<p>Well, Dartmouth’s engineering “department” offers about a total of 40 undergrad courses intended for majors. Total. For the entirety of engineering. It’s like getting a liberal arts degree from Rose Hulman.</p>
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<p>Yes, 47th in the nation is abysmal. Oh, wait. Besides, it is a bit underrated.</p>
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<p>It is half the price only if you are instate and require no financial aid. Its nearly the same price out of state, and has little aid when compared to Yale. Deciding between the two would be very easy if you weren’t rich. Moreover, its really only better for engineering industry preparation and watching football. The base level of undergraduate education at Yale far surpasses that of Georgia Tech. There are more things to consider than an undergraduate engineering ranking.</p>
<p>"Moreover, its really only better for engineering industry preparation and watching football. "</p>
<p>That’s not so, it is better for watching basketball too. Don’t get Hawkette started…</p>
<p>“There are more things to consider than an undergraduate engineering ranking.”</p>
<p>Yes, for one thing there is hockey. Which, amazingly Yale has gotten really good at lately.</p>
<p>Suggest past the top tier be wary of these rankings, it appears that colleges can “earn” higher rankings by having some relatively strong research groups in just a few areas covered, even if they are only in particular sub-areas of the field. The schools don’t seem to be penalized for not covering the field comprehensively. Or for not offering substantial breadth and depth of courses in engineering. For example, IIRC there are ranked schools that are completely absent a huge practice area, such as civil engineering, altogether. So yeah you can go there and become an “engineer” of some sort, but don’t worry about your preferences turning to civil engineering once you’re there, because they don’t have it, altogether. Ditto other areas/ sub-aras of the field that they don’t have.</p>
<p>Suggest for each school, as one indication count the courses actually offered in a given semester, in engineering, from the registrar’s list of courses actually being given (not from the catalog), and the # professors. This wiill give some idea of the breadth and depth of what one can learn there, in engineering.</p>
<p>“Banking is a waste of a good education, if you ask me. I get the impression that bankers are greedy and shallow.”</p>
<p>I sneeze at your impression. However I would say that if you go into banking from an engineering undergrad you may have relatively wasted an undergraduate education, training for a vocation you will never practice, when you could have spent more time learning more interesting/broadening stuff instead. Even pragmatically speaking, at your banking cocktail parties, another liberal arts course will have more schmoozing value than that extra course in advanced semiconductor electronics. Just my opinion. having actually made that journey.</p>
<p>I definitely agree with Cornell being at the top. However, for 2nd, it is a sharp drop. </p>
<p>Harvard just added more to their engineering department, but from what I understand, students have always cross admitted with MIT.
Moreover, a teacher has told me that compared to other Ivy’s for engineering, Columbia or UPenn isnt bad, but not in the same league as Cornell and the following competitors: MIT, CMU, Stanford, Caltech, GIT etc…</p>
<p>but then again, and education is what you put into it, so im sure anyone could be successful anywhere. Its just that certain schools have more prestige than others.</p>
<p>What is this “sharp drop” everyone’s talking about between Cornell and the second best Eng. School?</p>
<p>US News has Princeton ranked 10th in the nation, only 3 spots below Cornell!</p>
<p>I think it all boils down to what you want to do with your degree.</p>
<p>If you want to work in engineering right out of college, Cornell, Princeton, or maybe Columbia or Penn are your best bets.</p>
<p>If you’re looking to eventually go into finance/consulting/etc with your degree, schools like Yale, Dartmouth, or Princeton might be best. </p>
<p>If you’re looking to go straight to grad school, honestly any Ivy-league program will serve you well as long as you excel in your program.</p>
<p>I’m a prospective engineering student and I’m (<em>gasp</em>) looking into Dartmouth and Yale (along with some other more reputable programs) because I’m not completely set on engineering. While these schools would prepare me for engineering grad school or an engineering career, they also give me tons of options outside of engineering. Yale’s especially attractive because the student:faculty ratio is approximately 1:1.</p>
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<p>MIT is not an Ivy League school. Why are you looking at Ivy League schools for engineering? Besides Cornell, I wouldn’t consider any of them. If you look around the country, you will find plenty of better, hardcore engineering schools like: GT, MIT, UCLA, UC-Berkeley, UIUC, Michigan, CalTech, etc… Those are where the largest, well known engineering companies recruit from.</p>
<p>Mvmanno
i am also considering Yale and Princeton for Engineering. I am strong in math and really love it, but I am not quite so sure about engineering as a career-both my parents are engineers. 
