<p>I have an idea of which of the below schools are top-tier engineering schools, but what about the rest? Where do they rank (relatively)?</p>
<p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
Stanford University
Harvard College
Princeton University
Harvey Mudd College
Carnegie Mellon University
University of California: Berkeley
University of Pennsylvania
University of Miami
University of Washington
Purdue University</p>
<p>Thanks for your comments.</p>
<p>GROUP I:
California Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford University
University of California-Berkeley</p>
<p>GROUP II:
Carnegie Mellon University
Harvey Mudd College
Princeton University
Purdue University</p>
<p>GROUP III:
Harvard University
University of Pennsylvania
University of Washington</p>
<p>GROUP IV:
Uiversity of Miami</p>
<p>Harvard and Penn do not have typical undergraduate engineering programs where you get a degree in Mech. Engineering or Chem. Engineering.</p>
<p>Both of these schools offer a general engineering major in a liberal arts context. Students graduate with a B.A. or B.S. degree majoring in Engineering. Swarthmore and Dartmouth are two more schools that take a similar approach.</p>
<p>Most of the other schools you mention are more typical engineering programs where you take mostly engineering courses and get a degree in a specialized engineering field. This is the standard route for students looking to join the workforce immediately as a practicing engineer.</p>
<p>The more generalized programs may be interesting for students who already know they want to go on to graduate school in engineering or who are thinking along the lines of management in a technology field.</p>
<p>It's a bit of a breadth versus depth issue.</p>
<p>Alexandre: what does each group represent?</p>
<p>interesteddad: so going anywhere on my list except Harvard and UPenn would give me a stronger engineering education, but going to Harvard/UPenn would give me a borader (liberal arts) education with some engineering emphasis?</p>
<p>Is it unwise to include schools such as Harvard and UPenn on my list just because of their name/history as overall excellent schools instead of choosing schools specifically for engineering? (I realize Harvard isn't renowned for engineering, but by itself Harvard is good for anyone's list, correct?)</p>
<p>Each group represents a level. There is little difference from group to group, but the difference in reputation, research and resources is still recognizeable. </p>
<p>Other schools that belong to GROUP II are Cornell, Illinois-Urbana Champaign, Michigan-Ann Arbor, Northwestern and UT-Austin.</p>
<p>And whether including Harvard is worthwhile depends entirely on what you want to do. If your goal is to join a consulting firm or an Investmenr Bank upon graduation, they yes, it is worth applying to Harvard. On the other hand, if you intend to pursue a career in research, get a job as an Engineer or go for a PhD in Engineering, then I would say you would be best served not applying to Harvard.</p>
<p>
[quote]
interesteddad: so going anywhere on my list except Harvard and UPenn would give me a stronger engineering education, but going to Harvard/UPenn would give me a borader (liberal arts) education with some engineering emphasis?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know if I would use the word "stronger". In a standard engineering program, you will take more courses in a particular field of engineering, so you will graduate as a particular kind of engineer -- a Mech. Engineer, a Chemical Engineer, etc. You will typically take fewer standard college courses (English, History, Philosopy, etc.). You will graduate and be an easy hire for an engineering firm looking to hire 100 Mechanical Engineers.</p>
<p>In the kind of program Harvard or Penn offer, you will take courses in all of the sub-fields in engineering. So you will get basic training in Electrical, Chemical, Mechanical, Materials, etc. and then take elective courses in a specific area. But, your degree will be as a general engineer -- broader, but not as deep in a particular area. However, you will probably get a stronger education in writing, communication, economics, or whatever.</p>
<p>I am more familiar with Swarthmore's program, but I assume that Harvard's and Penn's are similar. In the Swarthmore program, you take 32 semesters:</p>
<p>a) a minmum of eight semesters of math and science, inc. at least 4 in math, 2 in physics, and 1 in chemistry, plus an additional elective in math, chem, bio, physics, or computer science that fits with your area of Engineering concentration.</p>
<p>b) a minimum of twelve semesters of engineering:
Every major must take the following four mandatory courses: Mechanics, Electric Circuit Analysis, Thermofluid Mechanics , and Engineering Design (a senior design project). </p>
<p>Plus two or three of: Linear Physical Systems Analysis, Experimentation for Engineering Design, or Fundamentals of Digital Systems. </p>
<p>Then, five or six elective engineering courses in the area of engineering you wish to concentrate in. Typical elective program plans include the following:</p>
<p>Electrical engineering group.
