Two of the school I got into are Harvard and the University of Washington - Seattle (UW). I’ve been looking at rankings and the USNWR ranks UW at 20 for engineering and Harvard at 27 (This is the 2012 ranking, I couldn’t find anything more recent on USNWR because it won’t let me look at it past the top 10). Also, the two engineering fields I’m looking at are Computer and Biomedical. UW is ranked 11 for Bio and 14 for Comp (2014 rankings) and Harvard doesn’t make the top 20 on the list.
I also live in state so the tuition at UW with scholarships is almost under $7,000 for me. However, Harvard still has the prestigious name. What should I do?
Go to Harvard if you can financially swing it. If finances are a concern, talk to the Harvard financial aid office incase you can get any need based aid. Harvard Engineering is just fine and will you be exposed to other majors and connections that will be extremely hard to duplicate at Seattle.
If you will end up in $200,000 of debt, then I would seriously consider University of Washington… that kind of debt will be hard to pay off, Harvard or otherwise.
Frankly if you want to go to engineering UW is the better choice. H has one ABET accredited engineering program, Engineering Science. In the Ivy league there are only a couple of well known engineering programs (Cornell being one). If you have to pay more than in-state tuition I would go to UW.
I would go to Harvard if
a) you can afford it
b) you aren’t 100% sure you want to do engineering
How much is Harvard?
If costs do not make the decision, Washington is likely better if you want to work as an engineer, while Harvard is likely better if you want to work as an investment banker or management consultant. However, be aware that some majors at Washington require a high GPA and competitive admission process to enter if you are not directly admitted to the major. See http://data.engr.washington.edu/pls/portal30/STUDENT_APPL.RPT_APPLICANT_STATISTICS_YEAR.SHOW_PARMS .
If you want to be an engineer, the “prestigious name” means nothing. Whether you went to Stanford or SJSU down the road, engineering employers are going to ask the same set of questions of new hires during interviews and if you can’t answer them then the name did nothing for you. Its hard to think of a field where name matters less, since the skills needed are so easily testable.
On the other hand if you are considering going into consulting or working in Wall Street then name does matter.