<p>I got a letter today from RIT and in the letter it mentions that the school's college of engineering "has been ranked 4th in the nation by US News and World Reportand is now competing favorably in the doctoral degree category". is this true? even if it had been ranked that high, why is it so low now? (its about 70th)</p>
<p>Are you sure you're not getting RIT confused with URochester?</p>
<p>RIT has never been ranked 4th in the doctoral degree category. It might have been ranked 4th when it was in the masters degree category a few years ago. RIT just started its first PhD program, I think.</p>
<p>Where else have you applied? Which type of engineering interests you? How did you do on the math SATs?</p>
<p>RIT is third tier engineering. Look to UR, RPI, or maybe CWRU which gives nice aid packages. CMU is in the great city of Pittsburgh but will not dole out the $$$ like the school in far less appealing Cleveland.</p>
<p>ok thanks for the tips, but ya its RIT for sure and they claim that they had a 4th ranked engineering school (for bachelors im asuming). It must have been back in the 70s or something lol. I am also applying to most of the top ranked schools. Im only applying to RIT because they are waiving my application fee, so it doesnt hurt to apply. Do you know anything about Illinois Institute of Technology? they gave me a generous scholarship, but I dont know if it has a good engineering program.</p>
<p>IIT is decent-- maybe on the same tier w/ RIT. Have you chked out Rose-Hulman if you're interested in the midwest?</p>
<p>no, is that a good school? ill take a look at it.</p>
<p>It was ranked 4th overall in engineering by USNEWS for schools where masters are the highest degrees. </p>
<p>You can refer to another post here
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/148290-goergia-tech-vs-rit-3.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/148290-goergia-tech-vs-rit-3.html</a></p>
<p>To sum it up, RIT isn't ranked favorably because it has many mandatory 5 year programs, so four year graduation rates are extremely low. Also, teaching students is the primary focus and research is an after thought. Another strike against it.</p>
<p>My take on the school is that it is much more respected in the industry than in academic circles. So if you want a job right out of school, this is the place. If you want to go for advanced degrees, you can definitely do better at a research school.</p>
<p>I'd go for GT if I were you.</p>
<p>ok thanks for clearing that up, so which one do u guys think is better, IIT or RIT? im not applying to GT, i dont really want to live in georgia</p>
<p>Very different schools. IIT is extremely small, in Chicago. RIT is fairly big.</p>
<p>Both schools give out decent merit aid. Can you apply to both ?</p>
<p>I think Illinois Inst Tech has a higher grad rate than RIT, 69% vs 59%.</p>
<p>Read my post about that deals with "overview of out visit to RIT." It is the sticky thread found at the top of the forum there.</p>
<p>RIT is a great school for academics. Don't let anyone on these boards convince you otherwise. They also have a strong coop program that will give you some nice experience for your resume. In fact, I have rarely seen anyone on any forum knock the academic side of RIT. In fact, most schools that have coops aren't usually strong academically. RIT is strong in most areas academically too.</p>
<p>Even in rankings by US News, one of the most important components is the Peer rankings,which is very high for RIT. Thus, it is well-regarded by other academic institutions.</p>
<p>Their problems,which hurts them in the overall ratings and in forums, are several things unrelated to their academics:</p>
<ol>
<li>Because they have coops, their 4 year graduation rates are very low.</li>
<li>Most kids complain that there isn't much to do at RIT. It isn't near anything, and there isn't much to do on campus.</li>
<li>The weather is a killer. It is VERY cold and snowy. Thus, kids don't want to go outside and do things.</li>
<li>RIT is a hard school. Their work and expectations are akin to Carnegie Mellon. The catch is that their average student isn't on the level of CMU, at least on paper. Many kids are surprised at this and transfer out or drop out,. which hurts RIT's rankings.</li>
</ol>
<p>Some have suggested Georgia Tech,which is well regarded. The problem with a state school these days is that they are subject to state budget cuts. I have seen this with my daughter at Cincinnati and REALLY don't like that. Budget cuts aren't as pervasive for the good private schools.</p>
<p>Bottom line, RIT probably isn't as well thought of as schools like MIT, CalTech, RPI etc. However, if you want a strong school for academics, great coop for experience at a very reasonable price for a private school, RIT is a fine choice AS LONG AS you were willing to deal with the cold!</p>
<p>collegehelp!!</p>
<p>not to be disrespectful, but i would highly suggest you do more research before you make statements for or against a particular school. in this case, rit. students would benefit for better researched and more insightful replies!</p>
<p>let me clarify. rit's usnews doctoral engineering ranking of circa 70th is right in the stratosphere of schools such as university of rochester which you seem to advocate. this is impressive considering there are only a handful of doctoral programs available. the engineering program is definitely not third tier! it was ranked NATIONALLY, not regionally, for programs whose highest degree is a masters and beat out schools such as cooper union, the air force academy, and harvey mudd.</p>
<p>the doctoral rankings are relatively low because there are so few doctoral programs! the school is just starting to add doctoral programs as of late 1990s early 2000s. furthermore, the school is just a really quirky univesity that doesnt follow a lot of the standard conventions of a good school. it get's penalized heavily for this. </p>
<p>secondly, i believe i mentioned this in other posts but the four year graduation rate is low because it is not a four year school! there is approximately 1 year of mandatory coop (requirement for graduation). </p>
<p>taxguy is right on the mark in saying that the quality of student is not up to par with that of CMU. the student body is well above average but falls short of elite schools. the overall average SAT of the school is 1220. the average SAT score for engineering school is slightly higher. when i was in the engineering school it was just shy of 1300. there IS alot of fall out in the engineering programs. i do believe that the students that do make it through to the end are on par with students from the elite universities. this is one of my major criticisms with the school. they need to tighten up admissions to be more in tune with the level of coursework. </p>
