Ivys and Engineering.

College Search & Selection
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<p>Other than my post stating that chemical engineering exists at Brown, you have misread me if you think anything in this thread that I've written was about Brown. I simply take from my own experiences when I give advice and nothing else. I'm hardly touchy at Brown-- I'm quite confident it was right for me and I'm quite confident it's doing what it has set out to do. However, I am touchy about people on these forums who suggests that there is one model, one ranking, one statistic that matters. This is never the case, and I only was suggesting that looking at schools strictly from the perspective of who has the best program misses a lot of rather important factors to use when selecting a school.</p>

<p>Collegehelp-- concentrations at Brown are the same as majors, and there are many courses in physics, chemistry, and biology (in the course catalog) that are for/extremely useful for chemical engineers and taking courses out of your department as a part of your concentration is extremely common at Brown (I'm not sure how this works with other universities, but at Brown, even in science, it's rare more than half your classes in your concentration will be designated as courses within the department awarding your degree). No degrees from Brown has the name of your concentration written on it unless you received honors in that concentration. Otherwise, all engineers receive an Sc.B. degree from Brown and are ABET certified for their field.</p>

<p>sakky-- it's far from impossible to flunk out. There's good reason why a lot of people who start at Brown considering engineer end up concentrating in a different science or field the same as anywhere else.</p>

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I am quite sure that there are plenty of Cornell engineering students who wish they were going to Brown

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<p>Perhaps, but I can't think of one Cornell engineer I know who wish that they attended Brown. Including my friend who was the son of a Brown computer science professor.</p>

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Yale does not have as great of a program as Stanford or MIT in engineering, but it definitely has one as great as, if not better than, Brown's.

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<p>Fair enough. My perspective may have reflected a worldview developed earlier in the decade. Yale has invested a lot into the sciences recently, as has Harvard.</p>

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^ oh brother...yes, and everyone who goes to Brown will have their futures set for them.

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<p>Sakky didn't imply that</p>

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You might not get top grades, but you'll still pass and so you'll still graduate. Cornell offers no such assurance. It's better to graduate from Brown than to flunk out of Cornell.

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<p>Last time I checked, Cornell engineers actually have a higher graduation rate than the university as a whole -- with a six year graduation rate of 94 percent. What is Brown's graduation rate, again? Oh right. 94 percent.</p>

<p><a href="http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000403.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000403.pdf&lt;/a>
Brown</a> University News - The New York Times</p>

<p>The bigger question is whether or not it is better to graduate from Cornell with a mediocre record or graduate from Brown with a bunch of no-grade classes. Considering Cornell engineering is a much more widely recognized program across the country, I would tend to suspect the former.</p>

<p>Not that a student shouldn't feel free to attend Brown engineering if they think the school offers a better fit for them. Some students like Providence, others like Ithaca.</p>

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<p>Princeton should have a good Chemical Engineering program... probably the best among the Ivies. They used to be among the top 5 in Chemical Engineering (#1 for a few years) when I was in school many many years ago</p>

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<p>Considering the strength of PTon chemistry for graduate school, I wouldn't doubt that at all.</p>

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Do I really have to talk about S/NC right now or can we stop the my dick is bigger than yours competition?

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<p>The argument was that Brown is a better school to coast along in as a marginal student due to programs such as the S/NC option. My contention was that for courses in the major, employers would probably be less concerned about a couple of B minuses at Cornell than a couple of satisfactory grades at Brown, especially given that median grades are reported on the Cornell transcript.</p>

<p>Plus, the need to dispel the myth that somehow Cornell engineering has a huge dropout rate.</p>

<p>I'm completely aware of the benefits of S/NC and I wasn't attempting to knock it. In fact, I took a couple of courses far outside my major at Cornell as pass/fail. And while I may have issues with Brown allowing students to take all of their courses in such a fashion, I know that in principal it hardly ever happens.</p>

<p>Correct me if I am wrong, though, but if you fail a course at Brown it doesn't show up on your transcript, right?</p>

<p>At the end of the day, Cornell Engineering and Brown are very different beasts, and I doubt you will find much overlap between the schools in terms of student interest. You can definitely find portions of Cornell's campus that feel like Brown, particularly in the humanities and architecture programs, but I think you would be hard pressed to find parts of Brown that feel like Cornell Engineering.</p>

