Is Harvey Mudd better than UCB? (Engineering)

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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<p>Hi guys,</p>

<p>I know there are a million threads on Harvey Mudd vs. Berkeley.</p>

<p>This is more of a thread addressing a few issues that I have gathered that Harvey Mudd is better than Berkeley, and I wanted your guys' opinions on these.</p>

<p>First off, I'd like to let you guys know I have talked to both Berkeley grads and Harvey Mudd grads. I just want to be able to make an informed decision when picking a college.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Harvey Mudd has better connections to Graduate schools.
The logic here is since the school is smaller, you get more interaction with your professors, thus they know you better and can write you a better recommendation. At a larger school, it is harder to get a good professor to write a good recommendation because of all the competition.</p></li>
<li><p>Harvey Mudd has better job connections out of college.
With Harvey Mudd's clinic program and research/ internship opportunities, it is a lot easier to get work experience and jobs. At larger universities, it is cutthroat to find a research opportunity as an undergraduate. The New York Times also mentioned that Harvey Mudd graduates had the second best paying jobs second to MIT for engineering.</p></li>
<li><p>Harvey Mudd has more research/ internship opportunities
This was mentioned in the previous point.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Please give me your input on these points. If you completely disagree, let me know. If you think Berkeley is better, let me know why. Any input helps.</p>

<p>I'm thinking of applying ED to Harvey Mudd for these reasons. If you don't think this is a good idea, please let me know why.</p>

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<p>Even if you apply ED to Harvey Mudd, you should be putting in your application to UC Berkeley too.</p>

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<p>Go to HMC if you’re really interested in intensive hands-on engineering research, desire a smaller, more isolated environment, don’t know your desired specialty and definitely want to go to grad school.</p>

<p>Go to Berkeley if you know your desired engineering specialty, like the larger, more urban environment and will likely be working in industry after graduation.</p>

<p>IMO, HMC’s strengths are in mechanical and aeronautical engineering (mostly due to Los Angeles area history in aerospace). If you have desire for EECS or any other engineering specialty, Berkeley is a better choice.</p>

<p>Both offer fantastic engineering education. You just have to select for whichever fits your personality more.</p>

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<p>Berkeley is half the price. Don’t forget.</p>

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<p>if you really want a small school engineering program that sends you to grad school rather than industry then pick caltech.
cal’s budget crisis is overhyped by outsiders. really, if they can pay undergrads to be lab instructors, don’t you think they’ll have stuff they can do/research for free?
and it seems you’re more into grad school than industry, why would you care about starting salary after undergrad?</p>

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<p>The reason I care about starting salary after undergrad is because I want to keep my options open. The reason why I’m not even applying to Caltech is because it is way to techy in my opinion. Given, so is Harvey Mudd, but it has 4 other schools surrounding it that focus on humanities. I want my undergraduate experience to have a little more diversity than what Caltech offers. It’s really between Berkeley and Harvey Mudd for me, I just want input if I’m making the right decision.</p>

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<p>Blackrose, in my memory, you seem to have made a similar thread before where everyone debated extensively over the pros and cons of going to Harvey Mudd versus Berkeley, and by extensively, I mean the thread was over 20 pages long if I remember correctly and devolved into a debate over the merits of a large public school education versus a smaller private school education. It might be a good idea for you to go back and revist that thread since I’m sure some of the points you brought up in your new post, if not all, were addressed previously.</p>

<p>Anyways, I’ll just give my opinion on a couple of things: </p>

<p>“1. Harvey Mudd has better connections to Graduate schools.
The logic here is since the school is smaller, you get more interaction with your professors, thus they know you better and can write you a better recommendation. At a larger school, it is harder to get a good professor to write a good recommendation because of all the competition.”</p>

<p>Yeah, I guess you can get better rec letters at Harvey Mudd, but I’m not entirely sure Harvey Mudd has better connections to grad schools than Berkeley. My logic is Berkeley actually has the grad school programs that you want to get into so it has better grad school connections. Plus, if you get to know a professor really well at Berkeley, he might not just write you a letter of rec, but maybe help you get into grad school.</p>

<p>“3. Harvey Mudd has more research/ internship opportunities”</p>

<p>In and around Berkeley, there are a lot of research projects going on. I think there are plenty of opportunities, but you have to be active about seeking them out yourself. Same goes for internships; half the people I knew had internships or did research in and around Berkeley this summer, and none of them did anything cutthroat for their positions. I will say that biology labs are slightly harder to get into, but engineering labs are not as hard to get into.</p>

<p>"I’m thinking of applying ED to Harvey Mudd for these reasons. If you don’t think this is a good idea, please let me know why. "</p>

<p>Is there a clause for ED that says if you get accepted then you must commit to that school? If there is, I hope you’re 99% or so sure about going to Harvey Mudd. As an aside, Claremont (don’t know if you’ve been there) is really kind of boring.</p>