<p>i can't speak on behalf of other schools/programs for this. but myself and my classmates are doing very well in the real world. You don't know how many RIT kids I bump into here at Intel. Some of the other companies that my friends are at are IBM (software dev), Samsung (software dev), Bose (firmware engineer), ATI (now AMD) (physical designer), and Microsoft( SDET or software design engineer in test). </p>
<p>as far as advanced degrees are concerned, RIT sends less kids directly to grad school as the focus is on obtaining a career. however, some of my friends have found success in this arena as well. another one of my friends is doing a PHD program in bioinformatics at Yale (information technology BS and Bioninformatics MS from RIT). another is doing a PHD in EE at berkeley. i'm currently in the hunt for a PHD program since my company is sponsoring me. mind you, these aren't exceptional cases out of a large student body. these are the paths of a very small cricle of people close to me.</p>
<p>furthermore, being a teaching institution rather than a research institution has its benefits despite being ranked poorly. i knew all of my professors and still maintain contact three years after graduation. i was by no means a teachers pet either. i was probably the biggest slacker to make it through the computer engineering program =). classes were small (between 15 and 25 typically) and their expectations of me were brutally high. you will find that some professors in research institutions treat teaching as an after thought. at rit, the professors are there for the sole purpose of teaching and leading students. </p>
<p>this was long but i hope it was helpful. do your research and look at schools as more than just the sum of its parts or a number on a list!</p>
<p>wow seems like most of you have strong opinions about RIT, which I agree with. It seems like a very good school, but I am planning on going to medical school after I graduate with a bachelors degree in some sort of engineering, so that extra year might not work well with my plans. Also, is the campus life really that bad? I figured that its in a town with about 4 other colleges, there would be a lot of things to do, I guess not. Well I applied to IIT and RIT, RIT has not replied yet, but as i mentioned, IIT gave me a good amount of money, so Im definitly considering IIT as well.</p>
<p>realized_fear-
I am glad you and your friends found good jobs after graduating from RIT. I am not really trying to criticize RIT at all. I am just trying to help prospective students make informed choices.</p>
<p>I think all schools are ultimately career-oriented, not just RIT.</p>
<p>I think the graduation rates in US News are 6-year graduation rates, so coop would not account for RIT's lower grad rate.</p>
<p>College help:
Criticisms are very fair and welcome! Not to be overtly rude, but it's just that you don't seem to know much about the school past the rankings yet you have strong opinions. It would be more helpful if you could contribute something more than ranking vagaries. </p>
<p>My second point of contention is the notion that all schools are ultimately career oriented. That is absolutely NOT true. At a research institution such as MIT for example, the Professor's primary focus is to be engaged in private and publicly funded research. The graduate student's primary focus is to assist in research and churn out publications. RIT is different in the sense that the professor's primary goal is teaching and research is an after thought. RIT is more suited to launching graduates into successful private industry careers. RITs student focus is one if it's strong points but also one of my main criticisms! IMO It's hard to find good research opportunities on par with other universities on campus (not hard to find elsewhere though). </p>
<p>aznsens8ion:<br>
Sorry to completely derail the topic! But a year of health related internship/research is an important factor to acceptance to medical school. Furthermore, most students applying to top flight medical schools have publications under their belt as 2nd or 3rd authors. </p>
<p>A great but rarely mentioned gauge of a university is looking at senior capstone projects or theses. It may be over your head at this point in your engineering career but you can infer a lot about the quality of a school from the level of rigor and ingenuity of these projects. Also, talk to professors and judge their level of engagement with you. You want to get a notion that your professors are vested in your success. </p>
<p>I don't know too much about the specifics of this program because it wasn't around just three years back when I was at RIT but here is the link. </p>
<p>and the course sequence (looks like a meat grinder):
<a href="http://www.ee.rit.edu/docs/RIT_EE_PREMED.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.ee.rit.edu/docs/RIT_EE_PREMED.pdf</a></p>
<p>I believe it is somewhat in conjunction with the premedical studies in the science department. You can see from the course sequence there are no pulled punches which may be why the retention rate is so low. BUT the silver lining is that if you make it through in one piece I have little doubt that you will find success. </p>
<p>More information on premed studies.</p>
<p>RIT</a> | Premedical Studies | Top 10 reasons</p>
<p>RIT</a> | Premedical Studies | Medical Schools</p>
<p>Anyway. Good luck either way!</p>
<p>thanks for the info! you are right, research is important for med school. Well I will wait and see what kind of money RIT will give me, and which schools end up accepting me. But it is certainly nice to know that RIT will be a quality school</p>
<p>aznsens8ion-
How did you do on your SATs? If you scored over 1250, you might be a candidate for a top-50 university. Why are you not applying to U Washington?</p>
<p>Some pre-med programs report high placement rates because all the non-viable candidates are dropped from the premed program before they apply. </p>
<p>Go to the best school you can get into.</p>
<p>I will, I did ok on my SATs, I got 1890 on the SAT 1, and 730 in math 2 subject test, and 720 on the chemistry subject test. I am applying to a lot better schools including UW, but I want to go to UW for medical school since it is a top ranked medical school, and I dont really want to spend all 8 years in Seattle since I plan on living there after college. For these reasons, I want to go to a college out of state, I am applying to schools like JHU, NYU, CMU, etc. But they all require higher SAT scores than I got, so Im working with the schools I know I will get into, like RIT</p>