Electronic Circuit Applications, Physical Electronics, Electromagnetism, Communication Systems, Digital Signal Processing, VLSI Design, and Control Theory and Design. Students having an interest in digital systems might replace one or more of these courses with Principles of Computer Architecture, or Computer Graphics. </p>
<p>*Computer engineering group. *
Principles of Computer Architecture, Computer Graphics, Computer Vision, and Robotics. Students with an interest in computer hardware may include Electronic Circuit Applications, Physical Electronics, Digital Signal Processing, VLSI Design, or Control Theory and Design. </p>
<p>*Mechanical engineering group. *
Mechanics of Solids, Engineering Materials, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer, Thermal Energy Conversion, Solar Energy Systems, or Control Theory and Design. </p>
<p>Civil and environmental engineering group.
Basic preparation includes Mechanics of Solids, Structural Theory and Design I, Soil and Rock Mechanics, and Water Quality and Pollution Control. Additional courses include Operations Research and Environmental Systems for those interested in the environment or urban planning, or Structural Theory and Design II for those interested in architecture or construction. Other recommended courses include Solar Energy Systems, Fluid Mechanics, and Engineering Materials. </p>
<p>On top of these 20 semesters, you must take at least 3 semesters of social science courses (Econ, Poli Sci, etc.) and 3 semesters of humanities (English, Philosophy, History, Art, etc.)</p>
<p>That leaves 6 more semesters to take whatever you like -- more math, more chemistry, more physics, more econ....</p>
<p>Most engineering students go the traditional route: decide at age 18 that you want to be an engineer, enroll in an engineering school, and study to be a working engineer immediately out of college. </p>
<p>The general engineering degree outlined above is more atypical.</p>
<p>
[quote]
go for a PhD in Engineering
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Heh, heh, you know I can't resist. With the caution that only a small percentage of engineering undergrads get a PhD, here's the number of PhDs in Engineering per 1000 undergrad graduates from each school over the most recent ten year period. (Harvard is definitely not near the top, although I think they've been investing in their Engineering Department over the last five years and now have plans for a School of Engineering). This list takes into account ALL graduates of each school, so schools that have a huge percentage of engineering grads will tend to be higher on the list; schools that have relatively few engineering grads in the overall mix will be lower. The top of the list is pretty much dominated by tech schools. The large all-purpose state universities are at a bit of disadvantage because they just don't produce that many PhD relative to the huge number of graduates, which shouldn't detract from the fact that several of them have superb engineering programs. For example, Berkeley's and Illinois' numbers here are very impressive given that built-in handicap.</p>
<hr>
<p>Number of PhDs per 1000 graduates </p>
<p>Academic field: All Engineering </p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees: ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database<br>
Number of Undergraduates: ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database<br>
Formula: Total PhDs divided by Total Grads, multiplied by 1000 </p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period<br>
Note: Includes all NSF doctoral degrees inc. PhD, Divinity, etc., but not M.D. or Law. </p>
<p>1 California Institute of Technology 109
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 65
3 Harvey Mudd College 52
4 Cooper Union 39
5 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 37
6 Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology 28
7 Carnegie Mellon University 28
8 University of Missouri, Rolla 26
9 Case Western Reserve University 26
10 Colorado School of Mines 26
11 Rice University 24
12 Alfred University, Main Campus 22
13 Georgia Institute of Technology, Main Campus 22
14 Polytechnic University 21
15 Worcester Polytechnic Institute 21
16 Johns Hopkins University 19
17 Stevens Institute of Technology 19
18 Princeton University 18
19 Michigan Technological University 18
20 Clarkson University 16
21 Lehigh University 15
22 Illinois Institute of Technology 15
23 Cornell University, All Campuses 15
24 Swarthmore College 13
25 Stanford University 13
26 Duke University 12
27 South Dakota School of Mines & Technology 12
28 Florida Institute of Technology 12
29 University of California-Berkeley 11
30 New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology 11
