<p>So what are the top engineering schools (not necessarily ivy league)? Here's my list so far (no specific order):</p>
<p>1) MIT
2) Caltech
3) Columbia
4) Stanford
5) Cornell
6) Cooper Union
7) Harvey Mudd College
8) California Berkeley
9) Georgia Institute of Technology
10) University of Michigan</p>
<p>I would replace Columbia with Illinois or Carnegie-Mellon.</p>
<p>the fu foundatioin isnt good at columbia?</p>
<p>not nearly as good as illinois or carnegie mellon. Doesnt have the resources. Columbia isnt really the school you would go to in order to get a job in engineering. Most likely, many of their engineering grads end up on wall street possibly.</p>
<p>you need purdue on there. the school has high acceptance, but it is easily as well respected (if not more) as the other schools on that list.</p>
<p>No, Columbia's fine, but it's not typically known as a "powerhouse" of engineering like some of the others you mentioned are. That's what's really difficult about ranking engineering schools. Some of the smaller programs don't get the sort of rankings recognition that other, larger, more recognized schools get, but you'll probably get just as good of an engineering education there (and in many cases, a better education because of more personal attention and smaller, more collaborative classes) as you would at one of the more traditionally recognized engineering giants.</p>
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Columbia isnt really the school you would go to in order to get a job in engineering.
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<p>What? Some of 'em might end up on Wall Street, but I've run across some Columbia engineers. Yeah, you'd go there for a job in engineering, if you were so inclined.</p>
<p>As a Columbia alum, I don't think it's the third best engineering school in the country. Carnegie Mellon and UIUC are certainly better (even though I turned both of them down for grad school in favor of Columbia, but overall, CMU/UIUC is better). Also, as a Cooper Union alum, I will say that it is definitely better than Columbia at the undergrad level.</p>
<p>That's not to say Columbia isn't a great/good engineering school though.</p>
<p>1) MIT
2) Caltech
3) Columbia
4) Stanford
5) Cornell
6) Cooper Union
7) Harvey Mudd College
8) California Berkeley
9) Georgia Institute of Technology
10) University of Michigan
11) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
12) Carnegie Mellon
13) Purdue</p>
<p>thanks, just trying to find schools to apply to by the time summer is over, any more suggestions? if u guys had to choose from the list, which is the BEST school to go for engineering (besides MIT)</p>
<p>May I suggest a different method for figuring out where to apply for college...?</p>
<p>First off, they already do these rankings, so you don't really have to poll us to get a list of excellent engineering schools. In the first thread in the engineering forum here, you'll find a list of the US News & World Reports rankings. I don't think that anybody recommends that you follow these rankings as the end-all, be-all of which school is better, but you'll get a great engineering education with pretty much any of the top twenty or twenty-five schools on the list.</p>
<p>Secondly, start looking at things like geographic area, large vs. small schools, general campus atmosphere, etc., and try to narrow your list that way.</p>
<p>Do you know in general what sort of engineering you'd like to go into?</p>
<p>(PS- Look at Rice, too! ...she said without a hint of bias...)</p>
<p>To ken:
I don't think hes trying to rank them but Columbia should be up there.</p>
<p>i would say be realistic as far as geography. if you are in the Midwest (really the best place for engineering because acceptance rates are very high and the schools are exceptional), apply to Michigan, Purdue, and Illinois. If you are in the East, try CM, Cornell, Columbia and another eastern school (as those 3 are very difficult to get into). South - GaTech, U of Texas. West - CalTech, Berkeley, Stanford, Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>MIT = all of the above (worth traveling across the country for)</p>
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MIT = all of the above (worth traveling across the country for)
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<p>I would also include Stanford as a school that is clearly worth traveling across the country for. In fact, it's still not entirely clear to me which is the best school in the world for engineering: MIT or Stanford. {Yes, I realize that the rankings say that MIT has the edge, but Stanford's notably relaxed environment and deep connections to the most technologically advanced regional cluster in the world are highly attractive features in favor of Stanford.}</p>
<p>Why is their no love for schools like WPI and RPI. These schools don't have the name value like MIT or Caltech but they care more about undergrad then grad. I once talked to someone who went to MIT and he said that even thouugh he feels supported, at the end of the day MIT professors care more about research and the grad students that come along.</p>
<p>well geographyically speaking, im in the east and i figured columbia cuz its close (live on long island), but i dont wanna go to an ivy league school just because its ivy league, i wanna go to a school known for engineering (electrical or mechanical), of course MIT is a must cuz its anyone's dream i guess to go there, but realistically speaking im trying to find schools that have very respectable engineering programs but are not necessarily ivy league level</p>
<p>sakky - i would disagree. MIT is in a complete league of its own.</p>
<p>my problem with these threads and rankings is that they do not give near enough credit to the midwest schools (Illinois, Purdue, UMich) which are in many times superior to schools on the coast (like certain ivies). just because your school accepts 50-75% (usually a cumulative acceptance of admission done by different standards for different colleges within) does not mean that the school should be passed over.</p>
<p>And I would disagree with you Explorer. Its funny since I am actually going across the country for Stanford and turned down MIT as alot of my friends also did for grad. They are comparable but to say MIT is in a league above Stanford is naive.</p>
<p>ok but you have nothing to say about my other comment.</p>
<p>I don't think most people here disagree about your comment on midwestern schools. You'll find it among undergrads and people that only care about prestige, but once you start looking at actual programs that are good and you're interested in for graduate studies, people tend to start opening up to midwest schools.</p>
<p>Also, I'd agree with what blah said about MIT. One of my friends visited there as a prospective grad, and she was greatly underwhelmed. As were all of the other people she hung out with over the weekend. Of the five other people she met there, none of them decided to attend MIT for graduate school.</p>
<p>Depends on the program. Cornell and Princeton are better engineering programs relative to Illinois and Michigan depending on who you ask and what fields are involved. While the other ivies may not stack up to Illinois and UMich, (I won't really debate this even though this is kind of subjective), you will have higher quality peers at ivies which will influence your education a lot.</p>
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sakky - i would disagree. MIT is in a complete league of its own.
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<p>Oh really? How's that? Take the engineering rankings in the USNews Graduate Edition. MIT beats Stanford in 5 out of the 9 engineering disciplines. True, that's the majority, but hardly "a complete league of its own".</p>
<p>What I would say is this. MIT probably still does have an edge in terms of engineering prowess, but an edge is all it has. Much of the best engineering work is now done at Stanford. Furthermore, as I pointed out, Stanford offers a higher quality of life for its engineering students.</p>