<p>Dear all, I am lucky to be offered by both UCSB and Northwestern chemical engineering. They have similar ranking in chemical engineering, northwestern has more rep but ucsb is in california (which means more job opportunities?), any suggestions on which one to choose? I am working on porous materials and catalysis, UCSB chemistry has the biggest name in my field, however If I go to northwestern, I have to choose another field to start.</p>
<p>hmm...are you on gter by any chance?</p>
<p>Depends on your interest--go to the one that is stronger in whatever you are most interested, esp if you will be doing PhD. For fun, who doesn't like surfing off the beach in SB? :)</p>
<p>According to USNWR, UCSB is #10, Northwestern is #12...
According to NRC, UCSB is #14, Northwestern is #15.</p>
<p>I think they are close enough in rankings to say they are pretty much equal in chemical engineering. So make your decision based on financial support and environment...</p>
<p>I know which one I'd pick personally... have you seen UCSB? Sun, sand, ocean??? I spent a year and a half there, and it was absolutely amazing... beautiful, laid-back campus... only 75 minutes from LA too.</p>
<p>yes, nurulz, i drop by gter now and then.
as for my interest, i am always willingly to explore something new, so it does not matter me that much.
it is sooo difficult for me to choose, yes they rank similarly in chem. eng, but nw is a private school with lot more rep and the graduation director told me there're 3 new staff coming in, meaning they are actively expanding. however nw che's quite engineering, this means i will not have too much publications in high impact journals.
ucsb's chem. engineering is more to the material's side, and there is alan heeger the nobel laureate. if i work in ucsb, i will have more chances of publishing high impact papers (science, nature). however, ucsb is known to be a party school, and will this affect my future career in industry?
talking about campus, i love both ucsb and nw. ucsb might be more beautiful but nw is so close to chicago (20-30 min?) and i love urban life too.</p>
<p>feia...</p>
<p>UCSB UNDERGRAD is known as a party school...
UCSB GRADUATE/PHD program is HIGHLY respected...
DO NOT MIX UP UNDERGRAD AND GRAD REP!!!!
Believe me, industry knows the difference.</p>
<p>And I do not know where you get these strange notions that
because NW is private, it has a better reputation.
At the PhD level, private vs. public school matters very little.
Also, I don't quite understand why you have this idea that research at UCSB is more likely to be higher profile than NW... they are BOTH highly ranked, highly respected programs doing cutting edge research... why do you think that NW research won't be in high impact journals? If anything, new, junior professors are MORE likely to be publishing more in cutting edge fields... they are competing to get tenure.</p>
<p>Well, Chicago is urban... very urban... an absolutely wonderful dynamic amazing city... SB is not even close to urban... SB itself is very low-key, upper-middle class residential... a bit boring actually. But when I was there, I made frequent trips to L.A., another great, but VERY DIFFERENT city than Chicago.</p>
<p>They are both phenomenal choices, equally ranked, with equal opportunities for great research, and equal outstanding reputations.</p>
<p>So, my advice on making a choice:
(1) Identify 2-3 potential advisors at each school, and contact them... see what kinds of projects you could work on with them.
(2) Financial... do you have a fellowship at one or the other? What is the expectations for being a teaching assistant? What about health coverage for graduate students (some schools barely have any coverage... so check this out!)
(4) Environment/setting... completely personal to you... if you absolutely love urban life and don't mind extreme variations in weather, then Chicago is unbeatable. On the other hand, if you want a more low-key, residential/suburban setting with access to a city (if you havea car), and year-round mild weather is important, then pick UCSB.</p>
<p>hey, harvard<em>and</em>berkeley, i thank you very much for your valuable opinions. you are right, these two chem. eng rank very similar and it is indeed difficult to choose one from another. maybe the next thing i would do is to talk with the supervisors and maybe their alumni. but again i am afraid that if i were to agree with a supervisor too early, it would be difficult if later i found i could not click with the supervisor personally (5 years of study, but also 5 years of life, isn't it), so maybe the next thing i will do is to contact their alumni for opinions.</p>
<p>I'd like to clarify my views on impact factor. impact factor is not an absolute way of judging which journal's good and which isn't good. therefore i do not mean nw is not good or ucsb is better. papers related with fundamental science or fancy materials often have high impact factor, while papers that are more industrial (or more engineering?) often have lower impact factors. it all depends on whether one wants to be more scientific or more practical in future. obviously fancy materials and fundamental science draw money from the nation while more practical work draw money from the industry (or not allowed to be published by the sponsors). Since i do not know whether i will go academia or industry in future, i wish to strike a balance between the 2.</p>
<p>harvard<em>and</em>berkeley, are you currently a phd in the field?</p>
<p>feia,</p>
<p>I don't know enough about the current state of academia to judge. Judging and guaging which school is better for graduate work is a complicated task and you do need to be very proactive to research as much as you can before making a decision.</p>
<p>UCSB may have more big name professors (older too probably) in "materials side" but sometime younger ones are more ambitious and active. The last thing you want to end up is with some supposedly leading expert who is however in a semi-retired mode. </p>
<p>NW's material science is ranked 2nd in the nation. Are you sure the chemE department isn't closely collaborating with the mat sci department and isn't actively (or as actively as you wish) involved in the materials stuff? But then it's possible that the nw mat sci dept is so strong that they decide it makes sense to have anything dealing with materials reside in that department and the chemE dept would focus on other areas. It seems to me they are pretty active in biotech/biochemical stuff these days.</p>
<p>feia,</p>
<p>you don't have to commit to working with any potential advisor yet, so you should feel free to contact them, and just ask them what kinds of projects you MIGHT work on with them IF you chose that institution/lab... you do NOT have to commit yourself, but it it is ABSOLUTELY vital that you be able to identify 2-3 POTENTIAL advisors at each school... if you cannot find anyone you might want to work with at a given school, then you should not go there.</p>
<p>by the way, in materials science/engineering:
USNWR: NW #2, UCSB #4
NRC: NW #2, UCSB #8</p>
<p>Again, close enough that they are effectively equal in materials.</p>
<p>By the way, UCSB is just finishing construction on a massive
nanoscience & nanotechnology center.</p>
<p>You should DEFINITELY visit both if at all possible!!!
