Is Vanderbilt good at undergraduate engineering, and what is it known for?
would def consider a new name for these boards. You should be reading the boards and also the mastering the basic on the websites of your final list schools.
The chances of admission to “yale ivy league” are pretty infinitesimal even with perfect stats and a fine record of personal interests and fine reference letters.
Go for an anonymous ID handle here by all means, keep your privacy. Stay flexible. Your list may keep shifting as will your dream college. Keep your favorite dream schools private as well. This will help you elicit understanding from people who are checking the boards and who are helpful current and past students or perhaps parents of graduates at Colleges XYZ —and students and parents at Ivy League Colleges XYZ. As you develop your list of financial safety schools that you can afford to attend if admitted, you need Reach Schools and Safety schools for likely admission. No exceptions no matter how wonderful your credentials. Vandy is a reach school for all, even for those students who may indeed be admitted to Ivies or to MIT, Cal Tech or Stanford. Vandy receives over 30 thousand applications a year for the freshman chairs and is on the list of colleges that can offer need blind admission and no loans in its financial aid packages. Thus its status as as reach college. Perhaps you saw that Hopkins has just received a gift to enable them to offer need blind admissions.
I will however respond with this piece of information. Vandy’s engineering program is currently well known for having an extremely new and well-appointed dedicated Engineering School building on campus. The Trustees made upgrading Engineering facilities a recent focus of spending. Facilities are very critical to keeping up in engineering education quality. Classroom sizes are small at Vanderbilt throughout the schools, including engineering. Full professors are plentiful in the classroom. You can easily find more information on the engineering degrees they offer and current comparative rankings online.
I disagree on the newness and quality of facilities in terms of undergraduate education in some areas (like I’ll mention, this usually will only influence teaching labs and undergraduate research). This would actually do a disservice to VU. There are many other elites and non with a lot more engineering facilities, and lots of money put into newer ones, that IMHO will only be as good, and in some cases not as good as VU. Don’t let the shininess of facilities distract you. View it as a nice perk but be sure to investigate the role of undergraduates in those departments and whether or not the design of the building and spaces specifically had undergraduate education in mind. Often they don’t. Often they are really just trying to increase space for research endeavors (which I can agree is important for undergrads) and perhaps a few classrooms were thrown in just because. I personally believe that pedagogy and analytical rigor is more important (you can’t control how an instructor will teach and assess undergrads and usually the facility will not influence it…they do what they have always done unless administrators and department chairs request that they do otherwise for whatever reason…this especially goes for STEM undergraduate education where there is a lot of inertia in terms of teaching methods) for “lecture” time and maybe only the lab spaces matter for more experiential learning opps and too many schools will have nice lab spaces. It may also be important how the building is designed (and not its newness), and VU’s new building is very good for that, mirroring what many of the most serious STEM programs do, designing more open spaces that inspire innovation and kind of on the fly learning and thinking that extends beyond the classroom. There are some pictures of it that may tour you through it, so I would check them out.
Based upon what I know, VU’s engineering, especially in things like Biomedical engineering is excellent (programs demand what I call the right type of rigor in the classroom, and like any top research university, have amazing research and other co-curricular opportunities that put that classroom training to action…lots of interesting interdisciplinary programs as well and I believe interdisciplinary science is the future). Some folks let the rankings of UG engineering degrees influence them too much (perhaps you looked at them and that is why you are asking if the program is good. It has happened before), but you have to keep in mind that larger size of a department (mainly the number of faculty) will likely help programs get a higher rank.
