Science and Engineering - Ivy worth it? or State School?

College Search & Selection
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<p>I’m in exactly the same position, but my problem is that I can’t seem to find matches. PSU is my safety, and Schreyer’s is a reach (right? my stats are pretty much the same as the OP, plus music as a very strong EC) but I’m also applying to a bunch of other reaches like MIT, Princeton, Cornell, Stanford, etc. </p>

<p>My question is: how do I find matches? With high stats, all the schools that seem to “match” are automatic reaches for everyone (Harvard, etc.) whereas other schools seem like safeties based on stats. </p>

<p>Other than that, thanks to everyone who posted :slight_smile: It helped me a lot as well as the OP, I’m sure.</p>

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<p>I’ll probably get flamed for this, but I think Schreyer’s is overrated. I wouldn’t judge your decision to go to Penn State based on Schreyer’s. I was not a Schreyer’s student, and I had a lot more fun in undergrad than they did. The fact that I was a “normal” engineering student did not negatively affect my job prospects or my graduate school options.</p>

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<p>The only ABET-accredited program at Harvey Mudd is (general) engineering, yet nobody seems to dispute that Mudd is a strong engineering school. </p>

<p>In my opinion, unless you want to be a civil/structural engineer, ABET accreditation matters little. Nobody seems to mind that the Berkeley bioengineering or Stanford materials science program is unaccredited.</p>

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<p>Even Princeton has grade inflation where it truly matters: practically nobody actually flunks out of Princeton. See below. </p>

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<p>That’s far from obvious, particularly when you’re talking about engineering at public schools, which are absolutely notorious for harsh grading standards, and where a not insignificant number of students will flunk out. {On the other hand, I would agree that it is probably easy for such a student to obtain a high GPA in a public school while majoring in a humanity or many of the soft social sciences.} </p>

<p>Attending an Ivy - even for engineering - can be seen as a risk-averse strategy in the sense that while you might end up with mediocre grades, you’re not going to flunk out either. No such assurance is available at the public schools. Even Cornell - the one Ivy that used to be known for low grades relative to the rest of the Ivy League - has exhibited significant grade inflation recently.</p>

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<p>I think any engineering expert would agree that Harvey Mudd is clearly a better school than Harvard for engineering. Harvey Mudd is basically MIT on a much smaller scale.</p>

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<p>Well, I’m not sure that I agree (although perhaps you could argue that I’m not an ‘engineering expert’).</p>

<p>Let me put it to you this way. In terms of engineering courses, Harvard students have access to the entire MIT course catalog through cross-registration. Harvey Mudd students can’t say the same. Harvard engineering students also can and do work on research projects with faculty and even access many of the engineering recruiting activities at MIT. Engineering students at Harvard therefore have access to a breadth of engineering resources that students at practically no other school (other than obviously MIT itself) can match.</p>

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<p>Interesting discussion of Harvard vs. Harvey Mudd engineering. As an engineer with several years of experience in the defense industry, I can say that I have run into Harvey Mudd, MIT, Stanford, Cornell, Michigan, CalTech, and Penn State engineers (and Rutgers, Georgia Tech, Chicago, Purdue) - and even one person who had a master’s degree in engineering from Yale and one person with a PhD from Princeton. I have never come across or even heard of a single Harvard engineer in industry. My anecdotal-based guess is that few Harvard engineers actually become working engineers, but instead opt for finance or other greener pastures.</p>

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<p>I haven’t had a chance to come look at this thread for a while, but wow! Thanks for all the answers! </p>

<p>I have taken what people have said seriously and looked hard at my list and what I wanted to do. I have decided I definitely want to go into engineering because there are so many opportunities and options with an engineering degree. However, I want to have options. I have also decided that i wouldn’t mind going across the country if the school is worth it.</p>

<p>So here is my revised list so far:</p>

<p>Penn State University
Stanford University
University of Delaware
Tufts University
Cornell University
Johns Hopkins University
Lehigh University
Northeastern University</p>

