<p>I don't really care about where the small schools you're talking about are. I was just saying my point of view and saying others might share it. I was not saying UIUC was on an equal plane but I'm saying that there wouldnt be people sprinting away at the first given moment. And I was talking about things besides prestige. I don't like small schools. Sorry. end story. Regardless of where they're at. I don't care about social life in NYC but I forgot even why I was arguing in the first place. </p>
<p>This is why I'm worried about law schools because they're all small. I'm trying to find the biggest classes right now. So believe me when I say I like big environemnts and big classes, which doesn't include the surrounding area.</p>
<p>Bigbossdogg, don't listen to Jeffl. He obviously had a bad experience at Michigan (not unheard of but not vommon either), but for every student who has a bad experience at Michigan, you have 9 who will tell you that Michigan was a great experience. In the case of Jeffl, if memory serves, he chose Michigan purely for financial reasons, but if he had his choice, he would never have attended. If he came on campus with that attitude, there is a good chance he has never really recovered. </p>
<p>It is one thing to have a negative experience at a university and to voice that negative experience. It is an entirely different thing to mislead a student. Jeffl makes sweeping comments about Michigan in two regards and in both cases, he is way off. </p>
<p>1) Employment opportunities: Michigan Engineers are among the most respected in industry. Jeffl's comment that employers do not think highly of Michigan is actually very misleading. I am not sure why would say such a think. I recruiter engineers for Sun, Ford, Cisco and Eaton and all of those companies had Michigan in their top 5 or 6 list. And those 4 companies are not unique. In fact, in the countless industry polls, Michigan is always rated among the top 5 hunting grounds.</p>
<p>2) He claims that students do not make friends at Michigan. That is not true. In fact, socially, Michigan is hard to match, let alone beat, socially speaking. I have made close to a dozen friends that I keep in touch with on a monthly basis at Michigan. Four of those friends are more like family. </p>
<p>In short, whether you fit in at Michigan depends on fit. But academically and professionally, Michigan Engineering is one of the top 10 in the nation, arguably one of the top 5.</p>
<p>Alexandre will always have interesting stats thats not found anywhere. Like Michigan Engineering is on company's top 5 hiring list. No one can discredit you Alexandre, of course, but if u mean by pure number, this is believable, Michigan is a huge school. There are a lot of people I know that are graduating from Engineering and not getting jobs and thats a fact, u can walk into the engineering career office tomorrow and verify this.</p>
<p>Jeffl, obviously, when you graduate 1,000+ undergrads each year, some will not find jobs. But I would say over 90% of Michigan Engineers find jobs around the time they graduate.</p>
<p>And no, Michigan is not a top 5 recruiting campus by number. It is a top 5 campus because of the quality of the students and programs of Engineering. If a company must chose 10 campuses to recruit on, Michigan will almost invariably be on that list.</p>
<p>well, obviously, they would come to michigan, i don't know what the exact percentage of employment within 6 months is, "i would say" its at most in the high 80%. Being called a top 10 Engineering program, and having only 80 something % employment rate is pretty bad. Microsoft hires about 20+ engineering people from Michigan every year, same is true with Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Accenture, Ford, GE,etc. But, they only want the best Michigan Engineers. If u have a 3.8 GPA, u will get interviews for internships your sophomore year and land a good job. If u are just average with a 2.95(this is about the average here), good luck.</p>
<p>Jeffl, I agree that a student with a sub 3.0 GPA will have a difficult time finding a job, and that's not the case just at Michigan. Students at any university in the country are faced with that problem, and, as you point out, like at any respected engineering program, a sub 3.0 GPA at Michigan is not uncommon. So what you should have said is that given the intense nature of the Michigan Engineering program, unless one is prepared to make certain sacrifices, succeeding at Michigan is not easy. But to simply say that companies do not think highly of Michigan Engineers is not at all true.</p>
<p>wingardiumLeviosa, it is somehwat true that companies do not really care about GPA. As you point out, Engineering is not like I-Banking or Management Consulting, where a sub 3.5 GPA will usually spell doom for a candidate. But a 2.5 GPA in Engineering will usually not entice many employers.</p>
<p>2.5 gpa, good luck looking for a job. Even Caterpillar has the minimum at 2.8 GPA. Alexandre, MIT/Stanford/Princeton engineering students with below 3.0 will not have trouble finding jobs. I'm just telling students who want a solid engineering education to goto smaller schools, even if they are not very well known. Michigan is a big school, ie Diploma Meat Market. Its rough, there isn't a lot of help given to you to help you to succeed if you need it.</p>
<p>Jeffl, I am not so sure you are speaking from experience. Have you studied at other schools? Have you asked major companies about their recruiting strategies? Have you tried looking for jobs at another university? Did you take classes at a smaller university? Yes, Michigan is indeed large. So are MIT, Cal, CMU and Cornell. All of those schools have between 3,000 and 4,500 Engineering undergrads and students at all those schools will complain as you do. </p>
<p>And Jeffl, most companies recruiting on campus limit their applicant pool to students with 3.0+ students, whether you are at CalTech or at some unheard of university. I know when I was at Michigan and at Cornell, sub-3.0 students in Engineering could not submit their CVs to most visiting companies. Friends of mine who attended other major programs like Illinois, CMU, Northwestern etc... were faced with the same issues. That does not mean that students with sub 3.0 students at Michigan (or any of the top universities) have no chance. I have often seen Michigan Engineers with 2.7 or 2.8 GPAs get excellent jobs with top companies.</p>
