UVA Yale and Cornell are my top three choices for college next year, electrical engineering and computer science is my desired field of study, not sure which one to go for…
If you haven’t already done it, suggest do more research, look into more schools, do some visits, determine what the differences are, from this formulate what features may be more or less important to you personally. Not merely for major, but in all other respects.
After this is all done these may not be the three finalists any more.
Cornell’s electrical engineering program is the most highly recognized from your group.
Cornell has some of the strongest engineering in the nation and EE in particular is very strong. The ECE department offers a specific research option for young undergraduates thats unique-
https://www.ece.cornell.edu/ece/research/undergraduate-research-opportunities
Also Cornell offers the biggest variety of highly ranked engineering disciplines if you change your mind including operations research, info science which can be customized with minors in other fields, and aerospace engineering. Cornell also offers engineers a management track.
. Yale is a smaller school, with equally strong students, especially in science, humanities, social sciences, with a small engineering program that is more liberal arts focused, to get the Yale degree.
UVA is also very good, with a better selection of engineering disciplines than Yale, to study, if you prefer a warmer climate. Its an older public school,
Here is a new engineering discipline that combines data science, systems and the environment-
https://engineering.virginia.edu/departments/vision-new-department
Random facts that come to mind-
Ithaca is a much loved college town, lots of hiking, restaurants, waterfalls, and hockey is fun to watch, but all three are located in fun college towns. Ithaca has a longer winter and the most beautiful campus, if you like deep river gorges with suspension bridges, and water falls. Buses run around the large Cornell campus, all year around. You will get in shape on those hills!
Yale has one of the very top art museums in the country, a bigger art collection, than famous museums like Boston Fine Arts.
ok I guess I misunderstood, and these are where you really got in already.
I think it depends in part on what your goals are.
If you want to be a working engineer there are probably certain aspects of it that will be well covered at Yale, likely not comprehensive coverage of the field. My guess is more Yale engineering grads want to go on to Wall Street or go on to research degrees. But these are just my guesses I do not know much about it. I have met Harvard engineering grads, none of them worked as engineers. I met them on Wall street, not when I worked as an engineer. I have never encountered a Yale engineering grad.
If your working interests are uncertain but , as far as engineering, almost certainly fall into the areas of the field that Yale covers well, then I personally would go to Yale. Not because of its engineering department but because it is Yale.
Admittedly, this opinion is partly shaped by my years working on Wall Street.
Recognizing that, on this path, you likely will not wind up working as a “regular” electrical engineer. Or you will, but only in certain areas of practice maybe.
If you want the best engineering school, because you want to be an engineer, but maybe aren’t exactly sure what kind yet, then go to Cornell. If you like UVA a lot better you can go to UVA. It may not be as recruited nationally though.
edit: I now seem to recall that Yale was putting more money into its engineering department. FWIW.
Here are specific numbers, 2018, for Wall Street Banks, and both Cornell and Yale appear on this list. This particular data shows Cornell to be stronger than Yale for recruitment lately in international banking/ Wall street. Cornell is the bigger and more quantitative school of the three options. For recruitment for EE positions, Cornell has even more appeal on the west coast, on most top high tech recruitment lists.
For electrical engineering, Cornell is ranked 9, Yale is ranked 38.
Right now, Yale and U Mass Amherst are tied at rank 20 for CS. Cornell and UW Seattle tied at rank 6. Those are PhD ranks that reflect the type of CS research going on at these schools.
Here is some data on recruiting by larger banks at Yale and Cornell
https://poetsandquantsforundergrads.com/2018/05/21/top-feeder-schools-to-wall-street/
If money isn’t a factor, Cornell.
Cornell is strong in EE/CS. However, I personally believe that the strength of the university matters more than the strength of the department at the undergraduate level.
You need to look at more schools but if you were picking between these 3, I would choose Yale.
However, these schools are not separated by a marginal difference in overall engineering reputations, with Cornell at 9th and Yale at 32nd in their U.S. News category. When considered with related departments in which Cornell also appears to be stronger, such as physics, as well as with general aspects such as Cornell’s beautiful setting, Cornell may also be the stronger university overall for some students.
Re #8, IIRC those rankings are highly influenced by quality of faculty research. If the coverage of engineering is not comprehensive, either as a whole of even not comprehensive within the sub-discipline, they are not given a “zero” for the areas they don’t cover. So if a school only covers a few sub-areas of the field, but in those areas they do cover their research is strong, the school can get a relatively high ranking even though there are large holes in their training; breadth and depth. In other words, I suspect that #32 is inflated, as far as reputation in the (non-PhD) field and for actually producing real working engineers.
Re#7, I don’t agree if the goal is to become a working engineer. For example, maybe CMU does not have the strongest brand as an overall university, but its brand in engineering is high and engineering employers know it.
However if OP actually wants to do other things, that’s where the overall “branding” is most relevant, and shortcomings in engineering breadth and depth (and on-campus engineering recruiting, probably) are least relevant… I suspect their engineering students often gravitate to those other directions. Consulting, I-banking, some particular sub-fields where their department is relatively strong. Which may be hot sub-fields. Which is not a bad thing, if that is what one winds up wanting to do.