<p>But, yes, the hairy chested men from Cornell are world-renown for the size of their genitalia.</p>

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<p>I remember interviewing analyst candidates at the investment bank, and marveling at how every candidate from Brown had a GPA above 3.5. I attributed it to prescreening, which was undoubtedly the case. But later I learned about this course dropping thing, and I wondered..</p>

<p>Nobody was looking at their transcripts, that's all after-the-fact, there would be no timely way to know.</p>

<p>But you know what, at the end of the day these are largely highly intelligent, capable students in any event, I wouldn't get worked up about it. I think it's great, for them, that their system is less punitive and encourages them to more fully explore their interests. And I don't think, realistically, it hurts them at all.</p>

<p>Good for them, I say. And again, I think it's a great school.</p>

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<p>NC courses do not show up on external transcripts. It's practically unheard of (unfortunately) for students to take all courses SNC, and in practice, especially in sciences, typically no one takes a course in their concentration SNC.</p>

<p>So while it's allowed, it's ridiculous to say Brown students coast by on SNC-- it's simply not abused that way in practice at all, and we've got significant internal research to prove it.</p>

<p>Of course they're different beasts entirely-- and all I was saying, and I guess on this side of CC people are too sensitive to this-- was that taken from my own experience, engineering programs are often so different from one another that "best" really doesn't mean the same thing to everyone and it's often a really poor decision to look at these programs from that perspective. </p>

<p>The best perspective is why is engineering here different than other places and is that something that I think will uniquely serve me as an undergraduate, end of story.</p>

<p>As for course drop abuse-- that also rarely happens, in practice. SNC has to be declared 4 weeks in, typically professors will not hand back any graded work that will have an significant impact on your course grade before that deadline. Dropping classes, while it can happen late into the semester, is still a pretty obvious activity-- 3 courses showing up instead of 4 still means something fairly obvious. GPAs at Brown are difficult to look at on the whole-- while university-wide a lot of As are rewarded, professors here have vehemently defended their grading practices as not being influenced strongly by typical grade inflation causes (although some vocal members are concerned) and within departments practices are quite different. For instance, within my own department, there are very strict cut offs for grades and we award far more NCs and Cs, numbers more in-line with so-called non-inflated schools.</p>

<p>Brown purposely sends out a letter with transcripts that says we do not calculate GPA and here's why, and we stand by that based upon the education we're providing and its goal as well as its unique structure.</p>

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<p>National Academy of Engineering Membership:</p>

<p>Ivy League:
Cornell: 24
Princeton: 21
Columbia: 16
Harvard: 16
Penn: 9
Yale: 6
Brown: 4
Dartmouth: 3</p>

<p>Other Engineering Schools:
MIT: 108
Stanford: 84
Cal: 75
Texas: 50
Illinois: 29
Caltech: 29
Georgia Tech: 25
Michigan: 22</p>

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<p>No disagreement with this whatsoever, as I said in post #14:
"..other colleges do have top programs, but do not play football in the Ivy conference."</p>

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<p>I am going into engineering (probably chemical) or applied physics, and my top choice school is yale.
Aside from being a great school all around there entire engineering school for undergrad is 150 people. The facutly to student ratio is close to 1:1 for engineering which means that I would be able to be involved in research labs. That is what I think alot of people forget, I also got accepted to the Honors engineering program at the University of Texas, which is undoubtly a better engineering school, but for research it is not as good. Specifically, much of the research involves graduate students, whereas at Yale professors work with undergrads. That is what I personally want out of an engineering education because I want to be a research engineer, so a small program ,with quality research output, and an AMAZING school is right for me.</p>

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Specifically, much of the research involves graduate students, whereas at Yale professors work with undergrads.

