<p>At the graduate level, I am wondering how hard it is to get into engineering program at Ivy League schools such as Harvard,Princeton, UPenn and so on. Are they easier to get into than program at top public engineering schools like Illinois, Michigan, or Georgia Tech? I know those Ivy schools are harder to get into in the undergraduate level even for engineering programs, but what about at the graduate level?</p>
<p>I would think they are much easier to get in. In general, those schools are strong in law, business. Those top Ivy carry a good name plate, but not in engineering. There’s much more research done at top public: Berkeley, Texas, and GTech. I have never read an article mentioning engineering innovation from the listed Ivy.</p>
<p>There are a lot of people who think ivy league engineering schools, while perhaps not as good as some flagship universities out there, are a lot easier to get in. This is very far from the truth. If you look at Harvard and Princeton, the acceptance rate for engineering is about 15% with average GPAs of 3.8 and Average GRE math scores of 780+. You still need excellent stats and research (especially for harvard as it’s engineering programs are mostly phd.) to be considered.</p>
<p>well princeton is really good and so is cornell depends on what u call ivy league…like brown engineering or dartmouth lol</p>
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<p>According to USNews Graduate Edition, Princeton is ranked #18 in engineering, Harvard is #21, Penn is #30. I don’t think that’s really that far from Texas which is #11. </p>
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<p>In terms of total engineering research expenditures, sure, for those schools have large engineering departments.</p>
<p>However, in terms of engineering research expenditures per faculty member, Harvard spends more than either of those 3 public schools you mentioned. In fact, Harvard actually spends just a shade less than does MIT. </p>
<p>We also need to account for the fact that Harvard grad students have cross-reg and joint research collaboration access with MIT. Many Harvard engineering students have MIT faculty members on their dissertation committee. Students at those other schools don’t have access to the resources at MIT. </p>
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<p>Michael Rabin is a Professor at Harvard. He won the Turing Award, which has been dubbed the “Nobel Prize of Computer Science”. (Granted, some will quibble over whether computer science is really engineering, but I tend to think that it is). Stephen Cook earned his PhD in computer science at Harvard and then later won the Turing. Dennis Ritchie completed his undergrad at Harvard and later created the C programming language and a co-inventor of UNIX, which also won him the Turing. Bob Metcalfe completed his PhD at Harvard and later invented Ethernet, founded 3Com, won the National Medal of Technology, and served as the basis for the eponymous Metcalfe’s Law.</p>
<p>Which type of engineering are you looking at studying? Most Ivies are not very well represented in my research area (new electronic materials); I’ve only seen professors from Cornell and Columbia publishing in this area, for example.</p>
<p>That’s interesting, back in the day Cornell was supposedly pretty hot on semiconductors & related materials, IIRC Lester Eastman ran a lab devoted to it, for one, big rainmaker at the time. I worked in the clean room one summer. Over in physics, Ashcroft & Mermin wrote a solid state physics text that seemed to be pretty darned popular, but I don’t know about their research. </p>
<p>To the OP, I occasionally get mailings where they give some entrance stats for the engineering grad programs at Cornell. sorry I don’t recall numbers, but my distinct impression is it is brutally difficult to be admitted to the PhD program there. The M.Eng. program, on the other hand, not so much.</p>
<p>I’ve no idea what admissions is like at any other graduate engineering school.</p>
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<p>Yeah Ashcroft & Mermin is a staple of anyone doing materials research. Coincidentally I have that book open on my desk right now for looking up how to calculate the band structure for a particular material.</p>
<p>I was accepted into Cornell’s engineering PhD program (with a really sweet stipend), but not Northwestern, Stanford, Berkeley, or MIT. So take as you will what the relative difficulty of getting in is (also, everyone I know that applied to U Penn for materials was accepted).</p>
<p>One datum does not a distribution make.
Moreover you did not apply to the public U’s OP cited, eg Illinois, Michigan, or Georgia Tech. MIT and Stanford are more selective for undergrad as well, and the others are in the same bracket. So a differential in relative difficulty of entry to undergrad vs. grad, such as the OP was interested in, would not be evident from your sample in any event.</p>
<p>I was also admitted to Cornell’s PhD engineering program but rejected by stanford, caltech, Berkeley, Santa barbara, and probably MIT. Take that for what it’s worth. I also know of a lot of people that got rejected by cornell but got into a lot of the other schools I mentioned.</p>
<p>Depends on the program. Cornell for structural engineering Ph.D., when I applied, was more selective than Princeton, MIT, Stanford, UTexas, and Berkeley. Only 6 people out of 250 got in that year with funding. They, unlike many other structural engineering schools, offered full funding throughout my ph.d.</p>
<p>what about FU foundation grad school for electrical engineers.</p>
<p>Easy to get in for an unfunded MS. You need to be a top applicant to get in for a ph.d.</p>
<p>monydad, is doesn’t make a distribution, but anecdotal evidence is generally all you’re going to get in graduate admissions.</p>
<p>Also, I’ve been told it’s easier to get into most schools for graduate studies than undergrad in fields where they take a decent number of people each year. One example would be my rejection from Caltech in undergrad, but acceptance in graduate school. ;)</p>
<p>^ I don’t know if that is always the case though… I was admitted to Berkeley’s undergrad Chem E program (although I declined) but rejected by their grad program. ::shrug::</p>
<p>It’s probably the other way around at well-regarded publics if you were in-state.</p>
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<p>Hey, don’t sell yourself short. Maybe you simply vastly improved yourself as an undergrad!</p>
<p>More to the point, I’m not sure that it’s entirely accurate to say that most schools are easier to get into for grad than for undergrad when we’re (presumably) talking about engineering programs, for the simple reason that most schools are lower-tier, no-name schools. Let’s be honest: it’s really not that hard to get into some no-name undergrad college. In this country, practically anybody who graduated from high school can get into some college that has an engineering program. Granted, the grad programs at those colleges probably aren’t that hard to get into either, but they’re still almost certainly harder than their undergrad programs are. I remember back in my high school days how some of the laziest guys who spent much of their time drinking and smoking dope and who barely even graduated from high school at all were nevertheless able to get into some of the local colleges that happened to offer engineering majors. {Granted, they didn’t actually major in engineering, instead choosing to major in creampuff disciplines such that their true “major” was in drinking and partying, but the point is, they could have chosen to major in engineering.} </p>
<p>I can agree that some of the elite schools - i.e. the Caltech’s, Stanford’s, and MIT’s of the world - probably are easier to get into as a grad student than as an undergrad. But those are only a tiny fraction of all of the schools out there.</p>
<p>Admission difficulty for PhD programs depend on the reputation and spots available. Some schools may not be top-ranked but still very difficult because they take very few. Ironically, sometime the reason they take only a few is because they are not able to get many projects. So some schools are difficult to get in because they are not as good. And some Ivies or some departments in them fit into this category.</p>
<p>^ Right. People don’t apply to Harvard for an engineering PhD. It may be selective simply because there are few spots available, but it certainly doesn’t compare to a lot of the other engineering grad schools. </p>
<p>And yes, public schools that have very high acceptance rates for undergrads are typically much more selective for their graduate program.</p>