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<p>It very well may be. That doesn’t necessarily mean it is overall better at EE though.</p>
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<p>Caltech doesn’t get a lot of publicity because it is a tiny school. It is also much more oriented towards graduate programs, which get a much smaller treatment on CC than undergrad programs. Berkeley and Stanford get plenty of love. You just aren’t looking or are just too annoyed with the GT love (which, yes, does seem to be slightly over-represented on here at times).</p>
<p>Gotta agree… S got into GT, UIUC, CalTech, Berkeley, and Stanford. After he found out about the last three, GT was off his list. I’m not saying its not a good school but no way he chooses GT over any of them. Its good to have pride in your school but you have to be objective also and its not the only good school out there… just my humble opinion.</p>
<p>JamesMadison - I never went nor applied to GT, nor UCLA. I’m at UIUC. I know a few GT grads, and they all appear to be performing at a higher level than the vast majority of their peers (all from good schools). When I solicited suggestions for grad school, senior engineers and managers at my company included GT as a good reach school for me.</p>
<p>Interestingly, you seem to have made my point:</p>
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<p>UCLA may be the better school in your particular specialty, that doesn’t make it better overall.</p>
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And I would agree with that decision. That GT is better than the vast majority of schools does not make it the best in the world, and that has never been my position. But you have just listed (IMO) 5 of the 6 best EE schools in the country… and neither UT nor UCLA appeared on that list. If your son was admitted to GT, UT, and UCLA, what decision would he have made?</p>
<p>Since UIUC and GT are considered academically almost identical, bolstering the status of a large public engineering university like GT reflects better on your college too (vs. the private ones like Stanford, MIT, etc). You have a personal incentive too.</p>
<p>I think arrogant behavior is almost universal. For instance, in the UCLA boards, half the people are trying to convince themselves that UCLA is as prestigious at Berkeley, which is a joke. </p>
<p>And my middle-tier undergraduate state school? Everyone there is convinced that is some kind of international powerhouse, just because we’re the state flagship.</p>
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<p>Maybe yes, maybe no. Its all speculation, and I don’t even understand what “better” means. What is the definition of the term? I guarantee that both UCLA and GT graduates will get great jobs and academic opportunities. Is McDonalds better or Burger King? Is Coke better than Pepsi? Some might prefer this or that, but in the end it doesn’t really matter.</p>
<p>I just wish the GT grads would think about that for a while, instead of saying “virtually everyone would rank GT > UCLA except for JamesMadison’s group of friends”, and all this nonsense that I read every day here.</p>
<p>Having had the choice of attending either of these two schools recently, I did a lot of googling. I even posted this thread about it:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/1097194-ucla-vs-gatech.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/1097194-ucla-vs-gatech.html</a></p>
<p>I got no really conclusive answer, except obviously the GT affiliates came to toot their own horn as usual.</p>
<p>You’ll notice I restrained myself and didn’t toot the horn for Texas, lol! I try to keep my mouth shut when I don’t know much about the specific department. Now, if you’d brought up civil engineering, that would have been a different story… :)</p>
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Wait a minute, you are decrying the academic consideration given to GT while simultaneously using that consideration to condemn me? If you consider opinions of GT to be invalid, why are opinions of UIUC even relevant?</p>
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Well, I think Stanford and MIT are the two best engineering schools, so does that admission mean I am self-destructive? There are lots of “large public engineering universities” and some are great, some aren’t… just like small private engineering universities, or any other arbitrary category you want to name. If I wanted to reflect better on my university I would hardly start by exhorting other schools.</p>
<p>BTW, my first choice program was Northwestern - a private, and good but not elite in engineering. I turned them down when I found out that my professor of interest was not taking new students - the remaining professors (and their plans for me) held no interest.</p>
<p>Also, aren’t UT and UCLA also large public universities with strong engineering programs?</p>
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I would consider “better” to mean that the school produces “more competent” engineers and researchers. In my experience, GT is, by this standard, “better” than the vast majority of schools. This is a personal opinion - I know a few GT graduates and I have been very impressed by their competence with respect to their peers. I have not gone through and done any detailed comparison studies of the two schools, and do not personally know any UCLA engineering grads. </p>
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I find it interesting that at the end of the above thread, you were trending GT, a school you now seem to be condemning. I also am having trouble finding the GT affiliates “tooting their own horn” - the three other posters all seemed relatively ambivalent. That no UCLA engineering grads commented just seems to indicate that (for whatever reason) they are conspicuously absent on these boards.</p>
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<p>You could hardly say UIUC is better than MIT without being made to look foolish. Some comparisons are ridiculous. However, within a certain “sanity-range”, people will definitely exaggerate the strength of their program.</p>
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<p>Why is it interesting? I strongly considered GT as it is a great school. However, I have no illusions about the quality of the program. There are many other similarly great schools like Texas, Illinois, Michigan, Purdue, UCLA, USC, UCSD, etc. Personally, I would not place GT above the schools I listed; I would say they are in the same league.</p>
<p>(BTW: The thread I made was before I had a chance to talk to those 3 professors. This is a large part of why I changed my mind.)</p>
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<p>You said your measure of better is, who produces more competent engineers. You also admitted you don’t know any UCLA graduates. That means, your opinion that you posted earlier in the thread is completely without basis.</p>
<p>i’m not being a ■■■■■ here, just in the OP same position. what about Carnegie Mellon vs. Georgia Tech for MechE, or engineering all together. thanks. (:</p>
<p><a href=“BTW:%20The%20thread%20I%20made%20was%20before%20I%20had%20a%20chance%20to%20talk%20to%20those%203%20professors.%20This%20is%20a%20large%20part%20of%20why%20I%20changed%20my%20mind.”>quote</a>
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<p>Seriously though, why are you asking professors about which school is best for MSEE? I’m not saying they chose wrong, as my sample size of people I know of who went to UCLA for EE is… 2, but many engineering professors haven’t even held a non-academic job, much less been in a position to hire for one. How would they know which school will set you up best for a post-MS career?</p>
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<p>I am ultimately interested in getting a PhD and doing research for a career.</p>
<p>Alright, makes more sense. I was under the impression from your posts in this thread that you were a terminal MS applicant. Best of luck at UCLA; the MS->Ph.D system there is pretty lengthy. A friend of mine matriculated there in '08 and, just recently, was finally admitted to Ph.D candidacy in EE.</p>