<p>Again, I cited my sources, all publicly available, and “showed my work.” Although that data I cited before is 10 years old, it shouldn’t be drastically different from today.</p>
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<p>I won’t argue that 50% of GT students go to graduate school. What I was comparing with ClassicRockerDad was <em>PhD-pursuing</em> students. As I stated above, I assumed you were quoting the 50% implying that a significant portion of those are PhD-bound.</p>
<p>The only thing I was trying to state was that the percentage of engineering and science PhD-obtaining graduates from GT was roughly the same as the percentage of PhD-obtaining graduates from Rose-Hulman. That’s what Classic was comparing with RHIT and Mudd, so that’s what I was comparing with RHIT and Georgia Tech.</p>
<p>So, Classic/Banjo, how would you rate the quality of GT recruits compared to schools like RIT, RPI, CMU, JHU, Lehigh, and the Ivies? Sorry if I’m hijacking the thread, but it’s refreshing to hear the opinions of engineering employers, and I’m sure many of us would like your feedback on other schools.</p>
<p>I wasn’t arguing that RHIT was as good as HMC, GT or UIUC. I just didn’t understand your argument for <em>why</em> RHIT wasn’t as good. (which is better is fairly subjective and neither one of us is going to sway the other’s mind…I just wanted to understand where you were coming from)</p>
<p>You said that RHIT required less of its incoming students and had less PhD-bound grads, so it wasn’t as good as HMC and was viewed less by recruiters. I didn’t understand why that made sense, so I gave you a counterexample: GT has similar requirements of incoming students and similar percentages of PhD-bound grads. I was simply trying to apply your reasoning for why RHIT wasn’t as good to other schools, to show where I thought your logic broke down.</p>
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<p>I agree. A recruiter would much rather go to UIUC or GT than RHIT, top-notch graduates and lots of them. The resources and opportunities at UIUC or GT (not to mention the original thread topic, MIT) are the best in the county. College is what you make of it, wherever you go.</p>
<p>gobeavs - you are comparing two different figures. The first is the percentage of PhD’s originating from RHIT, the second is the ratio of PhD vs BS graduates from GT - which includes those who got their undergrads elsewhere and omits those who get their PhD’s elsewhere. Considering that most PhD’s attend multiple schools, any correlation between these numbers is a coincidence.</p>
<p>“Being #1 among engineering schools whose highest degree is masters, is like being the castmember of Jersey Shore with the highest SAT score.”</p>
<p>I find the statement made earlier by you puzzling. The engineering schools found on the list are well known universities such as Harvey Mudd, West Point, Naval Academy. </p>
<p>So are you implying that RHIT beating all these highly selective and prestigious universities signifies nothing because they only grant masters? </p>
<p>Or are you implying Harvey Mudd, West Point, and Naval Academy are all crap in your opinion?</p>
<p>My company recruits at all of those schools, although I think just Cornell in terms of Ivies. </p>
<p>RIT is in a lower echelon altogether, but with the others, all I can say is that I’ve met some really talented people from each of those schools. As for Ivies, Cornell produces a lot of really talented people. The other ivies have much smaller numbers. </p>
<p>All of these schools also produce students whose resumes never see the light of day. The school isn’t going to make you a good engineer. It’s only going to provide you the opportunity to make yourself one.</p>
<p>It doesn’t imply <em>nothing</em>. I just view the bracket they are competing in, as the “junior” division. Most serious colleges have graduate programs.</p>
<p>Okay, so you are <em>stating</em>, and not implying, that Harvey Mudd, West Point, and Naval Academy are all junior division, and not “serious colleges” because they lack graduate programs.</p>
<p>That’s an interesting and aberrant belief that you hold. You are the first person I have ever ran into that considers Harvey Mudd, Cooper Union, West Point and Naval Academy to be NOT “serious colleges”.</p>
<p>I don’t have a strong opinion on where RHIT stand per say, but I definitely know how Harvey Mudd, Cooper Union, and the Naval/Army/Air Force academies are viewed by the well informed, and “junior division” is definitely not the words they would choose.</p>
<p>I bet A LOT of students on this thread would kill to have a chance to go to Harvey, and Cooper Union, etc…</p>
