Weighing Engineering at VT vs. Georgia Tech

Colleges and Universities A-Z Virginia Tech
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<p>My son is having a challenge deciding between the engineering programs at Va Tech and Ga Tech. He loves VT: the campus is beautiful and rural (he's not a big fan of "inner city life"), the food is top notch, the student population is diverse (in terms of majors and interests), the dorms are mostly very nice, course and degree programs are broad, they offer co-op programs for engineers. He is eligible for Honors program at VT but won't hear about that until April. When we visited Vanderbilt we heard from one of the Engineering department heads there several times that certain aspects of their engineering programs were modeled after VT's.</p>

<p>However, he looks at the rankings and sees GT is #5 in engineering and VT is #24 and wonders if he would be missing out on a better education at GT. We are OOS for both so the cost will be comparable and not a factor in our decision. He hasn't chosen a focus in engineering yet but is leaning towards EE, CS, or Mech. E. </p>

<p>We're wondering what people think about how VT's engineering program stacks up when comparing it to Georgia Tech and why you this GT has such a high ranking (and if this matters).</p>

<p>Thanks in advance!</p>

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<p>VT and GT are very similar programs in Engineering, in terms of what companies recruit there and what academic/research opportunities he will have there. GT is higher ranked, but the difference between 5 and 24 in the engineering rankings isn’t thy huge, and there are some engineering programs where VT is ranked higher. </p>

<p>I’d also point out that opportunities are only what you make of them, so if he feels at home at VT but not GT he is likely to do much better for himself where he is comfortable. </p>

<p>Also at VT he won’t have to watch the annoying triple option all year.</p>

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<p>Your student will get an excellent education at both schools. You are really splitting hairs here. Where you will find the difference is student life. Only your student can decide what culture they are going to be more comfortable with. There are big differences between the two. FWIW, if you care about rankings, USNWR ranks GT #5 and VT #15 for Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs (whose highest engineering degree offered is a doctorate).</p>

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<p>That’s simply not true. First of all, you can look at the non-engineering options. All of the major management consulting firms (MBB) come to GT. None visit VT. 5 of the 9 BB banks target GT engineering majors, none target VT. GT has a tie into the VC circuit with GTRI, VT does not have VC options. So as far as the six-figure salaries go, VT and GT are very different.</p>

<p>When you restrict yourself to standard engineering positions, lets looks at employment data:</p>

<p>All Engineering
– GT: 64.2% employed (82.6% offered*) @ $63,000 per year
– VT: 52.5% employed @ $58,500 per year

  • GT also lists the students with offers before graduation, the students with offers but no job probably went to graduate school.</p>

<p>Aerospace Engineering:
– GT: 59% employed (79% offered) @ $62,500 per year
– VT: 48% employed @ $56,000 per year</p>

<p>Chemical Engineering:
– GT: 82% employed (88% offered) @ $67,000 per year
– VT: 62% employed @ $65,000 per year</p>

<p>Computer Engineering:
– GT: 89% employed (100% offered) @ $66,000 per year
– VT: 63% employed @ $65,000 per year</p>

<p>Electrical Engineering:
– GT: 75% employed (86% offered) @ $69,000 per year
– VT: 63% employed @ $63,000 per year</p>

<p>Mechanical Engineering:
– GT: 59% employed (84% offered) @ $65,000 per year
– VT: 56% employed @ $59,000 per year</p>

<p>So salaries are about the same in some fields or higher at GT (despite the fact that VT puts a large number of people into expensive NOVA), and employment percentages are very different between the schools, especially in certain fields.</p>

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<p>That’s another problem. When companies hire, not all students are the same. You usually have more desirable positions available (in the headquarters in a major city, high visibility, access to company leaders, ability to show leadership, etc.) and less desirable positions available (in a rural location, working at a cost center rather than a profit center, no access to senior leadership, little ability to show leadership, etc.). The people who go to the better schools get first crack at the more desirable positions because it’s harder to get those students (they tend to have better offers than lower tier students). </p>

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<p>The diversity of majors can be a good thing, but can also hurt. We all know that engineering and hard science majors are at a disadvantage when it comes to grades than other majors. At VT, 75% of the students are not engineers, and therefore have an “advantage” over the engineers. At GT, only 35% of the students have that “advantage” over the engineering students. I wouldn’t discount that if you have interest in professional school (law, medicine, business).</p>

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<p>Is this a rehash of UVA’s argument that “we’re better if you don’t actually want to go into engineering”? GT is better than that.</p>

<p>Where did you get those statistics? The ones I found ([Virginia</a> Tech Post-Graduation Report: Salaries reported](<a href=“http://www.career.vt.edu/scripts/PostGrad2006/Report/DetailReportSalaries.asp?College=00&Majors=Y&Cohort=2009-2010]Virginia”>http://www.career.vt.edu/scripts/PostGrad2006/Report/DetailReportSalaries.asp?College=00&Majors=Y&Cohort=2009-2010)) are more favorable for VT. And remember when you’re looking at those numbers, people that go to grad school get counted as unemployed, so some numbers look a lot worse than they are.</p>

