Since almost all programs are ABET approved, what factors are used to rank one program above another. Excluding things outside the engineering program itself, why would I have a better engineering education from Cal than from the University of Arizona or from MIT than Northeastern for example?
According to whose rankings? Everyone ranks these sorts of things differently, so you would get a different answer.
As @boneh3ad is alluding to, you have to decide if you even trust the ranking methodology in the first place. One of the best articles I’ve ever read about the industry that has, in my opinion, done FAR more damage than good, is by Malcolm Gladwell. I linked it below.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/02/14/the-order-of-things
P.S. watch out for Arizona :))
Hey, man. Arizona just poached Noam Chomsky from MIT. Not engineering, but still surprising.
At any rate, this is one of my favorite articles about the US News rankings in particular:
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/
I suppose I am looking for the legitimacy of claims that going to one school over another really matters that much for one’s future. To some degree, for undergraduate at least, I believe engineering is engineering. But I also believe some schools are favored by the business world and likewise by some grad schools as well. I appreciate the answers so far. Interested in what others experiences may be regarding this subject.
@total1096 If you are concerned out job placement and graduate salaries by major, ask for the data directly from the university. Post graduates reports which give average salaries and graduate school placements by majors. You may find this data to be an eye opener.
Compare only like majors and remember that people taking jobs in NYC will generally be paid higher wages than those taking a similar position in the mid west. This salary differences largely reflect regional differences in the cost of living and not necessarily the reputation of the school. :bz
I sort of misread your question, and it’s actually a very good one. Back to bashing on the rankings for a sec and then I’ll answer.
You can look up a ranking’s methodology and if you plan on using them, you should. USNWR bases their methodology 100% on institutional reputation as assessed by other institutions. Theirs is the methodology I have the biggest problem with because the reputation of an engineering program is determined not by what sort of graduates they produce, but the quality of their research and their research faculty. It has little bearing on the undergraduate experience.
So, to answer your question, how does one determine which is “better?” That depends completely on what YOU value. If you think the coop experience is important, Northeastern is probably the best on your list. Proximity to world class research which you may (but probably won’t) be able to participate in, MIT and Cal, hands down.
My son’s methodology was as follows 1) $200k or less after merit aid 2) able to start in his major (no pre-engineering and no competing for a slot after he’d been there a year or two 3) early hands on in some way, be it a project based curriculum, more labs than typical, very developed engineering clubs or a combination of the above 4) small classes 5) not more than 30,000 students, but small was OK for the right school 6) minimal to no use of TAs for instruction 7) good job placement on the west coast 8) high retention of freshmen 9) typical college experience (pure tech programs where the student body might do math for fun over the weekend were out) 10) if he was going to apply to a state school out of our state it had to have a very compelling program AND be affordable in it’s own right. There are LOTS of very good state schools that don’t have the pockets to offer merit, so they’d violate #1.
He vetted a lot of schools. He was also a pretty high stats student, so could have had his pick of many famous programs he didn’t bother to apply to. He applied to Oregon State (didn’t meet LOTS of his criteria, but is the home state flagship), Utah (WUE), Colorado State (WUE), Cal Poly, Stanford, Case Western, WPI, and RPI (he was a Rennselaer Medalist). He was accepted everywhere except Stanford and ended up at Cal Poly.
As you can see HIS methodology automatically rejects MANY famous programs. He didn’t apply to many of the schools parents would love their children to go to. No Caltech, MIT, UCB, UIUC, or Cornell, to name but a few, because they didn’t meet what he was looking for in a college experience. He’s confident that any school he did apply to would have been fine and agonized until the last day between a very difficult admit, Cal Poly, a moderate admit, WPI and a safety, Utah. They all had great things that pulled very hard at him. Ranking by any commercially available methodology was never considered.
What his methodology left out was institutional reputation and there is undoubtedly some value in that. Everyone knows MIT and Stanford. Not everyone knows Cal Poly.