<p>There are a lot of good programs that do not offer a graduate course. However, lacking a graduate course makes it a lot harder to demonstrate greatness - most measures by which schools are measured (formally or informally) key to graduate-level research. Schools offering doctoral studies also give students the opportunity to learn directly from cutting-edge experts, to take some number of graduate-level classes, and to participate in leading research - opportunities that improve their education and prepare them for graduate study.</p>
<p>I do not think anyone would argue that schools like Cooper Union or West Point are not excellent schools - they are - but there is a pack of doctorate-offering schools that match them in just about every way and then offer a whole slew of graduate-related perks on top. For the majority of students they are probably similar in what you learn, but lack the general awareness and the opportunities that can be afforded to the best students at places like Berkeley, GT, and MIT.</p>
<p>There are of course exceptions - Harvey Mudd appears to do a fantastic job of prepping students for grad study, and the unique nature of the service academies appears to offset any penalties incurred by the lack of a grad program. For that matter, every school has a couple of Rhodes Scholars or such, but in my experience the vast majority of top engineers and grad students at top schools did their undergrad at doctorate-granting institutions.</p>
<p>I think the other big advantage to going to a school with grad students is, well, being able to meet grad students. It really helped a lot in my applications to grad schools being able to talk to a person or two that had already been through it (within the last few years), and sometimes their guidance in lab was much more helpful than a professor’s.</p>
<p>I don’t necessarily feel different about RIT. It’s just that it has been high on my son’s list since visiting last summer. He was impressed with the co-op program and liked the campus. RIT is his safety, but he really likes it. Should I be discouraging it?</p>
<p>The low representation in top grad schools could be due to the co-op program. I would suspect most RIT grads go straight to industry. As for Kodak, not sure how relevant that is. RIT claims to have 1,900 active employers around the country in their co-op program. Fewer top students might present perks or opportunities for those top students who are there. Is this misguided?</p>
<p>S has the goods to get into MIT or any school, but of course you never know. We have toured MIT, Harvard, Lehigh, Cornell, RIT, Dartmouth, Penn, and Princeton. Next up are Hopkins and Yale this week. GT is definitely on the list, but that involves a flight to visit (won’t happen unless admitted, same with Caltech and Stanford). Any feedback on these schools would be much appreciated. Again, sorry if I’m hijacking the thread, but it’s all relevant.</p>
<p>Chardo, I had applied to RIT back when I was applying as an undergrad because I thought the school was pretty neat, they had fantastic facilities, and a whole bunch of other things, but I wanted to do research for a career and the feeling I got from talking with people at RIT was that they were much more workplace oriented. I also got turned off a little since it was such a huge school.</p>
<p>Looking at your schools I’m guessing you’re northeast, so you definitely might want to expand your search to Worcester Polytech (WPI), Rensselaear Polytech (RPI), and Carnegie Mellon (where I wound up going), Case Western, Rice, and Purdue (I didn’t apply to the last three, but I’ve heard a lot of good talk about them here on the forums).</p>
<p>If your son is MIT material then CMU is probably a high match and schools like RPI and a very likely match. I actually found my admission and great financial aid offer at RPI to be very nice to have while negotiating financial aid with CMU.</p>
<p>If he has the goods to get into MIT, I’d drop RIT for sure. </p>
<p>I’d definitely consider Harvey Mudd if your looking at CalTech and Stanford. It’s very unique. </p>
<p>If you thinking northeast, pick RPI or Northeastern for a safety. If you are looking more nationwide, Georgia Tech is a good safety, so is Purdue. Other possible safeties are maybe Wisconsin, Toronto or Penn State. </p>
<p>Consider Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Illinois, and Rice as good overall choices. </p>
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<p>I do indeed think it is misguided. The pace will probably be faster and deeper at a top school, the problems will be more difficult, and the expectations will be that much higher. If he’s got the goods for MIT, I don’t think he’d reach his potential at RIT.</p>
