<p>What is a definition of the different Tiers of schools?</p>
<p>Is it based on test scores of admitted students, GPA, other such numbers, or other intangibles involved, like community service, leadership positions, extracurriculars?</p>
<p>Also, what are examples of schools for these tiers, especially in engineering?</p>
<p>As we're approaching application time, trying to get realistic about applying to schools.</p>
<p>US News has their own tier rankings, which are essentially meaningless.</p>
<p>There’s different ways of measuring tiers, usually some form of academic quality and selectivity (this would include test scores, acceptance rates, etc) or other things like that.</p>
<p>Engineering though is another matter. There are a lot of good schools that are not too difficult to get into yet still have programs ranked very highly. In engineering, you’re going to get a range from MIT to Cornell to Georgia Tech to Purdue to Rose Hulman. Each of those has great engineering but can vary wildly in their statistics.</p>
<p>Can you tell me what are the tiers for the different engineering schools?</p>
<p>And what kind of parameters do they use to admit students?</p>
<p>For example, Tier I only admits ACT above 32 and SAT about 2200. Just numbers I’m pulling out of the air as examples.</p>
<p>What are some examples of schools for each tier?</p>
<p>Montegut, for Engineering, tiers are more a function of faculty quality, research and facilities. If you want posters to recommend specific programs, you should share your GPA (unweighed), classes you are taking (most elite Engineering programs expect students to take AP Calculus AB and AP Physics) and SAT/SAT II and ACT scores.</p>
<p>Here’s how I would break major research Engineering programs into tiers:</p>
<p>TIER I:
California Institute of Technology
Carnegie Mellon University
Cornell University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Johns Hopkins University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Northwestern University
Princeton University
Purdue University
Stanford University
University of California-Berkeley
University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Texas-Austin
University of Wisconsin-Madison</p>
<p>TIER II
Columbia University
Duke University
Harvard University
North Carolina State University-Raleigh
Ohio State University
Pennsylvania State University-University Park
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rice University
Texas A&M University-College Station
University of California-Davis
University of California-Los Angeles
University of California-San Diego
University of California-Santa Barbara
University of Colorado-Boulder
University of Maryland-College Park
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
University of Pennsylvania
University of Southern California
University of Washington
Virginia Tech</p>
<p>TIER III
Arizona State University
Brown University
Case Western Reserve University
Dartmouth College
Iowa State University
Lehigh University
Michigan State University
Rutgers University-New Brunswick
University of Arizona
University of Notre Dame
Vanderbilt University
Washington University-St Louis
Yale University</p>
<p>TIER IV
Auburn University
Boston University
Clemson University
Colorado State University
Drexel University
Illinois Institute of Technology
Kansas State University
Northeastern University
Oregon State University
Rochester Institute of Technology
SUNY-Buffalo
SUNY-Stony Brook
Tufts University
University of Delaware
University of Illinois-Chicago
University of Iowa
University of Kansas
University of Massachusetts-Amherst
University of Pittsburgh
University of Rochester
University of Tennessee
Worcester Polytechnic Institute</p>
<p>Of course, there are specific majors within Engineering which can completely alter the tiering. For example, in Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Case Western, Duke, Rice, UC-San Diego and Washington University-St Louis are all considered tier I. For Chemical Engineering, Delaware and Minnesota-Twin Cities are considered Tier I.</p>
<p>what about Rose-Hulman, Olin, Harvey Mudd, Cooper Union?</p>
<p>I only listed major RESEARCH programs.</p>