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<p>Do you go to Texas? Sounds like you've been reading these boards too much with your Ivy slant. Last time I checked, Yale had a MUCH higher proportion of grad students than Texas. You think those graduate students are twiddling their thumbs at Yale? Labs everywhere LOVE undergrads because there are so many tasks such as data analysis and sample creation that are pretty easy to do but give you valuable experience in the field.</p>

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Aside from being a great school all around there entire engineering school for undergrad is 150 people. The facutly to student ratio is close to 1:1 for engineering

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So, out of 150 engineering profs at Yale, only 6 are NAE members? Hmmm....</p>

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<p>You've just described the lab experience I wouldn't want to have. My chemistry program has 25 professors, 75 graduate students, and about 15 chem undergrads in each year. Those graduate students aren't twiddling their thumbs, but undergrads are not just doing easy work that offers invaluable experience. In most labs, undergrads are in control of their entire project and answer directly to the PI. In many labs, undergraduates have the same responsibilities to the lab that graduate students do. In fact, differentiating between the undergraduates and graduate students in a lab while observing a group meeting where people are presenting their research progress is nearly impossible. That's the undergraduate research experience some schools offer that goes above and beyond just helping out and developing technique.</p>

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<p>If you want to do cutting edge research, you will have a much better chance doing it in a #8 ranked chemical engineering department than a #46 ranked one.</p>

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You've just described the lab experience I wouldn't want to have.

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<p>Everyone has to start out somewhere, modestmelody. There's always a grace period where you're still learning the lingo and how research works and you will be doing grunt work. It's easy, but it's also very important that you learn the fundamentals before jumping into self-directed research. I don't mean to imply that all undergrads are relegated to lab technician positions; obviously if someone proves themselves capable the PI will assign tasks befitting of a grad student (as is the case in the labs I have worked in). The tasks anybody is given aren't unimportant either. In my field, we make things but we're still clueless as to the fundamental processes behind them, so having extra hands to repeat growth with different parameters is invaluable. </p>

<p>Undergrads doing the grunt work have discovered some very important things in my lab, so just because you're not directing your own research doesn't mean you can't contribute in a meaningful way.</p>

<p>Anyway, the point of my post was that Dbate thinks he won't have good research opportunities if he doesn't go to Yale. However, it's so easy to get your foot in the door with research ANYWHERE because any lab will want people to do the basic things, and if you prove yourself you'll move up, simple as that.</p>

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<p>From my searching through the UT website and seeing the undergrads in the labs, there are only a few in each lab per professor. So although UT has many more professors, it would be harder to be involved in research. Some of the opportunities advertised for undergrads wanted mostly juniors, whereas at Yale they have programs that would allow students to do research even starting the summer of their freshman year. </p>

<p>I am not a current student at UT, I have only been admitted. But several people from my school go to UT every year and I have visited several times, it is a LARGE school so in any given class there could be more students there than the entire undergrad engineering department at Yale.</p>

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From my searching through the UT website and seeing the undergrads in the labs, there are only a few in each lab per professor. So although UT has many more professors, it would be harder to be involved in research.

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Undergraduate research is quite common in many universities. For example, the University of Washington reports that 25% of its undergrad participate in research, including 100% of the Material Science & Engineering majors. Why would UT be any different?</p>

<p>May be you are not looking in the right places. I'm not familiar with what's available at UT but a quick google turns up these resources:</p>

<p>"Established Programs and Student Organizations
Texas Research Experience (TREX) sponsored by Equal Opportunity in Engineering (EOE)</p>

<p>Graduates Linking with Undergraduates in Engineering (GLUE) sponsored by Women in Engineering Program (WEP) </p>

<p>SURGe is a student group that works to foster a cohesive undergraduate research community here at UT. It is network of individual students (some doing research in labs and some not) who meet to discuss and promote involvement in scientific research on campus.</p>

<p>Undergraduate Research Journal: A student-edited, multi-disciplinary journal of undergraduate research at The University of Texas at Austin published each spring semester." (Undergraduate</a> Research Opportunities - Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin)</p>

<p>Most of the undergrad research is not just "helping out and developing technique". What you do depends on your ability and experience. For example, you can do this as a freshman at the University of Michigan:</p>

<p>"David Zhen, a University of Michigan student from Grand Blanc, Mich., will be among 60 undergraduates from around the nation invited to present the results of their independent research in science, engineering and mathematics in Washington, D.C.,... Zhen, a sophomore in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, will be on research he is conducting in the laboratory of Eva Feldman, professor of Neurology, under direct supervision of Tracy Schwab, research investigator in U-M's Department of Neurology. Their collaboration is part of the University's Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP). The research is on neuroblastoma, a neurological childhood cancer." Zhen started his work as a freshman.</p>