Many of the best engineering departments belong to selective public schools, and part of it is because some of them have very innovative teaching and super strong research in key areas. However, they also earn a high rank due to their large sizes. But basically, I would view education VU engineering undergraduate programs (especially the engineering courses and research opportunities) as basically as strong as those at other very selective schools. You wouldn’t be missing out unless you really want a school a school where the engineering school is a big force influencing campus culture, in which case STEM institutes (private or public) or comprehensive schools known for a heavily STEM influenced academic culture (Stanford, Berkeley, Michigan, CMU, Hopkins, and some others come to mind). Unless you have specific academic and social cultural preferences, you should be more than satisfied at VU and a large number of other schools. Like Faline2 suggested, keep an open mind. Most selective comprehensive universities, and especially their engineering departments are EXTREMELY selective and are a reach for anyone. Apply, but do not expect anything. Apply to a range of places that will make you happy and deliver you a strong engineering education. Engineering is among those programs that are well-“regulated” and vetted across the US so the baseline standards are already pretty good and consistent across programs. It is thus no surprise that there are lots of really strong programs, that build upon and go beyond that strong baseline set by ABET.
D is a CS premed sophomore at the school of Engineering. I would encourage you to look at the placement data for engineering. All engineering disciplines place well and make good money after graduation. Or place well to graduate schools with good ranking. Microsoft particularly likes Vandy students, I think around or over 10 students went to Microsoft last year, if I remember the dean’s presentation at parents weekend correctly. A lot of research opportunities (VUSE) if you keep your GPA even for right after freshman year.
If your question is what Vandy known for, I think their education program is even better in ranking than their engineering.
@SincererLove Hello! Thanks for responding. Is it tough to maintain GPA for PreMed while studying CS, a very tough major? Thanks! Also, do you know if it is easy or hard to switch from one engineering major to another at VU, like if i wanted to switch from Chem E to CS or vice versa, would that be possible.
@yaleivyleague , D had a great start first year, with 3.97 GPA. But this semester she has 17 hours, five classes with two labs. CS classes have 3 mid terms, and multiple programming assignments, premed classes have 4 mid terms. Lab is one credit hour, but takes a lot of time! It has been very hectic for her. Hopefully she will survive this semester without too much lowering her cumulative GPA.
D has friends who changed their minds and moved out Engineering, or decided to add CS to ME. So I suppose it is fairly flexible.
Vanderbilt is known for its education, humanities, and premed program. Vanderbilt is NOT known for its engineering. If you have the stats to go to Engineering powerhouses like GTech , Umich, or Berkeley, I would not recommend Vanderbilt for Engineering. What are your stats?
@TimeUpJunior My stats can be found here: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/2107596-chance-me-for-rice-rd-washu-wustl-emory-rd-and-duke-rd-pratt-engineering.html#latest
I have already submitted my apps to UCB, GA Tech, UT Austin/A&M, and I am currently working on CMU, UMich, etc., In that case, I may reconsider even applying to VU, though at this point I am not 100% sure if I want to do pre-med or engineering (or both).
@SincererLove Congrats on your daughter’s excellent GPA. I suppose I’ll just apply to VU Engineering and do Pre Med at the same time–if it gets too hard I can switch out of engineering into science, and hopefully, I can maintain a GPA close to as high as your D’s in the first year (if I get admitted, of course). Would you mind chancing me for VU? http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/2107596-chance-me-for-rice-rd-washu-wustl-emory-rd-and-duke-rd-pratt-engineering.html#latest
@yaleivyleague : I know you asked @SincererLove, but you should know how college grading typically works. Usually CS isn’t “that” tough because of the way courses work. Folks majoring in things like chemistry, physics, math and engineering majors are typically going to earn lower grades, especially earlier in their careers. The latter areas have lots of test based courses at the beginning (which are usually harder in college than in HS), and tend to adhere to stricter grade distributions. CS courses from the very beginning are often heavily problem set and project based, so often all of the grade does not ride on high stakes exams and quizzes. For CS, one usually sees a higher graded workload than other STEM majors, but a lot of times one sees that their GPAs are higher than for other STEM majors, including biology and neuroscience (2 departments that usually adhere to stringent grading throughout probably because of the high enrollment and specifically the amount of pre-healths).