<p>Anyway Jeffl, the point I am making is that Michigan is one of the top 10 Engineering programs in the country, no matter how you slice it. The rankings are based on the finished product that comes out of the University. If you ask professors at top graduate programs or top Engineers in industry how well Michigan prepares Engineers, you will usually get very good feedback. Most of your claims are way off, especially the ones surrounding Michigan's reputation in industry and the lack of social interaction at the University. </p>
<p>I do agree that Michigan is intense and that profs can be tough. I also agree that the program is large and that one must make an active effort to rise to the top. But I can say the same things of many other top programs, like Cal, CMU, Cornell and MIT, where professors are more interested in their research and where students have to compete with thousands of Engineers for resources and opportunities.</p>
<p>I was not an Engineer, but most of my close friends at Michigan were, so I am well aware of the program. Furthermore, my uncle is a professor of Engineering at Michigan and like I said, I have recruited Engineers at all levels for over 5 years.</p>
<p>As for MIT and CMU, I am not sure of the exact # of engineers, but I know MIT has over 4,000 undergrads, of which 55% are CS and Engineering majors and CMU has roughly 5,500 undergrads of which close to 50% are CS and Engineering majors.</p>
<p>
[quote]
So are MIT, Cal, CMU and Cornell. All of those schools have between 3,000 and 4,500 Engineering undergrads and students at all those schools will complain as you do.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's not THAT many at MIT. MIT has only 4000 undergrads total, only about 1/2 who major in engineering. So it's only about 2000 engineering undergrads at MIT.</p>
<p>Join Date: Aug 2004
Posts: 370 2.5 gpa, good luck looking for a job. Even Caterpillar has the minimum at 2.8 GPA. Alexandre, MIT/Stanford/Princeton engineering students with below 3.0 will not have trouble finding jobs. I'm just telling students who want a solid engineering education to goto smaller schools, even if they are not very well known. Michigan is a big school, ie Diploma Meat Market. Its rough, there isn't a lot of help given to you to help you to succeed if you need it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Jeffl, I think you have made a logical mistake. The presumption in your logic is that the average Michigan engineer could have gotten admitted to a place like MIT or Stanford or Princeton. I think all of us, including Alexandre, would agree that this is not true, and that a lot of engineering students at Michigan are just not good enough to get into schools you mention. Obviously some are very good, but the majority is not. Hence, the comparison between Michigan and Stanford/MIT/Princeton is really a false choice. </p>
<p>Somebody who is good enough to have gotten into Michigan and also into those other schools would have probably have gone to those other schools unless money was a problem. And if money was a problem, then that's just another reason for why it's a false choice. You can't lament a choice you never had. For example, I don't go around feeling sad that I never had the chance to go on a date with Jennifer Lopez. Do I want it? Darn right I do. But It was a choice I never had, and never will have, so there is no point in my feeling sad about it. </p>
<p>So really, we need to be talking about a choice that is actually realistic for the majority of those Michigan engineers. You say that they should go to a smaller school. However, realistically, that school also has to be at the same level or lower of admissions selectivity as is Michigan (otherwise, it's another false choice). Yet the fact is, any such school that is both smaller than Michigan and is not more selective will have the same problems as Michigan does - namely that their not-so-good students will not have great job prospects. </p>
<p>As a point of comparision, if you think that a guy with a 2.5 coming out of Michigan engineering is going to have problems, what about a guy with a 2.5 coming out of engineering from a no-name school?</p>
<p>
[quote]
engineering companies don't especially care about gpa do they? I mean it's not like i-banking/consulting.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Only the star engineering companies do that. Most engineering companies are not star engineering companies. I think part of the problem is that everybody wants to work for a big name company and can't see or don't want to see what is available elsewhere.</p>
<p>You said that you've recruited engineers; I take it you've hired them for analyst positions. Did you cut any slack when it came to the overall GPA. Did you take guys with a...B+ average (3.3). It's just not very possible to pull the grades similar to that of econ. majors if you're in engineering. Surely i-banks somewhat recognize the difficulty in engineering?</p>
<p>Jeffl, for the last 6 years, I have been a HR specialist. I would organize the entire recruiting trip to the various campuses as the behest of the company and take Engineers along with me for thorough evaluations of the candidates. </p>
<p>wingardiumLeviosa, I recruited Engineers for Engineering jobs at engineering companies such as Cisco (as a consultant in a Ford-Cisco arrangement), Sun (when I was an intern), Ford and Eaton as well as Engineers for non-Engineering jobs for non-Engineering firms such as Goldman Sachs (when I was an Analyst in 1996-1999 period) myself, before becoming a HR specialist). And no, I-Banks do not usually give much slack to Engineers where GPAs are concerned. </p>
<p>Sakky is quite right. Obviously, the lowes tier of Michigan students are not in the same league as students at MIT, CalTech and Stanford and the middle tier of Michigan students are probably equal to the lowest quartile at those schools. Only the top tier of Michigan students can be compared to students at the mega-selective schools like MIT and Stanford. However Sakky, that does not always mean that grading is comparable. I would be so bold as to say that a 3.5 at Michigan is quite possibly harder to achieve than a 3.5 at Stanford, even for students of the same calibre. </p>
<p>I also agree that in the majority of the cases, students who are given the choice between Michigan and CalTech, MIT or Stanford would probably pick the latter 3 to the former. But the number of students who chose Michigan over MIT, CalTech and Stanford is not as low as you'd think and their decision is not always financially driven. I am also not sure that Michigan and Princeton compete for Engineers.</p>