<p>As indicated before that my D's first choice has been Yale for long until we visited the campus in August. We were really disappointed with the town 'New Heaven' which was not even close to be 'human' than to be Heaven. Campus also was deserted compared to Columbia/Brown/Harvard during the same week.
Now she is really confused as both my wife and I are pressing her to rethink her early application. Can someone enumerate why Yale for engineering (EECS)? We would like our daughter to apply to her first choice EA but we are not comfortable with Yale.</p>
<p>The town is "New Haven"...</p>
<p>New Haven isn't the greatest town but generations of Yalies loved their Yale experience. Hopefully you and your family have visited enough colleges and your daughter knows which ones feel right for her. With all of my children, their final choice was a surprise to us! Not maybe what we would have chosen for them but they have all loved their choice.</p>
<p>phade: I know but we always thought of it as heaven as it has Yale University. For us cambridge (MA), Princeton (NJ), and Stanford(CA) all are heavenly places. But the experience at Yale was not the best in terms of its surroundings.</p>
<p>It's SCEA right, so it's not binding. Why? Because she has better chance of getting admitted to Yale than at other school in CA which is known for engineering/cs. Plus Yale usually defers you to next round unlike Stanford. Does she have other schools that she like to apply EA?</p>
<p>hmom5: We visited CHYMPS, Columbia, U. Penn, Brown, UCB, UC LA, USC, UCSD.
We wanted to visit Northwestern, Duke, JHU and Rice but couldn't work out a schedule.
Somehow New Haven was the biggest disappointment. It might be we never expected it to be so. We had lower expectation of Philadelphia, Los Angeles so U. Penn and USC was what we expected.</p>
<p>I'm all for MIT/Caltech as in my opinion she will fit in just right with her passion for research and engineering. But she is somewhat influenced by her mother too who is an English major and always supported Ivies because of their liberal art focus.</p>
<p>I think she should apply EA to MIT & Wellesley if she likes liberal arts and engineering. For MIT, you can take classes at Wellesley and Harvard and the full liberal art education. At Wellesley, you can take classes at MIT and take advantage of the excellent engineering program at MIT.
You must not read a lot of guide books while searching for colleges, because the area around Yale is well known to a lot of people. I'm surprised you are surprised.</p>
<p>For one, you may have been at Yale at a time when there weren't many people around. . . if the summer sessions were over and it was before the new semester began, you're not going to get a good idea of what the college is like when class is in session. </p>
<p>For another, obviously thousands of parents send their children off to Yale every year and they're fine. Yeah, New Haven is not the best city, but if Yale wasn't a safe place where a student can have a great experience and get a great education, it would not be as popular as it is. </p>
<p>As far as liberal arts goes, MIT has far more options than a lot of non-"tech" schools.</p>
<p>Parent, is Dartmouth on your list? For my son and many others they found their ivy heaven in Hanover. My son actually visited by accident, he accompanied me on a trip when I was recruiting because my next stop was Harvard which he was at the time very interested in. One look at Dartmouth and Harvard was out of the picture.</p>
<p>hmom5: According to D's College Counselor Dartmouth is not a good fit, that is why we never visited.</p>
<p>The ONLY Ivy on USNews top 10 list of Engineering Schools where doctorate is highest degree is Cornell. Ithaca and the Cornell campus are both beautiful. It is worth a look.</p>
<p>Yale ranks 38 in US News. </p>
[quote]
^ Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs:</p>
<p>1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 4.7927
2 Stanford University Stanford, CA 4.651
2 University of California--Berkeley Berkeley, CA 4.6615
4 California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 4.5134
4 Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 4.5155
4 University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL 4.4503
7 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI 4.4032
8 *Cornell University Ithaca, NY 4.2766 *
9 Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 4.1905
9 Purdue University--West Lafayette West Lafayette, IN 4.1875
11 Princeton University Princeton, NJ 4.0718
11 University of Texas--Austin Austin, TX 4.1459
13 University of Wisconsin--Madison Madison, WI 3.9663
14 Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD 3.8859
14 Northwestern University Evanston, IL 3.9231
14 Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA 3.8715
17 Pennsylvania State University--University Park University Park, PA 3.828
17 Rice University Houston, TX 3.8047
17 Texas A&M University--College Station College Station, TX 3.8103
17 University of California--San Diego La Jolla, CA 3.7622
21 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, NY 3.6868
21 University of California--Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 3.68
21 University of Maryland--College Park College Park, MD 3.6798
21 University of Washington Seattle, WA 3.6784
25 Columbia University New York, NY 3.5833
25 Duke University Durham, NC 3.5866
25 University of Minnesota--Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN 3.6494
28 Harvard University Cambridge, MA 3.5091
28 North Carolina State University--Raleigh Raleigh, NC 3.5322
28 Ohio State University--Columbus Columbus, OH 3.4943
28 University of Florida Gainesville, FL 3.5029
28 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 3.5466
28 University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 3.497
28 University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 3.4615
35 University of California--Davis Davis, CA 3.3736
35 University of California--Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 3.3648
35 University of Colorado--Boulder Boulder, CO 3.4294