I’ll leave you with a couple anecdotes. My uncle who was a Stanford PhD, a department head and had a long private sector career too, told my son that he thought multiple schools on his list would be better for undergrad than Stanford. One of my patients found out we were touring schools and said “Let me tell you a little secret, it doesn’t matter where he goes to school. What matters is curiosity and drive.” He was the manager of one of the most famous NASA programs of all time and a dual PhD in math and physics. He could hire engineers from anywhere. Over his career he said some of the best engineers came from Podunk U (his words) and some that weren’t very good were from a school where he taught, Caltech.
That was a lot to simply say this…only you can really answer your own post, because only you know what’s important to you.
Good luck in the hunt and enjoy the process. We make it more serious than it need be.
This was one of my favorite theories when looking at possible colleges: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow1-uj0ToVY
My daughter would have loved to go to MIT or another uber-prestigious school for her ME degree, but she didn’t get in. She is on her 2nd year at Northeastern. There, she is considered a big enough fish to do research as a freshman, which got her noticed by the lead professor, which got her a recommendation for an undergraduate fellowship, which is now paying her tuition plus a nice stipend. I don’t think she would have been the shining beacon of wonderfulness at MIT to score such a sweat deal.
So, find a place with opportunities that interest you, but preferably somewhere that thinks you are worthy of those opportunities.
Not gonna lie, didnt read any of the other comments yet so I apologize if I repeat. If you’re looking at ranks to choose your school. Make sure you look at how each school stacks up on average salary upon graduation, percentage of job placement after graduation, how they can get you internships which lead could lead to full time employment after graduation, etc. Also, which are party schools so you know you have to stay responsible, crime ratings, safety ratings. And also, you should look at the federal funding for each school to see if you can get grants, etc. Good luck 
"Excluding things outside the engineering program itself, why would I have a better engineering education from Cal than from the University of Arizona or from MIT than Northeastern for example? "
-For one thing, because a more academically able student cohort means classes can be held at a higher level, go faster, cover more material. A consequence of having to work harder to beat the curve, or stay above water, is that you have to study more. Hence get a better education, even taking the same exact classes.
- Not necessarily on point, but a larger engineering program, if that is the case, can mean more comprehensive coverage of the field, more subareas taught and represented. Come senior year, if you have become interested in subdoodle engineering within electrical, they are more likely to offer it than a small school. Also they may have graduate courses in that area that you may be eligible to take.
- also not a direct answer to the question, but there may be more out of region recruiting at the larger and better known programs. Employers may respect the obvious smarts and work ethic demonstrated by thriving at a more demanding program.
None of this means you will actually be a better engineer though. After you get hired nobody will care where you went to school.
If you are looking to ensure a good engineering education, start with your in state large university. This would be the school that a random person on the street would say if you asked them “where do I study engineering?” These large programs have earned that reputation, and work to maintain that.
Don’t fret on the ranking so much. Unless you are considering what I call the “outlier schools” - MIT, Standford, etc, or are looking to study a really niche field, the school choice is less of a variable than you may think.
There isn’t consensus that the “outlier” schools are above and beyond in anything but reputation for the undergrad. They have problems at the undergraduate level, mainly heavy reliance on English as a second language TAs and pace. A Caltech professor told my son that he wouldn’t recommend it for undergrad. His words “it’s not an undergraduate institution.” He also had graduated of both MIT and Stanford tell him they didn’t recommend their alma matters for undergrad. Certainly there are many others who would argue otherwise. My point is, it isn’t a forgone conclusion.
eyemgh - I was not trying to imply the outliers are above and beyond, but I guess it does read that way a bit. I was really just trying to say that they are different enough that a comparison becomes an apples vs orange very quickly. A student should choose them because those programs offer what they want, not because they are ranked higher.
So true! Students need to decide if they want an apple or an orange. The problem with the ranking systems is that they not only include apples and oranges, but grapes, peaches and nectarines.