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<p>Dill scout,</p>

<p>Thank you so much for your response. Yes, I have made some previous threads based on the merits of Harvey Mudd vs. Berkeley. I never really had a sense of why one was better than the other, since most of the information I received showed that they were both good in different ways (which is true). It was these three points that were brought to my attention however by talking to Berkeley graduates I met, which happened recently. Now that I’m a senior, I am more informed about both of these schools, and I wanted to get opinions on these three points.</p>

<p>Your input helped a lot, and I greatly appreciate it. Also, ED is binding, so if I get in I have to go. The reason I would apply ED is not just to get my plans set early, but also to increase my chances. Also, I don’t mind Claremont. I like quiet towns that are close enough to big cities (Orange County, LA area) even though I would never want to live or go to school in LA. I know Berkeley is by San Fran so that is nice. My plan as of now is to take the SAT again in Oct, and if I get a score that I want, I will then tour both Berkeley and Harvey Mudd and see which is the better fit. If I’m confident its Harvey Mudd, I’ll apply ED. If not, I’ll apply regular.</p>

<p>Thanks again!</p>

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<p><quote>Also, ED is binding, so if I get in I have to go.</quote></p>

<p>Well, that’s not quite true. You could easily change your mind and go to Berkeley. Berkeley doesn’t care about your ED thing with Harvey Mudd.</p>

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<p>Can you go and spend a couple of days at Harvey Mudd before you apply? Last year my D was very enthusiastic about HMC until she went to the accepted students days. My D felt very claustrophobic and didn’t feel like she fit in well with the other students. HMC is a very intense small place. Having the other campuses nearby didn’t seem to help that much since the HMC classes will take up almost all of your time. </p>

<p>As for jobs and research the HMC faculty said repeatedly when we visited that all students had jobs or funded graduate school positions upon graduating and that there were summer research jobs for everyone who wanted one. It seemed like a wonderful school for those who fit in and are comfortable there.</p>

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<p>I know Berkeley wouldn’t care about my ED, but Harvey Mudd would. I don’t know what they do to enforce it, but it still would be pretty lame to commit to them and then blow them off.</p>

<p>Can you spend a couple days there? I was gonna take a tour, I didn’t know there were other options. Ughhh, I am so confused of what to do. I guess it really will depend on the fit. I’ll figure out what I want to do after I take the SAT in Oct.</p>

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<p>Blackroses: while many of us will comment on this thread, let it be known to you that basically all of us will be stereotyping what we’ve heard about the two schools or, more generally, the question of “large research school vs. small academically focused school.” I don’t think a lot of what we’re addressing here is at all specific to HMC vs. Berkeley. </p>

<p>To get a better picture, you must certainly visit HMC and get an idea of how you’d fit in. It’s a terrific school I’m sure, but not every smart person would be happy there. </p>

<p>I will second Dill on her words about the graduate schools. Berkeley is ultimately home to some of the best graduate schools in engineering at all, and a solid letter from one of our faculty to anywhere likely means a lot more than letters from many schools. Now HMC is a special school and clearly its statistics say that it’s highly possible to go to a good graduate school from there. </p>

<p>Breaking news: you are not a statistic, Blackroses! You are, at least I sure hope at this point, a flesh and blood human being who works her own way, has her own needs. What you need to figure out is why some small schools (like Reed, HMC) have been successful in sending their students to graduate schools. A huge reason is, I would guess, the students entering them self-selecting largely. If you really want to do research and are good, at least from what I’ve seen of EECS and my very many friends in that major, it’s hugely possible to get tons of research experience. I don’t even approve of starting research so early honestly, but some of them since freshman year have been basically doing research every single year. Then there’s my old suitemate (older than I), who graduated in 3 years and went on to MIT for a PhD in EECS, and started research in sophomore year. Probably more along the lines of what I approve of.</p>

<p>My honest opinion is that debating how easily one can get into graduate schools from two such schools is really debating the wrong question – it’s how you would succeed at each of these schools. And from that standpoint, it’s not about opportunity but how the schools work. At HMC, you spend a large part of your time engaging in heavy math/science breadth that prepares you for their intense engineering curriculum, and posters like RocketDA on the HMC threads have said this breadth is actually crucial for engineering. In our case, if you want to take physics-intensive engineering classes, they certainly exist, some of them are exceptionally tough. At Berkeley, honestly you kind of do whatever you want. But…the disadvantage to this is that your academic world may become your own, unless you coordinate schedules with others. I think there’s a bigger chance that you’ll bond heavily with the same people at HMC, at least more easily, in the various things you do. </p>

<p>This actually shouldn’t be a tough choice if you do some introspection and figure out what kind of environment you’d do well in. Just don’t deceive yourself as to what you want, and really think about it!</p>

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<p>Oh and one other point: certainly consider the thing about specializing in engineering. I don’t know how much you’ve thought about it, but you’ll have to really do engineering HMC’s way if you go there, and it’s supposed to be grueling. If you don’t like it, you will be miserable. </p>

