<p>So lately I have been at an impasse about my school lists. I have schools like University of Maryland and University of Miami. University of Miami is ranked number 38 nationally but its engineering program is ranked at about a 100. Now University of Maryland is between 50-60 but its engineering program is ranked somewhere at 20. So my question is which would be a better outlet for an engineer? What takes precedent when I am looking for a graduate program/job, the national rank of my school or the engineering rank of my school?</p>
<p>Well, for a job as an Engineer…The Engineering rank, without a doubt.</p>
<p>It depends a bit on what you want to do - people in your field care about the strength of your program over the strength of the university, people outside your field tend to feel opposite. So if you want to work as an engineer focus on the engineering rank, if you want to go into law or some other field after graduation then focus on university rank.</p>
<p>Also consider non-engineering back up plans - not saying you will change out of engineering, but you should certainly think about alternatives and which school offers you options that would work for you. This is one of the few good reasons to go to a typical Ivy League school for engineering - if you change you mind, you have great options in the liberal arts.</p>
<p>All that having been said, I would strongly recommend Maryland. Its engineering strength will pay off in better opportunities, and neither school has an overall standing to make anyone swoon.</p>
<p>The difference between a rank of 38 and 50 is not really material. Which school do you like better otherwise - location, fit, cost, etc.?</p>
<p>In this case maryland because neither has a crazy high overall ranking.
In situations where it is high engineering ranking vs high national ranking I would go with high national ranking.</p>
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<p>What are examples where two universities have similar admissions standards where one has high engineering prestige and low overall prestige, and the other has low engineering prestige with high overall prestige? I was thinking Purdue since its engineering prestige is a lot higher than its admissions standards would otherwise indicate but I can’t think of a match for it. Or possibly Harvard where its admissions standards are extremely high but with low engineering prestige.</p>
<p>An example would be Purdue vs. Dartmouth. I would, for an engineer looking to do engineering, recommend Purdue in that situation and it’s not even close.</p>
<p>@Vladenschlutte hmm I would say somethin like umich etc vs duke etc or cmu vs columbia or something. I would choose the higher ranked overall school. There are probably many with schools like these as their decision. </p>
<p>I think in the case of dartmouth vs purdue its a lil weird because does’nt dartmouth have a weird engineering program where it takes 5 years or something dunno. maybe I am mixing schools. </p>
<p>if it was brown vs purdue I would chose brown. Brown engineering can def still get some good engineering jobs. Purdue engineer on the other hand has much more reduced chances if they wanna go into another field compared to brown guy.
I am talking about a balance and the reduced advantage of brown in this case is way less than other disadvantages of purdue compared to brown.
Plus I bet the brown or Dartmouth engineering is gunna have a higher gpa too.
for grad school I would say a completely different thing.</p>
<p>Do Purdue and Dartmouth/Brown really have the same admissions standards? I couldn’t find engineering specific admissions statistics but overall Dartmouth and Brown are far more selective than Purdue. </p>
<p>I’m not sure about the UMich vs. Duke or CMU vs. Columbia either. Overall Duke might be slightly more prestigious than UMich but it’s not enough to convince me that there’s any reason to view that as the reason to pick Duke over Michigan. Between CMU and Columbia I’m not even sure which is supposed to be more prestigious. I would assume CMU but I’m not sure about that. Admissions standards may be similar but so is prestige.</p>
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An aspiring engineer would be stupid to pick Brown over Purdue. Purdue has one of the best engineering schools in the nation, and Brown? I wasn’t even sure if it has one. To say that a Brown kid will get a better job than a Purdue kid in engineering is simply stupid.</p>
<p>lol dunno where you even gettin that from. never said the guy from brown is necessarily gonna get a better job than a guy from purdue in ENGINEERING. A guy from brown however has more options in other fields. I am sorry but a guy from brown has a much better change landing a consulting, banking, finance gig and might even have better chances at law school.
Sure these are not engineering jobs but as undergrad you want to be versatile.
Also at the end of the day go look at engineering salaries. Wow they are so consistent. I am not convinced that a guy from purdue is gunna get so many engineering jobs to offset the other advantages that guy from brown has.
Go to a large firm and you are gonna see people from a broad range of schools and many people from schools weaker than brown. Companies dont seem to care too much about the school name vs how much the guy knows his stuff and ability.
Your are probably one of those guys who say chose purdue over yale. Thats pure folly.
for grad school when you are quite sure what you wanna do duh, purdue over brown. I would not even apply to brown…
Also this comparison is kinda useless because the acceptances are so diff for the two schools. Chances are the guy who go into brown probably also got into Berkeley. Now we are back to what vladenschlutte said. </p>
<p>and @ vladenschlutte your right.</p>
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A guy from Brown (or other high-prestige school) certainly has a lot of options, but don’t forget that many of the big money jobs are offered only to a handful of grads, and the average salary for graduates of Brown is probably still lower than the average engineering salary from Purdue. I.e, the vast majority of those options are STILL worse than Purdue engineering.</p>
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First of all, yes, large firms hire engineers from a variety of academic tiers, but that is not because “all engineers are the same”, it is because they need great engineers and they need mediocre engineers. When they hire Ivy League grads as engineers, they are not generally expecting or asking them to do real challenging work, they are expecting them to take the work that needs and engineer but perhaps runs more to paperwork and less to design.</p>
<p>Secondly, engineers from better schools generally get promoted much faster than engineers from weaker schools. While there are always exceptions, a better education generally provides a stronger skill base which in turn tends to result in better on-the-job performance. I work with some of the top engineers in my company, and they do NOT come from the weaker schools on our recruiting schedule.</p>
<p>Third, as I noted above, “how much the guy knows his stuff and ability” is not decoupled from the school he/she attended. An engineering grad at Brown will certainly learn the fundamentals, but will not see the rigor, depth, OR breadth that graduates at some of the better engineering programs will see. And this pays off down the road.</p>
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<p>That is total baloney!
As GlobalTraveler always says, it doesn’t matter if you’re from Massachusetts or Mississippi institute of technology once you have your foot in the door. </p>
<p>More ambitious people tend to go to better schools, but I am extremely skeptical that actually ie. going to MIT makes you smarter. Getting in indicates that you are smarter, and thats it.</p>
<p>The one guy with an MIT degree at the first place I worked was considered a PITA. He was really good at FINDING problems but not solving them. I seriously don’t think the company would have considered hiring another person from MIT (probably not fair, but he gave the school a bad name!).</p>
<p>I have to agree with Madison. Surely, schools like MIT would not produce such great engineers if they didn’t receive great students. If the same people that went to MIT went to a very good public school, I doubt they’d do much worse.</p>
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Actual research on the subject agrees with you, to a pretty large extent.
Still, MIT/Stanford/Berkeley open doors to those talented and motivated enough to take the wonderful opportunities given to them.</p>
<p>I am going to go out on a limb and say that an Ivy League builds more technical students. Please note I don’t have practical experience (as I am in High School), but from the kids that enter ivy leagues, from my school, it is obvious that they are robotic walking books. Ask them what aspects of a plane make it fly, and they will tell you. However, ask them how can we improve these aspects and they’ll struggle. Also, I think we also have to consider the factors that make a school ranked high in engineering. In full honesty, what is the difference between an engineering program at Purdue or at Harvard? Other than that, thanks for the advice guys, I appreciate it.</p>
<p>It would be super helpful if people could address the OP’s question by leaving out Ivy League schools and super hard to get into schools like Duke. If he’s looking at Maryland and Miami (like my DS), Ivy and Duke are probably not likely.</p>