Lots of good advice here. I’d suggest also thinking about things outside engineering. Engineering programs are (as you suggest) already so closely prescribe as far as coursework, that it is worth asking: "What do I want to be able to do with the (relatively) few courses I get to/have to take outside engineering and my little bit of free time?
My ME kid, for instance, had done HS research at a highly regard “Tech” college and was clear they did not want a college experience dominated by “STEM” types. They chose a big school, where the engineering college was well integrated with the other disciplines, avoided engineering specific housing etc. My nephew, on the other hand, wanted to be completely immersed with other “tech types” and chose a school that encouraged that.
There are engineering schools that require more “lib arts/writing” (Columbia Fu has a “watered-down” common core, USC Viterbi has GE and writing requirements,) and some that requre less. There are some, like UMich, where the engineering campus is more physically separated from the “main” campus, or BU, where some students think thye can “feel” isolated despite being right in the middle of everything. Some are tiny. Some are huge.
Some engineering schools have a lot of competition for the presitigious clubs. Often you have to apply. Are you dying to be on the race-car team or the rocket club? Find out how hard it is to get involved… etc. etc.
The ABET may be the same, but in touring these schools with my kid we learned there can be quite a bit of difference in the margins.
There has been a lot of good advice, several things I hadn’t thought of. Thanks everyone. Keep it coming.
This is worthy of repeating:
Visit every school you possibly can. It’s VERY eye opening.
I agree with @eyemgh. Tour all that you can and try to focus on what will most enhance YOUR learning. If you learn best by doing, then the quality and availability of lab facilities should matter. If you learn best when competing with academic peers, then your relative position in the score range for the engineering program (not the overall school) should matter. If you learn best in a community where you can be very involved in campus life both within your major, and beyond it, then the availability of those opportunities should matter. Pure ranking does not mean that a school is the best one for you. ABET accreditation establishes a baseline but how each school delivers that baseline matters. Good luck to you!
@eyemgh wrote: “Proximity to world class research which you may (but probably won’t) be able to participate in, MIT and Cal, hands down.”
At MIT and Caltech it’s quite easy to do research at the undergraduate level. MIT has the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP):
http://uaap.mit.edu/research-exploration/urop
“Today, the program supports thousands of projects each year with 90% of MIT graduating seniors participating in at least one UROP during their undergraduate years.”
At Caltech, the undergraduate research program is called SURF.
Money abounds. The kids are approached by profs for UROP and SURF. No arm twisting required.
I’ll add a bit more since I’ve got a kid in mid-program and still finding out some interesting things…
They knew a few concrete things when they were choosing:
Wanted a realistic option of going abroad (read the fine print - it is NOT easy for Engineers. Mine took 2 summer credits just to make it more realistic. Going abroad for 1 semester in spring. Many “abroad” engineering programs are either summer, over break or doing the exact same courses, just someplace else.)
Was interested in start-up culture and wanted a school with strong push in that direction. (Honestly, most good engineering programs have this, but some are more advanced than others, and some with a forward-looking undergrad biz/tech strength have great symbiosis w. engineers)
They are very design-minded and wanted someplace they could do serious art and/or 3D design courses.
While many programs could reasonably well serve those requirments, a surprising number could not, or could not do it as well as they promised. Laying out those parameters in order of importance helped focus search a lot.
One additional bit of advice: Talk to actual current/recent engineering students, either by email, in person, on FB, whatever. Get the REAL answers, not the “brochure” answers. “Can I go abroad?” If that is important, what do you mean? For how long? Taking what courses? How is tuition/merit award treated etc. etc.
Can I take business courses? If so, how hard are they? Can I take Pass/Fail as I want to focus on Eng. GPA, etc.
I don’t mean to have you overthink this. Don’t not go to a school cause they don’t have 100% of the things you think you might want, but do make a thorough list of what you think may be important to you. “College Football Afternoons?!” Cooper Union. out. Olin. out… Sunny days on the beach… UCIC… out. UMich… out.