@iulianc, I completely agree. That’s why early in this thread, I said asked “based on what?” We take these rankings to mean something when clearly, they have no real basis, and are extremely prone to self perpetuation.
The problem with ranking, ESPECIALLY engineering programs, is that the outcomes, if we define that as percentage of the class employed and salaries, are all very similar at all ABET schools. MIT and Stanford grads, on average do not make multiples of times more than Iowa State grads. After factoring in the cost of living where said grads tend to land, the Iowa State grad probably pockets more.
What matters to me is lifting the rug and learning how undergraduates are educated, which SHOULD ultimately translate to how effective they will be as engineers. There are certain things that our family felt were important, smaller classes, early placement into major, and significant hands on in the form of labs, projects or clubs, from first year. That’s what led us to schools like Cal Poly, WPI, Lehigh and Olin, to name a few. It was also important to us to bypass any programs that were known as grinds. There’s no reason to hate 4 years for the sake of an education, when you can get a great education at so many places without the arduousness. Those schools have higher than average suicide rates. Unless you look deeper than rankings, how would you know?
So, back to the beginning…where would Cal Poly rank? That depends COMPLETELY on the metrics used to do the ranking. Someone hazarded a guess earlier that “CP-SLO would fall above the top 20 but within the top 40” with nothing to back that assertion up. Again, I say, based on what?
Here’s an interesting side note, why does USNWR use a completely different methodology (or lack thereof) for engineering?
One more data point. Big companies pay the exact same starting salary to an MIT graduate and to a regional school like Eastern Washington University graduate, very low in the rankings. I know that to be the fact for Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Google and it is very likely to be the same for many others. I have personally interviewed and worked with many graduates, either interns or full time, from Ivy League as well as state flagship universities, and lower ranked colleges. Some worked for me, some worked with me. I could not tell the difference in anything they did.
In fact, Google did a thorough study on this, looking at predictors of professional performance based on school, GPA, etc. There is no long term correlation with any of that. They might be a weak predictor of performance in the first year, but not beyond that. In fact, they discovered that Ivy League graduates might be more arrogant and hard to work with and actually graduates of top state universities are more humble and better team mates. Documented here: https://www.amazon.com/Work-Rules-Insights-Inside-Transform/dp/1455554790
So in the end it comes down to make sure you get to a school where big companies recruit and do your best to get an internship with them as early as possible. Which actually might be easier at a lower tier school, where the competition for majors is also easier.
I keep being amazed the lengths people would go to be associated with prestige, which ca run counter to one’s long term economic interest.
My son was ahead at Cal Poly, but couldn’t get out early due to the sequential nature of the curriculum. He started taking graduate classes at the end of his third year and applied to the 4+1 program. The director of the graduate program, and several of his professors tried to talk him into applying to Stanford for his MS. Every year a few CP ME students move to Stanford, and they were very confident based on his record and experience that he would be admitted. He considered it. Who wouldn’t when presented with that scenario? Then he calculated the cost.
He would have delayed starting his MS until after the end of his 4th year, done a non-thesis based MS, and paid $55,000 per year tuition as Stanford does not fund terminal MS students. Best case scenario he would have delayed entering the workforce an additional year, and paid another year of tuition at a much higher rate. That’s assuming he would have done it in a single year. It probably would have taken at least 1.5 years and more likely two.
By staying at Cal Poly, he was able to finish all but one quarter of his MS classes by the end of his 4th year, plus he got funding for a thesis.
I get the allure of prestige, but the opportunity cost (extra tuition plus delayed income, amortized over the length of a career) of choosing Stanford was massive. Needless to say, he stayed at Cal Poly and is wrapping up a very cool thesis project.
Big companies pay the exact same starting salary to an MIT graduate and to a regional school like Eastern Washington University graduate, very low in the rankings.
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In my experience (software engineer) MIT graduate is more likely than EWU graduate to have decent competing offers and will use them to get better pay (or sign on bonus / stock).
@justaparent totally agree with you on opportunities. My point was only on starting salary once an offer is made.
I am ready to bet EWU will have far fewer companies recruiting there specifically. However, big companies have a policy of recruiting to very many colleges (some have a list of at least 200), so the number of tech companies recruiting from CalPoly is likely going to be similar with MIT. (I am sure MIT guys are more likely to be courted by Finance people which won’t visit CalPoly, but that is a different discussion).
I know kids that had 4 competing offers from Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft at Calpoly as well. Bet that is the case at MIT but not at EWU. Yes, they might use that to negotiate a better sign-up bonus, but less so a starting salary. I personally intermediated such a negotiation for a Cornell graduate at one of these companies. In the end he got a slightly higher bonus, but not an increase in salary. An increase in salary is tough to get, since it might be associated with higher expectations for performance, which is generally a dangerous thing for new graduate.