@TimeUpJunior : I don’t know if it really matters. That person wants to be pre-med. I would avoid the engineering powerhouses if one is already thinking about their GPA before enrolling because most of them have substantially more challenging introductory and intermediate non-engineering STEM sequences that are pre-med cores and pre-reqs for certain engineering programs (Tech’s are at about the level of VU except physics and math courses which are notoriously challenging at Tech. Michigan and Berkeley are pretty insane in those two as well as in chemistry courses. The average pre-med at these schools is more likely to be walking on hot coals their first year at these schools as the engineering curricula at them usually require a bit more credit hours/preparatory courses for advanced work. It is much harder to justify taking it easy early on at those schools for the purposes of protecting your pre-med GPA; At least if you want to potentially graduate in 4 years. This especially goes for Tech which essentially requires co-ops) In addition, grading at those 3 especially can be really really old school in things like physics and math courses and even in some engineering courses. You go to those three if you really envision yourself as comfortable being a tried and true engineer at the end. A lot of the non-powerhouse engineering schools associated with some elite privates are more than good enough education wise, but aren’t as intense as those places. The only trade off is that, like I said, you get less of a true engineering “scene”.
I doubt that is important to the OP based upon the concerns they have expressed thus far. In addition, they seem to like these private schools, perhaps because they view them as more “prestigious” (doesn’t seem they are opening their mind taking educational quality into account. Looks more like a “these are ranked well and private so must be it”). This is problematic by itself. One can’t stop them from not taking the non-Berkeley engineering powerhouses more seriously in their considerations if they think like that. I mean, they have Emory on their list, which doesn’t even have an engineering program…think about that. It is nice that they applied to the publics, but I have no clue if those offers (other than UCB) will be taken seriously if they also get an offer from most of the “elite” privates.
*Also, I think we need to stop saying that places are known for their “pre-med” programs…this means nothing and almost anywhere can and should be known for it as long as they have half-way decent UG STEM teaching, an academic healthcare system, and a solid amount of research opps. Once those are in place, the grading and the decisions of the students determine if they gain access, and maybe the advising office can have a role too. Most pre-healths will major in life sciences that encompass the pre-med core courses. Perhaps it is better to say or comment about those majors being popular (usually things like biology and neuroscience now-a-days). There just seems to be nothing special about being pre-med at schools “known for their pre-med program”. Even if you go by applicant success rate, those that claim they get 90% of applicants in are typically those who have the most effective weeding process, especially in earlier years. Those with lower rates usually have way too many applying (some places have extremely stubborn pre-meds. JHU is one of them)
@bernie12 Thanks for your input! It was really helpful. And the reason I am applying to Emory and other schools with life science majors is that I am not 100% sure if I want to do engineering or major in biochem and become a doctor. So I’m trying to keep my options open and hopefully make a decision within a few months.
@yaleivyleague : If you want to be pre-med, I would maybe not get too caught up in the concept of what major you choose so much as the quality of courses you take (largely dictated by the instructors and some schools have different teaching cultures in STEM versus others, especially in certain life sciences departments), your research(or other co-curricular type of opps), ECs, and shadowing experiences. You really just want the introductory sequences and key intermediate courses to be taught in a way that teaches you think analytically for something like an MCAT or to help you ready yourself for undergraduate research if you want to do that. Whether or not you major in STEM matters little for health. It could make for back-up plan/gap year jobs, but usually experience (like in a lab or industry) will supersede that. If you take a solid load of serious science courses without majoring, do solidly/well in them, and do those experiential opportunities, medical schools will take you very seriously, and most jobs will too.
Vanderbilt has made significant commitment to innovation through the development of the Wond’ry, an innovation and entrepreneurship lab open to all students. I would think that engineering students would be a significant part of the student cohort who elect to take advantage of the opportunities there. Both kids had several friends who were engineering majors and who seem to be doing well in their chosen careers.