Hey guys, me and a friend were arguing on which school had the better engineering program for undergraduate and graduate students. I was pro MIT and he was pro Georgia tech. Can you please give me some insight on which of these schools or of another school you think is cream of crop for aspiring engineers. I would also like to know the competitiveness for getting into top tier engineering graduate schools. Thanks
Hairsplitting.
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Lol I’m being honest I wanted a debate thread for Georgia and MIT!
There’s a phalanx of CC posters that fiercely dispute that there’s any difference at all among engineering degrees that are accredited. Most people would agree that university rankings are meaningful in law, medicine, business, etc. But expect huge pushback on CC when it comes to engineering. Go figure.
I’m a naysayer. My 27 years of experience in R&D at a large corporation leads me to believe that the sharpest minds in engineering research (please note the emphasis on RESEARCH) were educated at a select few universities. The two most impressive engineers that I know received BS, MS, and PhD degrees consecutively from MIT and Caltech, respectively. These guys came up with groundbreaking solutions to problems that broke the “picks” of many others. Anecdotal, yes. Definitive, no. My two cents, FWIW… I have also worked with a couple of fine engineers from Georgia Tech, so no disrespect intended.
There are lots of engineering rankings on the internet, all with their own methodology. They all basically show what you’d expect. MIT, Caltech, Stanford, UC Berkeley, etc. lead the pack. Take a look to get a possible answer to your question. You can refine your search based on undergraduate/graduate education, as well as with respect to engineering discipline.
Actually, people here on CC don’t really consider med schools to be significantly better/worse, regardless of ranking.
The difference between schools comes down to the hit rate in hiring. There is little difference in what is taught. So, what percent of engineers produced are high quality hirable people?.
T1 - MIT, Stanford, Caltech probably 90%
T2 - Gatech, Mich, Illinois, Berkeley, CMU probably 70 to 80%
T3 - 50%
T4 - 25%
I’ve worked in R&D and engineering firms with MIT, Stanford, tOSU, Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, Michigan, Illinois, Gatech, Rice, Duke, Washington, A&M, Penn State, RPI, LSU, CMU… graduates and you wouldn’t know that they attended those schools.
There are many high quality students that attend these schools. However, the college will not be able to turn a B high school student into an A+ engineer. What goes in normally comes out.
Compare MIT and Gatech SAT scores:
MIT - 50 percentile 2240 - 2200 students above 2240
Gatech - 75 percentile 2240 - 4000 students above 2240
So based on percentages, the chances of getting a super sharp person out of MIT is twice that of Gatech. Based on volume, Gatech is producing twice as many. To be successful though, it comes down to the personal drive of the individual.
I have noticed that MIT and Stanford grads have a shorter stints as engineers. They return to school after 5 to 10 years to get an MBA or a law degree. I’ve also seen Stanford grads jump eagerly into sales and marketing. One became a dentist. I believe that they get bored.
@Greymeer Those SAT scores can be misleading because their for accepted students. Are both of those schools yielding that caliber of student? Maybe MIT?
If you’re going to grad school, MIT is the clear winner. If you want a tenured faculty position, you should do your Phd at the most prestigious research university that you can get admitted to. If you’re a Georgia resident, it’s difficult to justify paying more to go to MIT for undergrad. Grads at both colleges get hired by all the big tech companies. One difference you will see is that more MIT grads end up taking positions on Wall Street or in management consulting.
Most engineers won’t end up working in research. I’m not sure if that refutes @whatisyourquest or makes his case stronger.
I agree that most engineers don’t end up doing research. Even at my company, most of the engineers employ routines that are well established. That is, the procedures to analyze a recurring problem are considered valid and the computer programs that come up with solutions are a “black box.”
In these situations, many valued employees are ones that are meticulous and consistently generate reliable results. (These engineers, IME, do indeed come from a variety of universities across the country.) The managers keep “going back to the same well” with these employees, because, of course, they don’t want mistakes to creep in.
The problem is that, if you are one of these reliable employees who quickly generates accurate “turn the crank” results, you may not get the opportunity to solve the most challenging problems. And, of course, the hot shots that solve the first-of-their-kind problems are considered more valuable, win awards, are ranked higher, and end up being promoted, within a strictly technical track.
If I had to do it over again, I’d try jumping to management or consulting. IME, one becomes invisible in engineering, otherwise, as you get into your 50s and 60s. Better to be like Rex Tillerson (BS Civil Engineering, UT Austin) and move up the food chain.
Graduate and undergrad may not be same answer. Undergrad is often a mass produced product, and a smaller school with a lesser graduate focus might be the “best” if you care about the experience over the prestige of sitting on the same campus with those elite grad students and profs. Many “2nd tier” tech schools give a better undergrad experience. I say a comment on another thread about WPI and MIT, from an MIT undergrad, alum. He indicated that at his job, WPI alum coworkers were better prepared for the real world. That said, if your goal is PhD, rare for engineers, that would be a very different discussion. I also have a friend who is a senior hiring eng executive. He hires GT and WPI graduates alike, giving some preference to GT hires, but hires WPI kids anyway.
GaTech … MT … Measurement Description
$14,084 … $67,679 Instructional Spending per FTE Student 2015 (Source: IPEDS)
(nb: GT uses GASB accounting, MIT uses FASB)
$140,978 … $170,574 Avg Full-Time Professor Salary 2011-12 (Source: IPEDS)
… 680 … 750 SAT-M 25th Percentile 2015 (Source: IPEDS)
… 770 … 800 SAT-M 75th Percentile 2015 (Source: IPEDS)
12% … 88% Parchment Cross-Admit Preference
40% … 82% 4 Year Graduation Rate (Source: Kiplinger’s)
4.1 … 4.9 US News Peer Assessment Score
(not in top 50) … 1880 (3rd in top 50 per capita) Alumni-Earned STEM PhDs 2002-11 (Source: NSF)
(https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf13323/)
$74,500 … $89,200 Median 10y Alumni Salary (Source: Kiplinger’s)
(nb: measures only alumni who received federal financial aid)