus, as a boutique engineering school of only about 1400 ugrads, it is flexible to meet your needs, if you want something, usually the engineering faculty will respond to your needs, 2) it will not only let you seek out a future outside of engineering, it encourages you to consider how to use a rigorous math/quant background to develop products (entreprenurship) or enter into other professional fields (law and medicine mostly), it has strong linkages to other sectors and so the motto of columbia engineering is to train leaders as much as they train engineers.</p>
<p>in the end your engineering education will be top notch, taught by faculty that graduated from the best engineering schools in the country (mit, caltech, stanford, berkeley, uw-mad, ui and yes columbia too), but you will be getting a variation on an engineering education that you should also realize over the past 10 years has been increasing in worth and in appreciation. columbia pioneered a lot of the hands-on small classes that places like stanford and mit are gravitating toward.</p>
<p>i know some folks who did civil and are working for some major firms, let me know if you want to talk, just pm me.</p>
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<p>admissionsgeek, again why are you continuing to lie here?</p>
<p>Class of 2014 Acceptance Rate
13.4% - Columbia Engineering
12.6% - Caltech</p>
<p>sorry for projecting what the number would be for 2015 circuit. please forgive me. i wont ever say something accurate based on a projection.</p>
<p>It is pretty good… only Cornell is better than Columbia among the Ivies… and it is definitely among the top in the country… not in the first tier (Cal/MIT/CalTech/Stanford), but Columbia is in the second tier (UCLA/Cornell/…) at undergraduate.</p>
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<p>wifey, sorry but you are wrong here. Princeton Engineering is significantly better than Columbia Engineering…significantly better…</p>
<p>And how would you characterize “significantly better?” What do you believe it is about Princeton’s engineering program that makes it “significantly better” than Columbia’s engineering program?</p>
<p>Ignore onecircuit. He’s just a ■■■■■ who’s using every opportunity he gets to baselessly bash Columbia. I think he’s either a Princeton ****** or a wannabe Princeton ******, since that’s the only school he never seems to attack. Either way, he’s not worth responding to.</p>
<p>wifey is still wrong though. princeton engineering is still widely considered to be above columbia engineering.</p>
<p>Better? I can see an argument for it. Significantly better? That’s hard to justify, in my opinion, but I’d be happy to hear any cases made for it.</p>
<p>One advantage Columbia has over Princeton for civil engineering is the ability to do internships during the school year. There are many more civil engineering firms in NYC than in Princeton.</p>
<p>columbia’s engineering is larger (11 departments to 6) than princeton’s and a lot more of a hands on affair, they are usually pretty close in rankings, though in rankings princeton does tend to be higher.</p>
<p>there is nothing i know about pton engineering that would justify significantly better.</p>
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<p>geesh, there goes admissionsgeek with another obviously bogus claim. SINCE WHEN DOES HAVING MORE ENGINEERING MAJORS IMPLY THAT YOU ARE A BETTER ENGINEERING SCHOOL?</p>
<p>truly unbelievable!</p>
<p>onecircuit, what makes Princeton engineering “significantly better” than Columbia engineering? If that’s too vague of a question, then what makes Princeton CE better than Columbia CE (since that’s what the OP plans on majoring in)?</p>
<p>If I were to start my civil engineering program this fall, I would prefer to attend Columbia because of the close connection with industry. I would be more likely to get internships during the school year, which would provide me with more experience and more connections with the civil engineering / construction industry. Having that is a significant advantage when it’s time to look for a job after college.</p>
<p>The single most extensive study of engineering departments of Colleges and Universities in the U.S. was recently completed by the 2010 National Research Council (NRC) after more than a decade since the last study. Below are the findings of the rankings of the nine departments coverd by the NRC study, six of which are departments in which both Princeton and Colubia both give majors in <a href=“note:%20Computer%20Science%20Engineering%20is%20%20ranked%20in%20the%20Computer%20Science%20category%20in%20this%20study”>I</a>.*</p>
