rutgers vs. stevens. vs brown. vs cornell

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>LakeClouds:
rutgers- took a tour, participated in a SWE event…nice facilities, active/nice students, but at the SWE event they brought in a graduate who supposedly graduated with high honors who did not impress me</p>

<p>cornell- it was a bad day to visit. very rainy and cold. yet, the campus seemed more beautiful than the last time i visited. wasn’t able to interact with students much, so i couldn’t get a good read</p>

<p>brown-attended ADOCH, everyone was so nice! i got lost late one night, and some freshmen helped me back to my host’s dorm. engineering department is really small though</p>

<p>stevens- attended accepted students day, students were really nice (knew a couple currently attending), admission officers really want me, academically have nice resources, i have the chance to play interscholastic softball there… but there’s the reputation problem nationally (in case there are no jobs in the northeast once i graduate)</p>

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<p>From your choices, I would recommend either Cornell or Stevens, depending on the following factors I list below. </p>

<p>Can your family afford the cost of Cornell? Would you have to take out loans?
Do you prefer to attend a “tech” school like Stevens, or would you rather have your peers be from a variety of majors? Also, would a male/female imbalance bother you?
Do you prefer an urban location or a smaller town environment?
How important is cold weather to you?</p>

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<p>ucbalumnus,</p>

<p>Again, you ignore the context. :wink: Yeah, I have no argument with you. I absolutely agree it would be much better to have more detailed data, but again, I view the ability to get ANY data on graduate success “a thousand times more useful than” than the subjective opinionated ranking USNews puts out. That was, and continues to be, the context in which I present payscale.com… as a foil against USNews. </p>

<p>Payscale does not mislead me in the slightest. If you bothered to read what I wrote, you’d know I actually sat down with the career development/placement offices at each university my son was seriously considering. I got the “real scoop” on how the graduates of my son’s major have been doing over the past few years. Also, of related majors, because kids change their minds. </p>

<p>Far from being misled, or suggesting people take payscale at face value, I advocate an open mindedness to all of these rankings and I urge people to take matters into their own hands by making appointments with placement offices. …be “educated consumers”, not sheep.</p>

<p>You imply the only reason Stevens looks good is because it is a heavily engineering school, yet the numbers you quote yourself show Stevens in a great light:</p>

<p>Cornell (2010): $66,686 (50% employed, 40% grad school, 8% seeking employment, 2% other)
Stevens (2012): $65,000 (80% employed, 16% grad school, 4% seeking employment)</p>

<p>The salaries are roughly in line with each other, although not directly comparable, due to one being a “mean” and the other being an “average.”</p>

<p>Grad school attendance is a tough metric to divine. Did these kids intend, from the beginning, to go to grad school, or do they belong to that large population of kids that couldn’t find a job and decided to continue school instead?</p>

<p>Cornell has more than twice the percentage still seeking employment than Stevens. And what’s with that “2% other” for Cornell?</p>

<p>Overall, the results from both of these schools are close. Since the subject of this thread is to compare these schools, I’d say they compare very well… using data you provided.</p>

44

<p>Yes, they come out similar in this respect, narrowed down to chemical engineering majors (and “average” usually means “mean”, not “median”).</p>

<p>But that is quite a bit different from the conclusion you would get from the Payscale list.</p>

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<p>sacchi: yes, my family can afford cornell without loans. </p>

<p>i don’t care about what majors i’m surrounded by. i went to a magnet school with a pre-engineering currriculum, and the people there had very diverse interests.</p>

<p>the male/female difference wouldn’t bother me. guys make up the majority at my school</p>

<p>right now, i don’t care about the setting. </p>

<p>i LOVE snow. but for some reason my body has a weird intolerance for the cold.</p>

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<p>ucbalumnus,</p>

<p>Yes, agreed, quite different than Payscale’s list, but also quite different from USNews’ list… which was kind of my point. :wink: </p>

<p>But no doubt, payscale could be better. They could probably do what you suggest… provide results per major. I sent them that suggestion… for what it’s worth.</p>

<p>“Average”, “mean”, and “median” are different. We can start another thread over whether they are significantly different enough to not be comparable. ;-)</p>

47

<p>“right now, i don’t care about the setting.”</p>

<p>You’re going to be there for several years. IMHO, you ought to give the setting some serious thought before you decide. It might not be a major decision maker, but you should give it some weight.</p>

48

<p>Payscale is not necessarily better than USNWR. Some may find neither (in their current form) to be of any use. As it is now, the Payscale ratings by entire school obscure the details like the mix of majors (and the mix of majors of those who take the Payscale survey may not even be the same as the mix of majors at the school) that are likely the biggest factor in the ratings.</p>

<p>Payscale likely has enough data to stratify by major and school instead of either-or, at least for large-enough majors at large-enough schools (probably not enough data for the English majors at Caltech, though). But I wonder if there are political reasons for them to not make such information more widely available, which would change their information from a curiosity of little actual value to extremely interesting and valuable to many students choosing majors and schools.</p>