Most engineering employers want smart engineers who are well trained. Some employers, mostly not engineering but some CS companies too, and others, want brilliant individuals who they will train. I suspect the latter group recruits there but the former less so.
Which one is more important depends on the specific situation.
I think the strength of the university matters more than the strength of the department at the undergraduate level, so id go with Yale.
^^^…then Yale over Wharton by all means!
Ha, touché… It does illustrate the point. Yale has no reputation in engineering. IMO.
I’m thinking that Yale engineering graduates are not left wanting for offers.
Yale’s career survey unfortunately does not show by-major results.
https://ocs.yale.edu/contact-ocs/statistics-reports#toc3
[url=https://ocs.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/OCS%20Stats%20pages/Final%20Class%20of%202018%20Report%20(6%20months)(1).pdf]https://ocs.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/OCS%20Stats%20pages/Final%20Class%20of%202018%20Report%20(6%20months)(1).pdf[/url]
However, it does look like 3.9% of 2018 graduates took engineering jobs (versus 6.1% of degrees were in engineering, according to https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=yale&s=all&id=130794#programs ). Regarding CS, it looks like 4.8% of graduates went into software jobs, versus 5.7% of degrees in CS.
The traditional Ivy League job destinations of finance and consulting were the biggest job destinations at 15.4% and 13.4%. It is likely that at least some Yale engineering and CS graduates go there instead of engineering and software jobs.
I believe Yale graduates in engineering rarely become engineers. they tend to go to business, law or medical school. Yale is a very small engineering program that focuses on policy. List all the engineering classes available at Yale and list all the engineering classes available at Cornell, and the difference becomes obvious. No one that actually wants to become an engineer, goes to Yale. Its not beefy enough! Yale is a great all around place, for music, sciences, and social sciences. Its a wonderful pre law college. I would not go there if I wanted to be in the pack with engineers.
To train as an engineer, you need to rub shoulders with other engineers. AT Cornell you can do that, at Yale, not really.
If one looks at past history, it could be argued that Yale is one of the least robust engineering programs in the country.
It started out with what has come to be called “The Yale Report of 1828”. Four years after the founding of RPI, at a time when the country was trying to gear up for the industrial revolution, Yale declared that educating their clientele (the leisure class) should have nothing to do with anything that required the use of the hands (other than croquet). They argued that studying dead languages was a better way to prepare for the future than studying technology.
In the report, Yale (which was clearly behind the times in science) talked about the “furniture of the mind” and presumably was concerned that decorating the mind with modern furniture would be in poor taste given the faux Gothic architecture of the campus. 
Ironically, in 1863, Yale was the first college to take funding and operate under the terms of the Morrill (land grant) Act, which was intended to fund the creation of agriculture and mechanic arts (engineering) programs. After years of complaints around performance, in 1893 Yale’s land grant status was revoked, making it one of three schools in the Northeast (all members of the Ivy League) with this distinction.
https://today.uconn.edu/2012/09/land-grant-status-acquired-after-yale-storrs-controversy/
Cornell (which was founded in 1865 as a land grant college) was able to maintain that status.
Throughout the the 20th century, Yale’s administration struggled with the concept of engineering doing away with the Sheffield School in 1919, then re-establishing a school of engineering in 1932 only to totally neglect their undergraduate programs resulting in a loss of their engineering accreditation. in 1966. After nearly two decades of rebuilding, they were able to regain accreditation in 1984 only to have the provost propose that engineering be eliminated in 1992 to save money (presumably to fund dead languages in order to better prepare their students for the 21st century innovation economy).
Yale did not approve the proposal (so they still have some engineering. More recently they have managed to increase funding, but who knows what the future will bring.
https://seas.yale.edu/i-am/alumnus/yale-history-blog/post-world-war-ii-era
@Mastadon – Thank you for your post above. I did not know that Yale had been the Land Grant institution in CT, and also never knew that Brown & Dartmouth also were in RI and NH.
I laughed at this line: A three-year course in agriculture was offered, and the curriculum had an emphasis on languages, especially French and German. “‘The educated farmer should read them with ease,’ says a school report of 1865,’” wrote Stemmons.
I also enjoyed reading the history of Engineering at Yale that you posted, so thank you again.
I am a loyal Cornell grad with one child at Cornell and another at Yale. I confess that I know little about SEAS, and tend to agree with most here who say that Cornell offers the stronger, larger, and more established Engineering & CS programs. However, I will say that Yale is just a different sort of school. That is not to take anything away from Cornell, but they are very different places, each offering their own magic.
I just realized that the OP has not returned to this thread, so this advice will probably never be read.
@Coloradomama it looks like overt half of Yale engineering grads go onto engineering jobs from @ucbalumnus data, so not exactly rare. Yes when Goldman Sachs and others show up recruiting engineers (and they recruit engineers a lot) it can be tough to turn there money down vs somewhat lesser pay for actual engineering jobs.