<p>I think this may be the heart of the issue. This is true for everyone. Of course it is…doctorate-granting institutions produce the vast majority of engineers, and consequently the vast majority of top engineers. Pages 6 and 7 of [url=<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/nsf08311.pdf]this[/url”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/nsf08311.pdf]this[/url</a>] study are interesting. Page 7 shows the top 50 science and engineering schools ranked by number of graduates who go on to get a PhD. All but two are doctorate-granting research schools.</p>
<p>On the other hand, look at page 6. If you account for how large the school is and rank them by the percentage of students who go on to get a PhD, <em>over half</em> are non-doctorate-granting schools.</p>
<p>(if you read the study it actually talks about how this pattern is true for the sciences, but is actually reversed in engineering. Take that how you want, but I think it’s just a factor of students studying engineering in larger proportions at larger schools than at small, liberal arts colleges…now, if you want to study engineering most people <em>don’t</em> want to go to some small LAC because they won’t have the resources for a top-notch engineering program…but I’m referencing this study to just show a broader point about bachelors-only programs preparing people for grad school in technical fields)</p>
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<p>People are going to meet more PhDs who did their undergrad at GT than at HMC or Reed. But, that doesn’t mean that HMC and Reed don’t prepare people for graduate school - both rank in the top four for PhD production.</p>
<p>EDIT: This isn’t to say that I would rather go to some LAC than GT for my undergrad. Employers and grad schools will be more familiar with S&E grads from GT than a small school and so you will have an advantage just by virtue of GT’s numbers (and the other advantages that Racin and others have pointed out). But, just because bachelors-only schools don’t have the numbers of doctoral institutions doesn’t mean they should be relegated to some lower echelon IMO.</p>
Yes, but I have trouble with this study because they have no granularity - the survey includes hard sciences and health professions as well as engineering. I think that one of the reasons that engineering is so dominated by the large universities is simply because of the resources required by an engineering program - I know a few graduates of small engineering programs, and their experiences were extremely restrictive. Little lab time, few electives, essentially no opportunity to specialize. This is a problem both for industry AND grad school.</p>
<p>They’re different leagues. Rose Hulman had to beat out a few solid competitors: like Cooper Union, Harvey Mudd, and West Point - so being the best of the masters schools isn’t worth nothing. It’s not like being the smartest castmember on Jersey Shore, as those schools are decent competition. Nonetheless, to be the best of the phD granting institutions, MIT had to beat out Stanford, Caltech, all of the state flagships, all of the Ivy League, Duke, JHU, Rice, and WashU. That’s a much bigger feat than defeating one or two serious competitors. </p>
<p>Anyway, I’ve never really thought all that highly of the USNEWS engineering rankings.</p>
<p>RHIT and MIT are schools that should not even really be compared. Not because one is that much better than the other, but because they each have different focuses. I do agree with most of the other people though that MIT is a more prestigious university that will provide more opportunities, but let’s not just throw out RHIT right away. To speak about the caliber of the students and programs at RHIT would require a knowledge of them. Something that I think most people commenting here do not have (not all, but probably most). It’s true, RHIT does not send as many people to “top graduate schools”, but I really don’t think that that’s a measure of its capabilities as a university. I was strongly considering RHIT as a college when I was doing my search. Why? Not because it was “#1 engineering school in the nation among those without a PhD track”, but because I liked what I saw when I visited. If a person feels a better fit at RHIT than at MIT, then by all means attend RHIT. It will (hopefully) only benefit you in the end. </p>
<p>MIT is a fantastic university that has long held the title of the best engineering university in the world… but that doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone. You’ll find “smart” people at almost any university you attend.</p>