<p>GT and VT are different enough schools that are similar enough in opportunity/academics that it comes down to where you want to spend four years. On Georgia Tech’s campus or Virginia Tech’s. Visit both, and I can give you some good places to get some maroon and orange gear.</p>

<p>edit: And non-engineering companies are very cognizant of the difference in difficulty between engineering and non-engineering at VT, and the impact that will have on your GPA.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the salary info. I wasn’t even aware colleges collected and posted this data. It looks to me like the numbers posted by CFB53B are very close the those in the report in chuy’s link. Most are exactly the same and only a couple differ slightly. I dug around and managed to find the source of the GT data CFB53B provided and it is worth mentioning to all who read this that the VT data is based on the Spring 2010 survey (their 2011 survey won’t be available until next month) whereas the GT data it was compared to was from their Spring 2011 survey. GT’s Spring 2010 data is also available on their website and while I don’t have to time or patience to create an apples to apples 2010 comparison like the one provided above, I will summarize: The GT numbers for 2010 are about 5% lower on salary and about 15% lower (and I do mean percent lower, not percentage points lower) on employment rates (vs. 2011) which put them much closer to VT’s numbers. For example, the “All Engineering” numbers for GT in 2010 were 55.3% employed, $60,000 median salary which is much closer to the VT numbers in 2010 listed above of 52.5% (actually, the number published by VT is 59%, this is a discrepancy) and $58,500 as opposed to the much larger difference that was claimed above by using GT’s 2011 figures.</p>

<p>I’m sure this was an oversight by CFB53B since he used the latest data available from both schools, but I sought out the raw data myself because I was surprised at the differences in the figures and found them to be fairly significant deltas. However, I believe that the differences between the 2 schools’ 2010 figures are not very significant at all. But that’s just one man’s opinion.</p>

<p>This is a good discussion though and I would love to hear other people’s views on other aspects of the engineering education at these 2 schools.</p>

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<p>The VT salary information is from 2009-2010 and represents the median reported salary by major:</p>

<p>College of Engineering $58,500
Aerospace Engineering $56,000
Biological Systems Engineering **
Chemical Engineering $65,000
Civil Engineering $50,000
Computer Engineering $65,000
Computer Science $62,000
Construction Engineering & Management $47,950
Electrical Engineering $63,000
Engineering Science & Mechanics $68,000
Industrial & Systems Engineering $59,050
Materials Science & Engineering $59,500
Mechanical Engineering $59,500
Mining Engineering $63,000
Ocean Engineering $54,938 </p>

<p>Mitch1313 - you beat me to it!</p>

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<p>blueiguana wrote:
FWIW, if you care about rankings, USNWR ranks GT #5 and VT #15 for Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs (whose highest engineering degree offered is a doctorate). </p>

<p>Are you sure about this VT numbers? I find VT’s ranking to always be listed around #24.</p>

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<p>Yes, I looked it up to be sure. I didn’t post the link as you have to have a subscription to see past #9 I believe. I’ll include the link so you can check if you wish. I’ve also transposed the first part of the list here for those w/o a subscription. </p>

<p><a href=“http://premium.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate[/url]”>http://premium.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<ol>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>UC - Berkeley</li>
<li>Cal Tech</li>
<li>Georgia Tech</li>
<li>UIUC</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Purdue</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>UT - Austin</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>University of Wisconsin - Madison</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Virginia Tech</li>
<li>Penn State - University Park</li>
<li>Rice </li>
<li>Texas A&M - College Station </li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>UC - San Diego</li>
<li>University of Washington</li>
<li>Duke</li>
</ol>

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<p>@Mitch:</p>

<p>The rankings you’re looking at are for graduate rankings (not UNDERgraduate).</p>

<p>Yes VT is #24 for Graduate, but they are #15 for undergraduate.</p>

<p>Hope this clarifies everything!</p>

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<p>GT does have a slight edge in the rankings and in post graduate opportunities. However I would say it is easier to excel at VT due to the competition and rigor at GT (and therefore get a better job or get into a better graduate school).</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t go that far. There are people that would do better at VT and people that would do better at GT. If someone felt at home on VT’s campus I doubt they’d feel the same down at GT. All I’m saying is that the schools are very similar in many ways (the difference between 4 and 5 in those rankings is bigger than the difference between 5 and 14. VT and GT are peers, CalTech and GT are not), and no, you aren’t cheating yourself out of anything you’d get at GT by picking VT.</p>

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<p>It’s nice that you think that, but GT and VT are not peers. Caltech and GT, on the other hand, are and swap positions in the rankings periodically (the president of Caltech is the former provost at GT and the two schools share considerable research initiatives).</p>