31 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 11
32 United States Military Academy 10
33 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ 10
34 Milwaukee School of Engineering 10
35 GMI Engineering and Management Institute 10
36 Drexel University 9
37 United States Air Force Academy 9
38 University of Rochester 9
39 Washington University 9
40 Lafayette College 9
41 Purdue University, Main Campus 9
42 University of Notre Dame 9
43 University of Michigan at Ann Arbor 8
44 Virginia Military Institute 8
45 Brown University 7
46 University of Tulsa 7
47 University of Virginia, Main Campus 7
48 North Carolina State University at Raleigh 7
49 Northwestern Univ 7
50 Columbia University in the City of New York 7
51 University of Pennsylvania 7
52 Christian Brothers University 7
53 United States Naval Academy 7
54 New Jersey Institute Technology 7
55 University of Dayton 7
56 Vanderbilt University 7
57 Tennessee Technological University 7
58 Pennsylvania State U, Main Campus 6
59 Iowa State University 6
60 United States Merchant Marine Academy 6
61 Union College (Schenectady, NY) 6
62 Grinnell College 6
63 Tufts University 6
64 Tulane University 6
65 University of California-San Diego 6
66 University of PR Mayaguez Campus 6
67 University of Minnesota - Twin Cities 6
68 SUNY at Buffalo 6
69 Dartmouth College 6
70 Walla Walla College 6
71 New Mexico State University, All Campuses 5
72 University of Wisconsin-Madison 5
73 University of California-Davis 5
74 Tri-State University 5
75 University of Colorado at Boulder 5
76 Clemson University 5
77 Yale University 5
78 Bucknell University 5
79 Ohio Northern University 5
80 Manhattan College 5
81 University of Tennessee at Knoxville 5
82 Trinity University 5
83 Tuskegee University 5
84 West Virginia University Institute of Technology 5
85 University of Delaware 5
86 Texas A&M University Main Campus 5
87 University of Texas at Austin 5
88 University of Florida 5
89 University of Maryland at College Park 5
90 Catholic University of America 4
91 University of Pittsburgh Main Campus 4
92 University of Cincinnati, All Campuses 4
93 Kalamazoo College 4
94 Rutgers the State Univ of NJ New Brunswick 4
95 University of California-Los Angeles 4
96 University of Bridgeport 4
97 Montana Tech of the University of Montana 4
98 Harvard University 4
99 Brigham Young University, Main Campus 4
100 Louisiana Tech University 4
101 CUNY City College 4
102 Carleton College 4
103 Lawrence University 4
104 Allegheny College 4
105 United States Coast Guard Academy 4
106 University of Washington - Seattle 4
107 Auburn University, Main Campus 4
108 North Carolina Agricultural & Tech State Univ 4
109 Ohio State University, Main Campus 4
110 Howard University 4
111 University of Arizona 4
112 Dordt College 4
113 Wright State University, All Campuses 4
114 Oregon State University 4
115 Oklahoma State University, All Campuses 4</p>
<p>Interesteddad, again, that is not a telling figure. For every 1,000 student at MIT, CalTech and Harvery Mudd, 500-700 are Engineers, compared to 100-200 at Cornell, Michigan and Stanford.</p>
<p>Right. So if you are looking for a particular emphasis on engineering, then MIT, CalTech, and Harvey Mudd are certainly three places where you will find it! I know that you aren't suggesting these aren't among the top engineering programs in the country.</p>
<p>If I were looking to be an English major, one way to go about it would be to identify schools that focus an extraordinary amount of resources on English majors, i.e. a specialized college just for English majors. I would expect such a school to produce a lot of PhDs in English, just like I would expect tech schools to top the charts on this list.</p>
<p>If you don't want to go to a tech school, then peruse the list and find the all-purpose schools with engineering programs. If you want a state university, scroll down the list and find Berkley, Illinois, Michigan, etc. Of the 100+ schools I listed, there's something for just about everybody.</p>
<p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
Harvey Mudd College
University of California: Berkeley
Stanford University
Harvard College
Princeton University
Carnegie Mellon University
University of Pennsylvania
Purdue University
University of Miami
University of Washington</p>
<p>in my opinion.</p>
<p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
Stanford University
Harvey Mudd College
University of California: Berkeley
Carnegie Mellon University
Purdue University
Princeton University
University of Washington
Harvard College
University of Pennsylvania
(huge huge gap)
University of Miami</p>
<p>I think Alexandre's list is pretty accurate, although I'd put Caltech and MIT alone in the very top.