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<p>spacygirl - Cornell and Stevens seem like the two best options. They’re very different. Cornell has the “better” reputation nationally but it’s a bigger school and colder - not just the weather but the environment. It’s funny you mention that during your visit you didn’t interact much with students as we has the same experience. I think people there are just real focused on their work. I also thought it was along way from dorms to the engineering school - seems like it might be a lot of sclepping in the winter.</p>

<p>I heard good things about Stevens and its grads do well. If you want to be hired to work in CA, Stevens may not be the best choice, but for the NE area it’s very strong. Stevens being near NYC sounds like a big plus from the others who’ve posted. Given the merit aid from Stevens - they seem like the better choice than Cornell where you’re paying full price. You can use the extra $40k/year saved to buy a condo when you graduate!</p>

<p>The only choice I would eliminate is Brown as their engineering is weak and they’re asking full price. Maybe if you were studying something else beside engineering.</p>

<p>Good luck with your final choice!</p>

50

<p>But don’t forget that Rutgers versus Stevens would be a $64,000 question.</p>

51

<p>“Cornell is in the arm pit of New York.” - I think it’s lovely, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But it can be hard to get to. And it has a long cold season, often with “Ithacate” (cold frozen-ish rain). OP - Even if parents can afford it without loans, consider that whopper college expenses might impact the quality of their retirement.</p>

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<p>ucbalumnus,</p>

<p>I agree with some of what you’re saying, but when an engineering student is looking at very similar schools… let’s say WPI, RPI and Stevens… the payscale comparison will be quite a bit more useful/valuable than USNews. </p>

<p>Only when comparing large LACs which also offer engineering will the payscale data go askew. In that case, like comparing Cornell to Stevens, the parents and/or students need to dig more. As illustrated by the comparison you gave between the two schools, both USNews and Payscale had it all wrong. </p>

<p>I don’t see any situation where the completely subjective data from USNews becomes more useful/valuable than payscale. When comparing dissimilar schools, I agree with you, both rankings are worthless.</p>

53

<p>colorado_mom,</p>

<p>Did you drive the area? Or did you just stay on campus?</p>

<p>Ithaca is economically depressed and looks it. The economy has all but collapsed there, save the two colleges. I cover this territory for my company (I’m an electrical engineer for a major semiconductor manufacturer, based in MetroNY). I regularly visit these colleges to give seminars on our latest technologies. I know these places. I’ve stayed in these towns a lot. I’ve traveled around them, frequented their restaurants, etc… These are not foreign places to me by any means. I’ve had very close contact for over 20 years. </p>

<p>“Downtown” has one gentrified street which the town funded in a futile attempt to make somewhere/anywhere in town the least bit tolerable. This is where you would be directed to “see Ithaca.” I suggest going an additional 100 yards in any direction. ;-)</p>

<p>If you like nature hikes in the woods (and snow and cold), get out of town and have at it. For that, it’s good.</p>

<p>When my son was initially interested in both Cornell and RPI, my heart was in my throat. (Troy is worse than Ithaca!) I did my best not to influence him, but I was overcome with relief when he fell in love with Stevens.</p>

<p>The ugly truth about UpstateNY is almost the entire area is economically depressed. Back in the day, it was a technology and manufacturing powerhouse. Today, there are only the husks of a former glory. Ithaca is one of those husks. Ithaca is now completely dependent on their colleges. I shudder to think how the place would look if it weren’t for them.</p>

54

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<p>If you give USNWR no value, Payscale being more valuable than USNWR is not saying much. Again, the student will not be like a generic Payscale survey taker from the specific school; s/he will be a student in a specific major at the specific school.</p>

<p>Cornell is not what anyone would consider a LAC, large or otherwise.</p>

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<p>The housing stock in Ithaca is indeed rundown looking. And downtown can get a bit seedy late at night. But all that’s been essentially the same since I first saw it, over forty years ago. </p>

<p>During that whole time, as far as I was aware anyway, Ithaca was never about much more than the three colleges. There was a semi-conductor firm there at one time, but the town wasn’t about that. Whatever may be going on in the rest of upstate New York, Ithaca is buffered by the stability of the colleges there. It is, after all, a college town. The surrounding area has actually gotten healthier with the growth of the vineyard industry up there, the wine trail, etc has become a much bigger deal than years ago.</p>

<p>It’s a nice place to take a vacation. Maybe I’ll go up in a month or so, catch David Bromberg playing at the State Theater, hit the Farmer’s market on the way home. I feel too old now to go to that festival in Trumansburg, though I’d probably like it. Which reminds me, Ithaca is actually the cultural center for a good chunk of the surrounding region. there are a lot of restaurants there for its size,. and college students can actually afford a lot of them.</p>

