<p>From San Jose area in California
Got into Cal EECS (electrical engineering & computer science), Princeton & Harvard</p>
<p>Not sure if I want to pursue Engineering--may switch to Applied Math, Economics, or even IR...</p>
<p>No financial aid, so cost is going to be a factor...as is distance</p>
<p>I visited all the schools and found Princeton a little quiet (maybe I visited on a bad day)--and I am strongly considering general social scence and how lively a school is, in my decision</p>
<p>Any tips or advice? Much appreciated--thanks.</p>
<p>Hmmm. This is really tough. Cal EECS is by far the best for that. If you want to switch majors I'm sure its applied math/econ/IR is pretty good as well. </p>
<p>But then again, you got into both Harvard & Princeton...two schools where there could be definite value if you attended (and graduated with 100K+ of debt).</p>
<p>I would think the Cal social scene is just a lot better than the other two, based simply on the size of the school.</p>
<p>Cal is by far the best, with Princeton second and Harvard last. Princeton actually has engineering majors whereas Harvard you never even hear of this.</p>
<p>However, as a Harvard student you are allowed to cross-register at MIT so you can take all the classes MIT offers but Harvard doesn't. Since Harvard doesn't offer all that many specialized engineering classes and even the ones they do are completely different than MIT's sequence, this means you basically can take any engineering class (even intro) at MIT.</p>
<p>Harvard does have engineering majors. Every year there are a handful of engineering A.B.s and S.B.s, and they are often very good. It's just that most don't actually plan to go into engineering but go off to law school or medical school. A friend of mine was an engineering major and is now a cardiac surgeon at a Harvard teaching hospital. </p>
<p>Some engineers do become extremely successful and found Fortune 500 companies and so forth, but for the 99.99% of them, being an engineer means being assigned a specific project and working on it. Maybe you'll love it, maybe you won't. Lots of people don't stay in engineering. For pay and prestige, engineering really doesn't compare to medicine or law.</p>
<p>U.S. News ranks Berkeley as #3 in engineering, Princeton at #18, and Harvard at #23.</p>
<p>I don't think the difference between #18 and #23 is substantial.</p>
<p>Harvard's engineering program is the smallest, but is also the most selective among the three, and its faculty have the highest citation impact factor. It's just that because the program is small, it lacks in breadth and because it doesn't actually produce that many engineers, it does not have as much of a name recognition.</p>
<p>I might add that Harvard plans to hire more professors over the next 10 years to match the numbers at places like Princeton and Caltech, although it will still be a fraction of M.I.T. engineering.</p>
<p>But the thing is, if you think that you might be switching majors, then definitely go to Princeton. It's a very respectable school for either engineering or a liberal art like econ or IR and you won't be floundering in lack of professor contact in a liberal art there (as opposed to Cal). Cal is as bad as its reputed to be with lack of student-professor contact. Some actually tell you off the bat that they don't hold office hours and that all curriculum-related questions should be directed to the grad student in charge of you.</p>
<p>It's not such a big deal for engineering, but it does get tough to do a liberal art there.</p>
<p>"It's just that because the program is small, it lacks in breadth and because it doesn't actually produce that many engineers, it does not have as much of a name recognition."</p>
<p>Hmmm. Lacks in breadth. Doesn't produce many engineers. No name recognition. Doesn't appear promising...</p>
<p>Truth is that there are several world-class Harvard engineering faculty, but many are very mediocre. Traditionally their work has been very theoretical, with little practical application. It's true that many/most graduates don't become "real" engineers -- and often end up going into fields such as medicine, law, or non-engineering-related business.</p>
<p>There is plenty of student-faculty contact at Cal, and in many majors the classes are small, especially the humanities courses. There are large classes at TAs at both Harvard and Cal, too, of course, especially lower division sciences. Go with the program that appeals to you most -- you won't regret choosing any of the three schools (unless you end up in debt -- without financial aid, the difference between Harvard and Cal is over $100,000 over 4 years...)</p>
<p>"Truth is that there are several world-class Harvard engineering faculty, but many are very mediocre. Traditionally their work has been very theoretical, with little practical application."</p>