As for the PhD program info, forget that stuff. Interesteddad likes to post it, its kinda his shtick, but its completely irrrelevant to picking an engineering school. </p>
<p>Engineering programs are acredited by ABET and you'll learn the same stuff anywhere; what differs is the rigor of the program and the abilities of your fellow students.</p>
<p>interested dad, do you have a Ph.D? Do you have certain, um, physiological responses to seeing the word Ph.D? ;)</p>
<p>Wow! Thanks for all of this info.</p>
<p>I definitely want a deep, specific (mechanical) engineering education, so I suppose I will cut Harvard and all of those other broader education schools from my list.</p>
<p>Does one usually attend graduate school for a Ph.D. immediately after earning a bachelor's degree or does he/she work for a few years and <em>then</em> go back to school?</p>
<p>Also, I know this is really far away in the future, but does/should one go to graduate school at the same university he/she earned an undergraduate degree?</p>
<p>Thanks again.</p>
<p>
[quote]
interested dad, do you have a Ph.D?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No. And, personally, I think you'd have to be nuts to want a PhD in most fields. The hard sciences being the possible exception, where it is such an obvious career path.</p>
<p>The reason I find the PhD data interesting is that it is the ONLY available widespread, long-term, scientifically-collected data on college outcomes. It would be great if similar metrics were available for other career and educational paths, but nobody collects the data in a consistent fashion as the NSF has been doing for PhDs for the last 85 years.</p>
<p>It also serves as an imprecise proxy for several characteristics of a school and a student body. In other words, it is not coincidence that schools like Harvard and MIT produce future PhDs at a very high rate relative to other similar private research universities. Or that UCB produces a very high rate of PhDs relative to other similar huge state universities.</p>
<p>If I posted MD production rates for colleges, people would lap it up like hungry kittens over a bowl of milk. Yet, more than twice as many college grads get PhDs than get M.D.s each year.</p>
<p>interestedadd,</p>
<p>You keep posting over and over that list and it gets quite annoying because it's so irrelevant compared to other ranking. I'd already told you before a girl from Swarthmore found herself seriously behind compared to her peers (other graduate students) at Northwestern. She's a graduate student but was taking classes with juniors (one of them is me). That means she's not really qualified as a chemical (or any kind for that matter) engineer at that point (That may actually be one of the major reasons why they have higher numbers going to grad schools; it's because grad schools are where they actually get trained as engineers). I am sure she eventually caught up and finished her MS or PhD at Northwestern. But that's more due to the fact that Swarthmore has high quality of students and she's one of them rather than the training she received (which is lacking compared to her peers). Most coming out of Swarthmore are gonna play catch up when they go to graduate schools. In terms of job market, they will lose out in positions that require specific engineering majors. Sure, they may be sought after in finance or non-engineering fields but so are other Swarthmore's majors; that's more to do with Swarthmore being one of the finest LACs rather than engineering specificly. So don't tell me it's engineering is as cool as any of the top-20 engineering program while at the same time saying how great you get great liberal arts education also. You just can't have it all.</p>
<p>
[quote]
No. And, personally, I think you'd have to be nuts to want a PhD in most fields.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, that explains my problem. LOL</p>
<p>PLEEEEEEASE do your own research. Interesteddad may be wrong at times:
<a href="http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=1464&profileId=7%5B/url%5D">http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=1464&profileId=7</a>
Penn offers multiple specialized engineering principles like any other decent school. He is right about harvard and swarthmore. Dartmouth offers biomed engineering, engineering physics, and engineering science.</p>
<p>If you are considering engineering, dont consider harvard swarthmore or dartmouth (unless you want biomed, but even then you may want a different engineering discipline).</p>
<p>From the people I've spoken to, a Phd really isnt necessary for engineering, unless you are considering going into academia. Few companies actually look for engineering Phds, and if they do, the extra pay wont be commensurate with the time spent getting the degree. A chemical engineering professor told me that if you majored in chemistry, you would basically have to get a Phd to get any respectable job (ie not quality control) whereas in chem engineering you would be making $20k more than a guy with a bachelors in chem and would do a more important and respectable job, research if you are lucky. The extent of grad school for engineers is a Masters in engineering. </p>
<p>I guess the smarter the students, the greater the tendency to go into academia, explaining the high number of phds among MIT and Caltech grads. That, or those schools just attract the wannabe profs.
I agree with im_blue's list, though Penn is better than harvard, because it has multiple degrees, and may be better than uwashington.</p>
<ol>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>UC Berkeley</li>
</ol>
<p>The rest: who cares.</p>
<p>Check these rankings up elsewhere---you'll see what I mean. Not just me fabricating or offering an unwarranted opinion!</p>
<p>UC Berkeley is probably second in EECS (electrical engineering).</p>
<p>Oh. I'm not trying to dissuade you or anything, but a classmate of mine who is going to Cal-Tech recently had a mental breakdown.</p>
<p>He is now seeing a psychiatrist and is taking meds mainly due to academic pressure pressed upon by parents and by the school. (The school is, well, INTENSE.)</p>
<p>My other classmate rejected Cal-Tech for Harvard (even though he got a full-ride to Cal-Tech) because he said the students at Cal-Tech are very very very "weird." They only talk about science--for fun. They can't hold conversations whatsoever.</p>
<p>Ok, so maybe I am dissuading you.</p>
<p>Take your happiness into account!! </p>
<p>(My father was an EECS major & got a master's and is now a computer engineer so I'm not completely oblivious to engineering.)</p>