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What does being “better in Engineering” mean Alexandre? The major engineering firms like Cisco, Oracle, Google, Microsoft, Boeing, etc. recruit at almost any university with an ABET accredited engineering program. If you are referring to faculty research strength and citation count, then the major state schools will have an edge because they offer the full gamut of different engineering programs while the smaller private schools will only offer a limited number.</p>
<p>Michigan is not “signficantly better” than Penn or Duke in Engineering unless you think a gap of 15 or 20 spots constitute a major difference for a subject area at the undergraduate level where the material covered is quite rudimentary and non-specialized. Also, both these schools offer only half the engineering specialties that UMich or the major state flagships do so they are not as versatile and thus it is harder to draw a clear comparison.</p>
<p>Location is a major factor and Northwestern’s McCormick program along with Duke’s Pratt program provide a major geographical advantage for their students with regards to their proximity to engineering companies in RTP and Chicago. Princeton is suburban, Ann Arbor is a college town, and Cornell’s location is quite remote in comparison.</p>
<p>If Engineering is not a priority with regards to a career path for the OP, then all the private schools have a major advantage with regards to placing their students directly into Finance jobs over Michigan Engineering if that is the student’s ultimate end goal. Their lack of specialization centralizes campus recruiting in comparison to Michigan’s OCR which advantages certain programs like Ross.</p>