<p>How do you know this, ie. are you a Harvard engineer, or are you just making it up as you go along?</p>
<p>Harvard has a higher proportion of its engineering faculty in the National Academy than MIT. It also ranks second highest in Engineering and Computer Science in citations per faculty member.</p>
<p>Harvard is very strong in materials/nanotechnology and applied math, strong in electrical engineering, environmental engineering, and biomedical engineering, and really doesn't have any faculty members in key areas like aerospace, civil, mechanical, chemical, or nuclear engineering, which is why I'm calling it limited in breadth. That's not the same as saying that its existing programs are mediocre.</p>
<p>"How do you know this, ie. are you a Harvard engineer, or are you just making it up as you go along?"</p>
<p>No need to get snippy -- I'm fairly certain that I know more about this than you can imagine. If you disagree, just ignore the post.</p>
<p>Harvard's DEAS has traditionally been very theoretical and scientific (note the name of the school, and that their undergraduate major is even called "Engineering <em>Sciences</em>"). Some insiders actually look upon MIT with disdain as a "trade school."</p>
<p>Some of the faculty are superb thinkers, but their work has been more focused on generating research publications than on developing ideas with practical applications. Along those lines: (a) This is not necesarily a disadvantage or an advantage -- Harvard's scientific approach to engineering is simply a different orientation from typical (i.e. "real") engineering schools. (b) IMO, this is a major explanation for the high "citation index" of many faculty members -- i .e. work is more natually-oriented toward research journals, not necessarily because the faculty are any "better" or "smarter." (c) Having said that, a major issue is that the real world needs solutions to real-world problems, and engineering is essential for this. For all his flaws, Larry Summers realized that Harvard was getting blown out of the water by other institutions (e.g. Stanford, MIT, Berkeley) in this regard. The direction of DEAS is slowly shifting as a result, and a few of the newer faculty are more "typical" engineers. It will take decades to make any significant shift, but the current Dean has made a good start.</p>
<p>"really doesn't have any faculty members in key areas like aerospace, civil, mechanical, chemical, or nuclear engineering"</p>
<p>Not true at all -- particularly for ME (<em>many</em> key senior faculty) and ChemE (senior and junior faculty).</p>
<p>It sounds like you like engineering but also want to see what else is out there. Since Cal is not as flexible with switching majors and "shopping" classes as Princeton or Harvard, I would say Cal should not be your first choice.</p>
<p>As for Princeton or Harvard, both are comparable in math and economics. For IR, I think Princeton's WWS school is a particular strength, while for Harvard the Kennedy School of Government is for grad students. But for engineering, Princeton definitely has more comprehensive offerings than Harvard. In addition, many students at Princeton are engineers, whereas there are much fewer engineers at Harvard. Most Princeton engineers are also people that have broad academic interests and picked a balanced education at Princeton over less balanced educations at, say, MIT or CalTech. So I think Princeton would be a good fit for you.</p>
<p>The number of faculty (full-time equivalents) in engineering and applied sciences has grown tremendously over the past 10 years, from 40 in 1995 to 73 in 2006, even as many longstanding faculty members retired (that ?translates? to 40+ new faculty members). </p>
<p>The graduate student population grew from 175 to 289 during 1995?2006. Most impressive, the number of applications to our programs has nearly tripled over a shorter period, from 454 in 1997?1998 to 1364 in 2005?2006. Among all national graduate engineering programs, we have become one of the most selective, admitting about 13 percent of applicants. </p>
<p>Sponsored research has increased more than 60 percent from 1995 ($20.6M) to 2006 ($37.3M)</p>
<p>Monies generated from partnerships with industry have increased from $110,000 in 1995 to ~$2M in 2005. To encourage additional partnerships, we created the Industrial Partnership Program. We have also become an ?incubator? of its own. One striking example is the increase in the number of inventions per year, from seven in 2000 to 39 in 2004.</p>
<p>please note that the u.s. news rankings that ske cites are for <em>graduate</em> engineering programs. in the magazine's rankings of undergraduate programs, princeton comes in at #11 with harvard well behind at #30 - a "substantial" difference.</p>
<p>I think Harvard is the best choice for you. It gives you the opportunity to explore other areas while concurrently pursuing what you want, and it is also very flexible. Go for Harvard.</p>