<p>I’d love to have a house up there, actually.</p>

<p>FWIW, the nicer houses are in Cayuga Heights, not downtown.</p>

<p>What’s beautiful about Ithaca is not the buildings, certainly, it is the natural environment. The area is ringed by state parks, dramatic gorges left by ice age glaciers, waterfalls, and the finger lakes. The Cornell campus itself shares fully in that natural beauty. Merely walking to class on a Fall day can be an almost spiritual experience, it’s so breathtaking at times. The air is so fresh you can actually feel it in your lungs. And the Cornell campus has plenty of nice buildings to look at too, FWIW. Most students spend most of their time on an around campus.</p>

<p>When I attended I spent every summer there. I loved it.
My daughter just left there a year or so ago, after spending two extra years there after she graduated. She loved it there too.</p>

<p>A college town environment is a great experience for a student. Such a high proportion of the population is between 18-30.</p>

<p>As an engineering student OP will be working hard, hopefully enjoying a few extracurriculars along the way. Which reminds me, Cornell is about 50-50 M-F ratio, not sure most stand-alone engineering colleges share that feature.</p>

<p>For sure, the weather is not great during the rather long winter. Thankfully we were always on intersession for the worst of it, but still. And it rains a lot. But it’s lovely there nonetheless, the rest of the year (and in the winter too, even).</p>

<p>This video, which two graduating seniors produced a year or so ago, pretty much encapsulates my own experience there, so many years before.
[This</a> Is on Vimeo](<a href=“http://vimeo.com/23897683]This”>http://vimeo.com/23897683)</p>

<p>This was their Ithaca. It was also my Ithaca, and my daughter’s Ithaca.
YMMV.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure if this has already been mentioned, but keep in mind that Stevens’ is a VERY research-based institution. it focuses on research and applying what you learn to the problems of today. ask yourself whether you prefer the theoretical or application</p>

<p>obviously, Brown and Cornell are the most prestigious</p>

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<p>In the engineering field, which is the OPs major, Brown is an also-ran and doesn’t hold a candle to Cornell or Stevens (or maybe even Rutgers)</p>

58

<p>ucbalumnus,</p>

<p>I don’t hold any ranking system up as the model all others should follow, but I find USNews’ ranking misleading and… well… even harmful to families and students. </p>

<p>I’m constantly being told this or that college is highly regarded by the corporations of the world and the general public, when it’s all hogwash. If these institutions were truly the game changers they are made out to be… if the networks developed within their walls were as valuable to the graduates as is implied, then salaries from that population would overwhelmingly outpace everyone else. I have yet to see data to back that up.</p>

<p>The truth is these “venerable” institutions aren’t any better, and often worse, than any other decent university. I like payscale because it does a great job exposing this fact.</p>

<p>There is no doubt that graduates from these universities do well as a whole, but I don’t believe that has anything to do with the university itself. It has more to do with the fact that these places are extremely competitive, so only smartest of students has a chance. That student population would be equally successful no matter where they attended. The fact that the population does not overshadow graduates from far less exclusive institutions could support an argument these venerable institutions might actually hold back these gifted kids.</p>

<p>Lastly, I didn’t mean to call Cornell an LAC. I started out addressing your argument about payscale giving misleading results when comparing institutions offering a broad scope of degrees against a technical institution. I wound up using Cornell as an example only because we had in the past. But I must say, you seem to be precise or imprecise when it suits you. I let you go on the whole “mean” versus “average” thing, because it did not cloud your intent… even though you were wrong. You could have done the same with the LAC comment. It did not cloud my intent.</p>

59

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<p>What do you mean here?</p>

<p>Most uses of “average” refer to the “mean”* (as opposed to the “median”). Granted, a minority of uses of “average” refer to the “median” (or even less commonly the “mode”), but what are you referring to here?</p>

<p>*Yes, there are different kinds of means, like arithmetic mean versus geometric mean. But it is rather unlikely that survey results from colleges or Payscale or whoever regarding pay levels use anything other than the arithmetic mean, unless they specifically say “median”.</p>

<p>Regardless of that, what Payscale makes available is not directly comparable between schools, due to the differing mix of majors at different schools. Even within the broad category of engineering-heavy schools, different engineering majors may be better represented at different schools, and such schools have differing numbers and types of non-engineering majors. Also, the mix of majors of those reporting information to Payscale is not necessarily the same as the mix of majors at the school (and mid-career people may have a different historical mix of majors then the school currently has).</p>

<p>Payscale could make itself useful by stratifying the data by both school and major, not either-or.</p>

<p>(And if you noticed, I have not been arguing in favor of using a heavily USNWR-based prestige ranking for making this decision.)</p>

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<p>ucbalumnus,</p>

<p>Yeah, congrats, you caught me. I wrote mean when I meant median. Cornell uses median (not mean as you imply) and Stevens uses average, so the two are not truly comparable. That’s what I was originally trying to say, but used the wrong term. I didn’t catch it until the second time around… and you wrote three paragraphs about it. :wink: </p>

<p>For the sake of comparisons, I would prefer they all use median. I’ll put that on the list for when I’m King. ;-)</p>

<p>I’ll say it again. We will have to have to agree to disagree. You fixate on how payscale is flawed. I acknowledge those flaws, but see how it can be very useful when comparing similar institutions.</p>