<p>Will look at:
University of Pennsylvania
Princeton University
Purdue University
University of Illinois
Vanderbilt University
Northwestern University</p>

<p>Of course I have to visit many of them still so this list will be considerably cut down again.</p>

<p>After ucbalumnus suggested I look at Stanford, I have to admit I fell in love with it. It’s the perfect school: fantastic engineering, diverse, gorgeous campus, very respected institution. As of now, I think I will apply to Stanford Early Action. Since it isn’t binding, it won’t seriously restrict me in my search process. If I don’t get in, then I will concentrate on the other schools in my list. If I do get in, I will see if I get any financial aid and I will talk to my parents about paying. In the meantime, I have entered some essay scholarships, which could help! Honestly though, there is no way to tell until I get all of that information. </p>

<p>Also, as I said before, and I know it seems stupid, I just don’t think I could see myself at Michigan or Ohio State because they are PSU rivals. If you have been going to PSU football games your entire life, it would feel really weird to suddenly be rooting against them. I may take a look at Michigan because it really is a fantastic engineering school, but I seriously doubt I will end up there.</p>

<p>frazzled2thecore- I didn’t know Pitt had a very prestigious engineering school. Does it? Correct me if I’m wrong! Also, what you said about the honors courses at state schools is exactly why I am looking at the Penn State Honors Program so seriously. Not only does it have fantastic housing, a scholarship, and preferred course selection, the honors courses are tiny, even for intro courses like biology and calculus. </p>

<p>I have another question. Does ABET-accreditation matter? Obviously most good engineering schools have most to all of their programs accredited but I am curious. If you don’t become a practicing engineer, does it have any effect on grad school prospects?</p>

<p>Thanks! I will keep you all updated with what I am doing for anybody else in the same boat as me.</p>

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<p>It definitely matters if you are going into some area where a Professional Engineer license is needed. This is most common for civil engineering, less so for other areas (bioengineering appears to be an area where PE licensing is not generally done, but check to be sure). ABET accreditation also serves to indicate a floor on the quality of an engineering major program at a lesser known school.</p>

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<p>Robert Metcalfe earned an MS and PhD in computer science at the Harvard Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences (back when it was still a division and not the standalone school that it is today). He is now Professor of Electrical Engineering at UTAustin. He is far better known as the co-inventor of Ethernet and founder of 3Com. {In fairness, it should be said that Metcalfe holds a bachelor’s in EECS from MIT.} </p>

<p>An Wang earned his PhD in DEAS (in Applied Physics). He later founded Wang Laboratories, a pioneering technology firm of the 1970’s-80’s. </p>

<p>And surely everybody here knows about Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. While we’ll never know what they would have actually majored in, as they dropped out before having to formally declare, it seems likely that they would have chosen to major in CS at the DEAS. </p>

<p>Hence, if you include entrepreneurial activities as a type of ‘greener pastures’, it seems clear that many Harvard engineers, or at least those who specialize in computers, do indeed choose greener pastures.</p>

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<p>Again, I am updating this post, especially for other students in my situation.</p>

<p>Here is where I applied to:
Penn State (got in, but yet to hear from Schreyer’s)
University of Virginia
Tufts University
Cornell University
Stanford University
Duke University</p>

<p>As you can see, I eliminated all but one Ivy from the list, and Cornell isn’t even my favorite. Yet at the same time, of course, I still have Stanford and Duke. </p>

<p>Personally, I think I mostly applied to schools that I would actually want to attend. Prestige is a factor, but I’ve realized that since I will be going to Graduate or Medical school, I don’t want to be swamped in debt. Plus then, where I got my undergraduate education won’t really matter. For now, I am disregarding money as a factor until I see everything, but I doubt that I will get any money from anywhere except for Penn State.
Also, The reason PSU is my only safety school is because I know that I would be happy going there. If I still wasn’t sure, I would have applied to more state schools.
At this point, I plan on majoring in bioengineering!</p>

<p>I guess I will just have to wait and see what happens. The waiting game has started, so now I can finally relax until April rolls around.</p>