Princeton vs. UC Berkeley

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hi.</p>

<p>So, hypothetically if i were to get into both schools.
Which one should i choose for chemical engineering?</p>

<p>The ranking for UC Berkely is much higher than that of Princeton in Chemical Engineering.</p>

<p>Better school and reputation overall?
Or Better Department?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

2

<p>Depends on how certain you are that you want to study chemistry, and on how highly you value the Ivy League experience.</p>

3

<p>Berkeley. :)</p>

4

<p>Where do you live? East Coast or West Coast? Because if you’re in the east, I’d say Princeton. (The Ivies carry a mighty weight in that part of the world.) If you’re in the West, I’d say Cal, if nothing else than for the school’s connections to CA high tech. If you’re in the middle, I still say Princeton. It’s one of the finest undergraduate educations you can get, and whatever the school misses out in terms of chemical engineering as compared to Cal, it makes up with the (superlative) quality of the overall undergraduate experience.</p>

5

<p>I like Princeton a lot and I certainly would rank it top 3 in my list amongst the best schools in the US for undergraduate education, but I’d go for Berkeley for engineering and computer science over it. Again, only for engineering and computer science. The only schools that I would consider over Berkeley for engineering and CS are MIT, Stanford, and perhaps, Caltech too. Though the student body of Caltech might put me off the school. </p>

<p>Go to Berkeley. It is the superior engineering school.</p>

6

<p>Princeton is no slouch in chemical engineering.</p>

<p>Both programs are going to provide you a great education. If you’re lucky to have this decision, I would choose for other factors such as cost and campus environment - both of these schools are quite different.</p>

<p>Berkeley’s College of Chemistry (where chemical engineering resides) is a smaller, more intimate environment in a large research university setting. Of course, care and feeding might still be a bit better at Princeton.</p>

<p>If you have more questions about Berkeley’s ChemE program, I’d be happy to answer them for you.</p>

7

<p>

</p>

<p>RML, for Engineering, you have to look at the specific department, as certain departments are much better than others.</p>

<p>and for ChE, Princeton is close to the same level as UC Berkeley</p>

<p>USNWR Undergraduate ChE Rankings</p>

<h1>2 – UC Berkeley</h1>

<h1>10 - Princeton</h1>

<p>USNWR Graduate ChE Rankings</p>

<h1>2 – UC Bekeley</h1>

<h1>6 – Princeton</h1>

<p>NRC Graduate ChE Rankings</p>

<h1>3 – UC Bekeley</h1>

<h1>6 – Princeton</h1>

8

<p>

</p>

<p>fully agree with this…</p>

9

<p>

</p>

<p>katlia, actually both the UC Berkeley and Princeton ChE Departments are very strong in all parts of the U.S. For intance, on the East Coast if the student is looking at MIT for graduate school, both UCB and Princeton would be regarded at about the same level. On the west coast, if he is looking at Stanford or Caltech for graduate school, the same thing there.</p>

10

<p>

</p>

<p>It’s funny, because Princeton CS is ranked ahead of Berkeley in all major categories in the 2010 NRC rankings–reputation, quality, and research. Actually, by all these measures, Princeton is second only to Stanford (ahead of MIT and CMU in those three categories).</p>

11

<p>onecircuit, you are absolute correct about Princeton with regards to their engineering programs specifically in chem eng’g. But somehow, Berkeley is still higher in my personal list. For me, Berkeley is one of those few schools highly associated with engineering and CS and vice versa. Somehow, when i think about Berkeley i think about eng’g and or CS. And when I think about superb eng’g and CS schools, I think about Berkeley, apart from MIT and Stanford. Either way, this is a win-win case for the OP.</p>

12

<p>Some background on the Princeton ChE Department:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/cbe/undergrad/Undergrad_Handbook.pdf[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/cbe/undergrad/Undergrad_Handbook.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>and the Educational background of the Princeton ChE faculty:</p>

<p>MIT - 5
CalTech - 3
Stanford - 2
Cambridge (UK) - 2
Harvard - 2
Princeton - 1
UC Berkeley - 1
Carnegie Mellon - 1
Minnesota - 1
Wisconsin - 1
Michigan - 1
Northwestern - 1
Indian Institute of Technology -1</p>

<p>total 22 faculty members in ChE Department</p>

13

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</p>

<p>I didn’t go through the NRC rankings, but as a CS grad, I’m having trouble accepting that Princeton is superior to Berkeley for CS. Even the books and periodicals available then and now; impact of the CS research in the field today; value, size and depths of CS outputs would lead me to believe that Berkeley is much superior to Princeton. But that is not the topic of this thread so, let’s try to limit the discussion to Chem Eng’g.</p>

14

<p>Class of 2010 Undergraduate ChE’s
36 - Princeton
83 - UC Berkeley</p>

15

<p>

</p>

<p>universities make progress in certain departments through the years…</p>

<p>for instance UC Santa Barbara went from a top 10 ranked school to unquestionably the top ranked school in Materials Science Engineering in the country <a href=“http://www.materials.ucsb.edu/pdf/MATERIALS_program_ranks.pdf[/url]”>http://www.materials.ucsb.edu/pdf/MATERIALS_program_ranks.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>look at what USC engineering has done in the last 10-25 years…</p>

16

<p>

</p>

<p>But the numbers don’t lie. Surveys of academics show that Princeton is actually better regarded in CS than Berkeley. Evaluations of research productivity and impact show that Princeton does better in CS than Berkeley.</p>

<p>Whether this means that the department is on the whole better is up to you to decide. For the record, I have the same intuitions as you about Berkeley CS. But research records and reputation surveys are just objective fact.</p>

<p>(Even though we’re talking about CS, this same logic can be applied to their ChemE departments too.)</p>

<p>edit: in case you wanted to look at the NRC rankings of ChemE and CS </p>

<p><a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124712/[/url]”>http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124712/&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124721/[/url]”>http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124721/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

17

<p>I agree with what you said, onecircuit. But as you can see, Berkeley is still a leader in the field of CS now, and it’s doing measures to keep that leadership position. In addition to that, its proximity to SV – the epicenter of IT industry in the world – gives it an extra lead over Princeton. </p>

<p>As to the topic, whichever school the OP chooses, s/he should be fine.</p>

18

<p>

phanta, how would you explain it then that Berkeley has been rated higher than Princeton for CS in the USNews survey since forever? Isn’t USNews ranking all about “surveys of academics” too?</p>

19

<p>^ The US News survey is an extremely simplistic one. The survey done by the NRC is more expansive and much more complex than “rate these programs on a scale of 1-5.” The Chronicle page I posted includes links to explanations of the R-rank (and the other rankings). I encourage you to look them; the R-rank uses a sophisticated statistical model, on top of the tons of data collected from academics.</p>

20

<p>A quick browse of the NCR survey revealed that UCSD is a superior school to Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Michigan, Caltech, Brown and Harvard. Furthermore, it stands on equal footing with Berkeley in CS. REALLY? I mean, come on. Let’s get real here. Though I have a lot of respect for UCSD, I don’t think it is as great as Berkeley for CS, and I certainly won’t believe that it is superior to CMU, Cornell, Michigan, Caltech and Brown for CS.</p>