Nothing we say can compare to you actually going and checking out these two great schools for yourself.</p>
<p>Difficult choice indeed. You might wanna consider factors outside academics, like weather, location, overall atmosphere of the school, etc. As of NU, I'd say the weather sucks big time. However, I think Northwestern is still slightly more respected than UCSB in academia and probably has a stronger alumni base.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, NU's fame seems to be confined in the Midwest. A lot of people on the coasts (esp. east) haven't even heard of this school.</p>
<p>nurulz,</p>
<p>WHAT? First, on what basis do you have making that ridiculous statement? Ok, maybe, just maybe some average joe's on the street on the coasts have never heard of Northwestern (I don't even believe that), but who cares what they think!!!!
Anyone who is anyone in chem engineering and materials science, both in academia and industry, know how absolutely amazing Northwestern is... and that is all that should matter.</p>
<p>calm down..harvard and berkeley</p>
<p>I had no intention of belittling NU on its academic reputation. Ok maybe saying a lot of people haven't heard of it was a little too much, but that was just the general impression I got when I applied to NU as an undergrad (I don't go there, but I am located fairly close to it). Also, I agree that NU's strength in materials science and chem eng. is definitely widely recognized. However, when speaking of the overall reputation of the engineering school, I'd say it's overshadowed by the business and journalism schools. Many more people know Kellogg than McCormick. I'm not in chem eng. so I probably shouldn't even participate in this thread, but I'd like to clarify that my previous statement was exactly targeted at the average joe, and has very little to do with academia and industry.</p>
<p>Hi, folks, NU is definitely awesome. But before I even make a decision between NU and UCSB, today I received an offer from yale. headache and headache...
Yale chemical engineering rank at about 44.</p>
<p>nurulz,</p>
<p>When it comes to getting your PhD, the opinions of the man on the street are largely meaningless. I'd be more concerned about placements (academic and otherwise) than about how some dude on the bus perceives your school.</p>
<p>I mean, how good are any of these rankings/perceptions/supposed program quality if you can't get yourself the job you want? I mean, most people on the street would call Columbia the better school, but I'd choose UCSD over Columbia for poli sci graduate school.</p>
<p>feia,</p>
<p>ignore Yale... overall phenomenal reputation, but in your SPECIFIC field,
both NU and UCSB are far, far better... small differences in ranking should be ignored... but the difference between NU & UCSB versus Yale in
Chemical Engineering is huge... for the PhD, go with the better graduate department... the overall ranking of the overall school is LESS important at this stage of the game.</p>
<p>Plus... either Chicago or SoCal >>> New Haven!!!</p>
<p>I was a chemE major at Northwestern and none of my classmates who applied to grad schools thought about Yale. UCSB, CalTech, Wisconsin, Stanford were where my friends went (we were not encouraged to stay at NU).</p>
<p>Nobody wants to defend for Yale? actually John Fenn the nobel prize laureate did his award winning work in Yale chem. eng. from 1987-1989. But their webpage is the poorest, barely any updates for several years.</p>
<p>feia,</p>
<p>Yale does not need defending. It is a phenomenal school overall, with a solid chemical engineering program. If you went there, you would probably be just as successful in your career. I am all for ignoring small to even medium differences in ranking and for taking other considerations into account, such as quality of life, environment, etc.</p>
<p>That said, even though Yale DOES INDEED have a very solid, very respectable Chem Eng department, one cannot deny that both Northwestern and UCSB are in another league in this field. </p>
<p>It is entirely up to you how you want to weight different factors... you are very fortunate to have three phenomenal offers...</p>
<p>Question: are any of them offering a fellowship? Some institutions have prize fellowships which have slightly higher stipends, and slightly lower teaching expectations...</p>