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<p>CFB53B-From Georgia Tech’s own website re: who they consider their peers–
note that Virginia Tech appears on this list.
[Peer</a> Institutions | Institutional Research and Planning](<a href=“http://www.irp.gatech.edu/content/peer-institutions]Peer”>http://www.irp.gatech.edu/content/peer-institutions)
These are both great schools. I would go with personal fit in choosing between them. The culture /atmosphere seems quite different between these schools.</p>

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<p>That is isn’t chosen by Georgia Tech - it’s chosen by the Board of Regents for planning purposes. Some are academic peers (and the school benchmarks on areas such as admissions), some are research peers (and the school benchmarks on areas such as research expenditures and expansions), and some are peers from the perspective of being a large state-run university with a technical focus (and the school benchmarks on areas such as amenities, activities, and auxiliary services). Virginia Tech is a peer in that last group.</p>

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<p>Your investment in proving how superior Georgia Tech is to Virginia Tech is admirable,CFB.
mitch,my suggestion would be that your son go with his gut feeling on this. He cannot go wrong with either school. Good luck with the decision!</p>

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<p>In regard to CFB’s assertion that no major management consulting firms recruit at Virginia Tech. That is not correct. I looked at the most recent vault rankings for 2012 for management consulting. Deloitte(number 4),Booz(number 10) and Accenture(number 11) all recruit there. Do the MOST prestigious firms recruit on campus there (McKinsey,Bain,BCG)? No, but so what. All 3 of these firms actually have offices in Atlanta so recruiting at Georgia Tech would be obvious. And just because companies like Bain recruit at Georgia Tech doesn’t mean lots of the kids are getting hired there. These top firms also recruit at my older son’s alma mater,UVa , but the bar is set very high to get an interview. My son had an almost 3.7 in engineering and had a friend who was a year older working for Bain pass his resume on. The feedback-his resume looks great but his GPA is high enough so no interview. Fine. He has a good job elsewhere as do most of the Georgia Tech graduates.
WSJ did a survey of recruiters in 2010. Georgia Tech rated #1 for engineering,VT #5. Georgia Tech #4 for CS, VT #5. Overall, Georgia Tech #7, VT #13. These differences seem so negligible in the scheme of things. Both great schools. In my opinion, go where you feel you will be able to thrive.</p>

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<p>Those are not management firms. The Management Consulting firms mentioned are McKinsey, Bain, and BCG (collectively MBB). When you start getting down to Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, and Booze (which are IT consulting firms) you’re getting into different types of engagements at a lower salary. You also don’t build the network you would at MBB.</p>

<p>Certainly MBB jobs are not easy to land. Just like it’s not easy to land Bulge Bracket (BB) banking or venture capital positions (the types of positions that virtually guarantee your entrance to Harvard Business and a $250,000 salary by age 30). But the point still stands that at Georgia Tech, if you’re a good student these options are open to you. At Virginia Tech, no matter how much you excel and how great you are as a graduate, you have no chance at these positions.</p>

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<p>Penn State ranked #1 overall in that ranking and had a big press release. MIT was 23rd. The recruiters admitted that MIT graduates are exceptional, so why did they rank so poorly? When you go to MIT, the students have many options and you really have to pay above market for a position to land a student. Bad for recruiters, great for students. So as a student, I wouldn’t put much stock in those rankings, even though GT did well.</p>

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<p>It’s not about proving anything. It’s simply dishonest to tell people that they’ll have the same opportunities coming out of two different tiers of schools.</p>

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<p>If a kid really has their heart set on getting into a place like McKinsey,Goldman Sachs,etc. they would probably be better off going to an Ivy or MIT than Georgia Tech anyway. It is only a subset of engineers that even care about such things.</p>

<p>I just glanced at Deloitte and Accenture’s websites. They do hire management consultants. Accenture also has IT consultants.</p>

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<p>They do not have management consultants. They have people that use that phrase to try and ride on the coattails of the profession built by MBB (who charge an order of magnitude more) but their work is most certainly not management consulting and their pay is not consistent with the other firms; it’s staging for their IT consulting. And even then, their IT consulting is 135,000 of their 140,000 or so employees. </p>

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<p>That is school dependent. Why? The vast majority of students who enroll at Virginia Tech have no idea what BB or MBB or VC positions are, let alone that these options are available to them. So what do they do? They continue on with their only perceived option and go work as an engineer. More than half of these students will stop being engineers before 30 (some will move to management, some to sales, some with go back to school for an MBA). </p>

<p>At other schools, like UVA or GT, students are exposed to these fields because of campus recruiting and clubs and organizations that explain it. After understanding the difference in career paths, salary, and work, about 25% of the engineers will start seriously looking at alternative career paths based on their interests. They’ll interview and many will be hired and pursue these paths.</p>