38 Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 3.2514
38 Brown University Providence, RI 3.3291
38 Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH 3.2632
38 Iowa State University Ames, IA 3.2781
38 Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA 3.2632
38 Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN 3.3072
38 Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis, MO 3.2516
38 *Yale University New Haven, CT 3.2771 *
46 Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 3.1709
46 Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 3.2118
46 University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 3.1734
49 Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey--New Brunswick Piscataway, NJ 3.131
49 University of Arizona Tucson, AZ 3.1412
51 Auburn University Auburn University, AL 3.0182
51 Clemson University Clemson, SC 3.0244
51 Colorado School of Mines Golden, CO 2.9639
51 Drexel University Philadelphia, PA 3.0225
51 Tufts University Medford, MA 2.9669
51 University of California--Irvine Irvine, CA 3.0126
51 University of Delaware Newark, DE 3.044
51 University of Massachusetts--Amherst Amherst, MA 3.0062
51 University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA 2.9682
51 Worcester Polytechnic Institute Worcester, MA 3.0248
61 Boston University Boston, MA 2.94
61 Colorado State University Fort Collins, CO 2.8773
61 Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago, IL 2.9182
61 Kansas State University Manhattan, KS 2.8926
61 Northeastern University Boston, MA 2.9349
61 SUNY--Stony Brook Stony Brook, NY 2.9161
61 University at Buffalo--SUNY Buffalo, NY 2.8571
61 University of Illinois--Chicago Chicago, IL 2.9281
61 University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 2.9438
70 Michigan Technological University Houghton, MI 2.8025
70 Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 2.7714
70 Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, NY 2.7778
70 University of Kansas Lawrence, KS 2.8169
70 University of Rochester Rochester, NY 2.7817
70 University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN 2.7922
70 University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT 2.7778
70 Washington State University Pullman, WA 2.7867
78 Missouri University of Science & Technology Rolla, MO 2.6923
78 Polytechnic University Brooklyn, NY 2.7442
78 Syracuse University Syracuse, NY 2.719
78 Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX 2.6757
78 University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, OH 2.7338
78 University of Connecticut Storrs, CT 2.7315
78 University of Missouri--Columbia Columbia, MO 2.6857
78 University of North Carolina--Charlotte Charlotte, NC 2.6913
86 Brigham Young University--Provo Provo, UT 2.6391
86 Clarkson University Potsdam, NY 2.6338
86 George Washington University Washington, DC 2.5564
86 Louisiana State University--Baton Rouge Baton Rouge, LA 2.5578
86 New Jersey Institute of Technology Newark, NJ 2.6164
86 Oklahoma State University Stillwater, OK 2.6312
86 San Diego State University San Diego, CA 2.551
86 Southern Methodist University Dallas, TX 2.5882
86 Stevens Institute of Technology Hoboken, NJ 2.5705
86 University of Houston Houston, TX 2.5775
86 University of Kentucky Lexington, KY 2.5742
86 University of Nebraska--Lincoln Lincoln, NE 2.6026
86 University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 2.6187
86 University of Oklahoma Norman, OK 2.6412
100 University of California--Riverside Riverside, CA 2.5231
[/quote]
</p>
<p>"I think she should apply EA to MIT & Wellesley if she likes liberal arts and engineering. For MIT, you can take classes at Wellesley and Harvard and the full liberal art education. At Wellesley, you can take classes at MIT and take advantage of the excellent engineering program at MIT.
You must not read a lot of guide books while searching for colleges, because the area around Yale is well known to a lot of people. I'm surprised you are surprised."</p>
<p>wait what</p>
<p>I mean you need to do research about each school, not because it's an Ivy and everything is wonderful.</p>
<p>Yale</a> Daily News - New Haven crime climbs for second year, campus crime down</p>
<p>lol. The username is ParentofIvyHope. I personally can't think of a CC user name that screams more "prestige lover" than that.</p>
<p>Cornell and Princeton are the best for engineering. Harvard and Yale are not strong in engineering. I don't know why anyone would choose Yale or Harvard for engineering unless they didn't really want to go into engineering.</p>
<p>You might also want to look into some of the top ranked tech schools if she's set on EECS. Most of my friends at CMU were really into non-technical subjects as well (one got a dual degree in french horn, many got double majors/minors in non-technical fields, most all of us had hobbies outside of typical nerd things) and it makes for a nice diversity. I've found it a lot easier to talk music/literature/art with technical students than science with music/literature/art students. Liberal arts schools always talk about how well rounded their students are, but often enough I find a lot of those students dislike their science/math classes more than the engineers dislike their breadth requirements. And often they only dislike the classes because they're a requirement. For example, I hated world history, but I can talk with you all day about American History.</p>
<p>I don't quite understand the Harvard and Yale applications myself. There are many universities that have excellent EECS departments and excellent English departments. Schools where even Engineers are given the opportunity to double major in Engineering and a Humanity or Social Science in order to get a well-rounded, liberal arts education. Yes, it would take an additional year, but it is well worth it. Schools that come to mind are:</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon University
Cornell University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Northwestern University
Princeton University
Rice University
Stanford University
University of California-Berkeley
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor</p>