<p>So many people I know, even in the EECS major, are strongly biased to either EE or CS, and they end up doing just fine after focusing heavily on one of the two. At HMC you <em>will</em> I’m sure be able to gain specialized knowledge, but you’re not close to as free in picking your route of study. This was the primary reason both my close friends in EECS didn’t even apply to HMC, but came here. I personally had acceptances from the two schools and chose Berkeley also because I’m really quite ridiculously and stubbornly independent with how I plan my 4 year program. And I’m not committed to math/science breadth, though I think it’s awesome for those who are and I wish they’ll teach me some of what they learned some day!!</p>

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<p>“Berkeley doesn’t care about your ED thing with Harvey Mudd.”</p>

<p>Can you point us to this Berkeley statement? I found something that sounds contradictory:

[More</a> Resources: Glossary, A-F](<a href=“http://collegetools.berkeley.edu/resources.php?cat_id=13]More”>http://collegetools.berkeley.edu/resources.php?cat_id=13)</p>

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<p>If you want to find work outside of California, and especially around the world, Berkeley’s name is GOLD. You may get a better education at Harvey Mudd, but Berkeley will get you in the door for the interview.</p>

<p>That said, I would shy away from the UCs right now. The cutbacks that are coming will continue to get worse. Cal Faculty are threatening to leave. Five already left UCSD this summer. The UCs are not going to have a fighting chance at attracting top faculty with all of the negative publicity. </p>

<p>Any chance you are looking at other schools right now?</p>

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<p>I received the absolutely best engineering/science education possible… from HMC!</p>

<p>I interviewed once (after 6 hours of technical 1-on-1) at a high-tech firm outside CA and was the only bachelor grad to get an offer. They didn’t care about GPA or even ask for a transcript… the technical interview was all they needed to see if I had what they wanted.</p>

<p>The industry is high-tech aeropace reserach and development.</p>

<p>Talk about a name…when per capita you have the 2nd highest PhD productivity (behind Caltech), the 2nd highest average salary (behind MIT by $100), and your students are matched against masters graduates from Purdue and Georgia Tech!</p>

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<p>Just those two. I mean, yeah, Yale (legacy) and Cornell, but Yale doesn’t have the best program and both areas have crappy weather (Cornell moreso than Yale). </p>

<p>I’d prefer to stay in California, and those are my top two. UCSD would be next up, so if I’m going to a UC it might as well be Berkeley. Your point is true though- another reason to go to Harvey Mudd. </p>

<p>As for job interviews, Mudd’s Clinic Program has you work with companies during undergrad, so you’re pretty set with a job out of college. Mudd grads have the second best paying jobs on average to MIT for engineers straight out of college. I could always go to Stanford or Berk for Grad school too.</p>

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<p><quote>I know Berkeley wouldn’t care about my ED, but Harvey Mudd would. I don’t know what they do to enforce it, but it still would be pretty lame to commit to them and then blow them off.</quote></p>

<p>You should be applying to Berkeley anyway, since you might get rejected from Mudd. I would hold off making a final decision until you are sure. It is your life. Harvey Mudd’s hurt feelings, and the unconscionable ED process, are not your concern.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>You have the enthusiasm and I’m sure you’re an intelligent lady – nevertheless, one never knows what happens when one submits an application. These are both schools I’ll likely apply to as a mathematician as well, and my professors say these and some of the other best schools are the ones someone with my profile should be aiming for. However, they said what I just said: one never knows. </p>

<p>Given that I really think one can get into good programs from either of these schools, and given the future is hugely, hugely uncertain, I very much encourage you to focus on what will make you happiest (in the sense of satisfaction, not ease) with your education for the next 4 years.</p>

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<p>I’d just like to add a few more cents to this discussion.</p>

<p>Well, I feel like whenever someone asks the question “Is school A better than school B?” and looks for an objective answer to this question they are looking for something nonexistant, at least to me. People can only tell you how they personally feel about school A versus school B based on their own experiences, but they can never tell you whether school A is better than school B for you. That’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself, and it’s also one of the reason why I really hesitate in endorsing one school over another. </p>

<p>Yes, rocketDA is a great example of a successful HMC graduate, but it is another thing entirely to say that his success was mostly attributed to his bachelors degree from HMC. Future success will be made up of a combination of different factors, and though where you got your degree will probably factor in, I don’t think it will determine whether or not you succeed. Your employers, whoever they may be, are going to hire you as a person, not you as a holder of an engineering degree from HMC or Berkeley. Furthermore, my dad told me this when I was going through the college application process: “If you have the potential to be successful, you will be successful no matter where you end up. Where you go can help you towards success, but it can’t make you successful.” What I’m trying to stress here, Blackrose, is that to a certain degree you’re equating picking a college to future career success. There is some correlation perhaps but its not a major determining factor. </p>

<p>Besides that, how sure are you about going into engineering in the future, Blackrose? Is engineering something you’re very passionate about (like you wouldn’t know how to live without doing engineering related things in your life)? If you have a fair amount of doubt about going into engineering in your future, well, you might want to pick a school that allows you to try out whether or not engineering is for you and what your other options are.</p>