I want to be at a strong school with a great network, and am interested in computational neuroscience, or bio engineering. I think I will have more options at these schools.</p>
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<p>More options than whom? The engineering departments in those two schools are quite small.</p>
<p>Ray, is that a bad thing?</p>
<p>Personally I’d rather be one of 60 Yale Engineers working with the 60 Yale Engineering Faculty Members than one of 7500 Georgia Tech Engineers working with under 450 faculty members.</p>
<p>Many students, like myself and Emily, are interested in undergraduate engineering that doesn’t limit us to a trade-school-esque approach to engineering.</p>
<p>Schools like Yale, Dartmouth, and Princeton (again, only 3 spots behind Cornell acc. to US News) are perfect because they don’t close any doors in the engineering world, thanks to their ivy league affiliations, yet they also do not bind their graduates to a career in engineering.</p>
<p>Wow, you’re sensitive about this, aren’t you? </p>
<p>First of all, the size of the department implies that your range of options in the department isn’t particularly large either. That’s all I said. </p>
<p>Second of all, you’re implying that other engineering schools are trade-school-esque and bind their graduate to a career in engineering. I suppose I am doomed to a miserable career in engineering, eh? Not to mention a life of brutish calculations devoid of all culture and civilizations, the realm strictly reserved to those who don’t go to trade schools… </p>
<p>Third, please don’t talk about your engineering departments like that. If I was a professor in those schools, I would rather be miffed that the students went there not for the engineering but because there’s plenty of backup options. It really doesn’t make the school sound good when you imply you want to go there because you’re not really serious about engineering.</p>
<p>Haha, didn’t mean to come off as that p****.</p>
<p>I’m just trying to make the point that there are good engineering schools out of the top-10 in the US News rankings. (which many people on CC seem to vigorously deny)</p>
<p>^^^There are also plenty of great schools out of the top 10 in the US news rankings that are superior in engineering to all Ivy League schools, save Cornell.</p>
<p>^but those schools don’t offer you an Ivy League education. Isn’t that the most important thing to consider when applying to college?</p>
<p>^^I assume you’re being sarcastic right? :-)</p>
<p>Not at all. As a student at Penn I have to overjustify my choice to attend one of the top schools in the country. When people talk about the fact that schools outside of my athletic conference have decent academics it makes uncomfortable. There are only eight colleges worth considering in this country. The rest are all basically the same. I mean, MIT vs GA Tech vs Ball State vs Community College. Whats the difference? It’s all not Ivy League.</p>
<p>^^^Well then you are delusional. The reason you have to justify going to Penn engineering is simply because you obvously like to brag about being in the IL and are disappointed that others are not that impressed overall with it’s engineering departments. Too bad you couldn’t get accepted into a real top notch engineering program like MIT and Stanford. Those two schools, not in the Ivy League, are at a higher level overall academically than Penn and more prestigious.</p>
<p>I’m glad you saw sarcasm in that (though sarcasm doesn’t travel as well on the web). I’m also not at Penn for engineering. I also wouldn’t say MIT is better than Penn academically. We have much better history and sociology departments :)</p>
<p>Michigan has better history and sociology departments then MIT as well. That doesn’t mean Michigan, or Penn for that matter, is better than MIT academically overall. In the meantime, keep drinking the Kool-Aid.</p>
<p>For the departments the three schools share MIT is either better than or (worst case) equal to Penn and Michigan (including my major). It’s not like Penn or Michigan are too far behind though (like top 5 vs top 10-15). However, for the departments MIT doesn’t have, Michigan and Penn are far greater than it (wonder why?). In conclusion, Penn and Michigan are better than MIT for the simple fact that I say so and my word is final.</p>
<p>I really do like MIT and hope to go there for grad school. Probably a pipe dream though.</p>
<p>OK. Whatever. Shaking my head…</p>