<p>CHEMICAL ENGINEERING</p>
<p>1—Cal Tech
2—MIT
3—Berkeley
4—UC Santa Barbara
5—UT Austin
6—Princeton
7—U. of Minnesota
8—Stanford
9—U. of Michigan
10–U. of Wisconsin
…
37–Columbia</p>
<p>CIVIL ENGINEERING</p>
<p>1—Berkeley
2—UT Austin
3—MIT
4—Princeton
5—Yale
6—Stanford
7—U. of Illinois Urbana
8—Georgia Tech
9—Purdue
10–Northwestern
…
65–Columbia</p>
<p>ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING</p>
<p>1—Stanford
2—Princeton
3—Harvard
4—UC Santa Barbara
5—U. of Illinois Urbana
6—Cal Tech
7—Georgia Tech
8—UCLA
9—U. of Michigan
10–MIT
…
42–Columbia</p>
<p>MECHANICAL ENGINEERING</p>
<p>1—MIT
2—Stanford
3—Berkeley
4—U. of Michigan
5—Brown
6—Northwestern
7—UC Santa Barbara
8—Georgia Tech
9—Princeton
10–U. of Maryland
…
30–Columbia</p>
<p>COMPUTER SCIENCE</p>
<p>1—Stanford
2—Princeton
3—MIT
4—Berkeley
5—Carnegie Mellon
6—Cornell
7—Harvard
8—UC Santa Barbara
9—Penn
10–UCLA
…
14–Columbia</p>
<p>OPERATIONS RESEARCH/FINANCIAL ENGINEERING</p>
<p>1—Stanford
2—GeorgiaTech
3—MIT
4—Cornell
5—Northwestern
5—UC Berkeley
6—Michigan
7—Purdue
8—Penn State
9—Wisconsin
10–Penn
…
21–Columbia
28–Princeton</p>
<p>OTHERS</p>
<p>Aerospace Engineering
9—Princeton’s (ranked under the Mehanical Engineering above at #9)</p>
<p>Bioengineeing
25—Columbia</p>
<p>Materials Science Engineering
42—Columbia</p>
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<p>So, Ken are you telling me that Columbia, which is only about one hour away from Princeton and is ranked #65 in the country compared to Princeton’s ranking of #4, is closer to industry?</p>
<p>oh…ok…</p>
<p>NRC Ranking - CIVIL ENGINEERING
1—Berkeley
2—UT Austin
3—MIT
4—Princeton
5—Yale
6—Stanford
7—U. of Illinois Urbana
8—Georgia Tech
9—Purdue
10–Northwestern
…
65–Columbia</p>
<p>Yes I am saying that. Can you go work for a civil engineering firm between classes from Princeton? Many civil engineering offices are maybe a 30 minute subway ride from Columbia. Can you do that from Princeton? </p>
<p>After a quick glance about what the NRC is about, it appears to be more about research and doctoral programs.</p>
<p>i knew he would use this.</p>
<p>a) he doesn’t distinguish on the 2010 NRC ranking between the S and R rankings. the actual rankings themselves had a range and not absolute numbers so columbia would be from 10-18 for the S (survey) rankings, and it could be 23-30 for the R (reputational) rankings. they did this because they didn’t want folks to misuse the data, but they did want to create sort of a report card for programs so they could try and fix their weaknesses.</p>
<p>b) onecircuit loves to use data, but like anyone who uses data it can be manipulated, and failing to understand its use really ends up showing a severe weakness in ones argument. in this case i await for him to explain which ranking he uses S-R, whether he takes the top or bottom ranking for programs, and whether or not he stays consistent for all the measurements he uses above.</p>
<p>c) the data used for the study is already 5 years old - pretty current! also it is directed at graduate study and department strength, and doesn’t break down very well subdiscipline, and is not meant to be a proxy for undergraduate education.</p>
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<p>admissionsgeek, there you go again…showing your lack of knowledge of everything that has to do with colleges and universities…</p>
<p>the NRC rankings that I posted used the average of the ranges for both the r and s rankings…</p>
<p>If you would take some time to review this you would understand.</p>
<p>and there is absolutely no explanation whatsoever attempting to defend Columbia Engineering that falls in the 30-50 rankings versus Princeton that is in the top 5-10.</p>
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<p>admissionsgeek, huh?</p>
<p>so you want undergraduate ranking?</p>
<p>ok here goes:</p>
<p>USNWR Engineering Rankings
11 - Princeton
26 - Columbia</p>
<p>so, please continue to make more excuses to make up for what the rest of the world thinks of Columbia v. Princeton Engineering</p>
<p>and then there is this:</p>
<p>Top 50 Engineering & Technology Universities in the World</p>
<p>[Top</a> Universities for Engineering & Technology 2010-2011](<a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/engineering-and-IT.html]Top”>World University Rankings 2010-11 | Times Higher Education (THE))</p>
<p>Princeton - #4
Columbia - not ranked in the top 50</p>