Would you quantify benefits of MIT education over engineering degree from UCLA, CalPoly SLO, etc?

^ I agree. For example, if we are open to discussing non-engineering majors, then CS SLO is at (or near) the top for architecture.

Sorry, but this is total BS for the VAST majority of engineering firms. Big companies often have target schools where they recruit at, but that does not mean they are barring graduates from schools not on the target school list. Skills and experience matter most, and if a state school grad has a solid resume, these companies will certainly pull them in.

Also complete nonsense… certainly not representative of most engineering companies.

^ Nuance is very often lost in CC threads.

I never wrote or implied that companies “bar graduates from schools not on the target school list.” Nevertheless, there is a perception among managers (who obviously do the hiring) that some schools are “better” than others. Why is this so hard to grasp?

Also, I never wrote or implied that companies will not “pull in” state school grads. UCB and UCLA are fantastic state schools, for Pete’s sake.

Finally, regarding state schools, I think that most people would agree (eyemgh did) with my ranking of CA universities, which you call “BS”.

Please share with us your experience with the “vast majority of engineering firms.” Please also be respectful when you disagree. Thanks.

@whatisyourquest, would it surprise you then to know that for ME Cal Poly is a tougher admit than UCB or UCLA? It’s not exactly comparing apples to apples, because UCB and UCLA are now “holistic” in their admissions while Poly uses a multi-criteria algorithm. I think your company is living in a pretty cloistered old paradigm.

^ Yes, I would indeed be surprised to learn that admission to ME at CS SLO this year was actually tougher than at UCB this year. Please provide stats to back it up (IS applicants only, please).

You just have to follow the CC CP board and read story after story of students who got passed over by Poly but got into UCB and/or UCLA. They spin conspiracy theories about how they must have been too qualified or how CP only targets high yielding schools, both of which have been objectively and easily disproven. ME admission hovers in the 10% to 14% range. The 50th percentile GPA for the whole CENG is 4.13 (max approx 4.39, they weight by giving an extra point for an AP class, capped at 4). The SAT median was 1420. You may or may not know that IE and Manufacturing E are non- selective. Both admit well over 50% of their applicants. They drag the CENG averages down.

So, more competitive, in some cases. As I said it isn’t apples to apples because Poly uses an objective algorithm called the MCA. UCB, which hovers in the same admissions range, is holistic. Given the simple ranking system at Poly, you can properly infer that a student who gets rejected didn’t have the GPA/SAT/rigor to be above the cut off line. Every year kids and parents complain on CC about how their kid got hosed by Poly, their evidence, an acceptance at UCB and/or UCLA. Poly uses an elegantly simple, brute force academic ranking system with zero subjective human intervention.

I can’t speak for the placement opportunities at the others, but I’m sure they’re good. What I can say is that companies including Apple, Tesla and Raytheon to name a few, wouldn’t spend 1-2 weeks on campus hosting networking sessions like they do every year if they didn’t think Poly graduates were desirable.

Poly as a safety school in CA, at least for most engineering degrees is an old paradigm.

The issue here is that you are grossly overstating the importance and relevance of this. You forget that many students exceed the “perceived quality” of the schools they attend. Smart employers recognize this!

I don’t think it’s accurate to say ME is a tougher admit at CP than Cal because Cal’s overall acceptance rate for engineering for the 2015-2016 cycle was 8.9%. I don’t know what the ME rate is, but would be very surprised if it was any higher than the CP range. Because each school uses different criteria for admission, you’ll just as likely have some that got into SLO that didn’t get into Cal.

Totally agree that Cal Poly is not a safety school for engineering, especially for ME. It’s on the short list for ME for our younger kid.

Here’s the thing, though: selectivity is only very loosely correlated with a program’s quality. Really, it is more of a measure of a program’s reputation divided by its size. A small school with a big reputation, e.g. Caltech, is obviously going to have a lower admit rate than, say, a huge school with still a big reputation like Michigan.

@youcee, In retrospect, I think “tougher” was the wrong word because, as I said, their admissions protocols are different. What I do know is that your essay can’t save you at Poly. They don’t have one. It’s strictly numerical. If a student gets into UCB, but not Poly, they didn’t have the GPA/SAT/Rigor to make the Poly cutoff. If they get into Poly, but not UCB, it likely because they’re a victim of the “holistic” process and too many qualified students. Suffice it to say, those who assume they’ll coast in to Poly simply because it’s a CSU are in for a surprise.

I think it is fair to say that “prestige” matters less in Engineering than in some other majors that don’t have a prescribed course sequence / accreditation process.

“The issue here is that you are grossly overstating the importance and relevance of this.”

Well, that’s your opinion, presumably based on your experience in whatever engineering area that you work. Is it not possible that your experiences and mine are different because the nature of our work is quite different?

Here’s a little about my company:

It employs thousands of engineers and scientists. About 80% have advanced degrees (MS, PhD) in engineering or science. Almost all of the remaining 20% are working part-time while they pursue an advanced degree (MS, PhD).

Many of the tasks at the company involve unique problems that push the boundaries of the state-of-the-art. The environment is high pressure and involves very expensive programs that are simply not permitted to fail. Many employees are very active in professional organizations and some publish extensively. Some also teach classes at universities.

There is, however, another category of work at the company that involves highly repetitive, “turn the crank” assignments. So, a person that stays in engineering (i.e., doesn’t go into management) ends up down one of two paths: 1) solving very interesting, complex problems that present a strong challenge to engineering acumen, or 2) doing essentially the same task over and over again. I’ve never known any “Utah State” grads that ended up in the first path, because of the management bias I mentioned (i.e., who will I give the #1 tasks? who will I give the #2 tasks?) and, importantly, because many of the top engineering schools really do provide an education commensurate with their reputations.

SMH…

Really? So all of those aspiring PhDs at Utah State, Arizona State, and {insert name here} state are just wasting their time? I mean, according to you, they are all destined to a future of turning cranks for the MIT graduates, who are busy solving the “complex” problems…

Please tell your story to all of the Utah State, Arizona State and {insert name here} state PhDs working at national labs all across the country, solving complex, state of the art problems.

“I mean, according to you, they are all destined to a future of turning cranks for the MIT graduates, who are busy solving the “complex” problems…”

I never said that. Yet another straw man. I just said that in my 30-year career, I have never encountered a graduate from “Utah State” that ended up down path #1. I didn’t say anything about destiny - only about my company, in particular.

(I use quotes because I assume that you meant Utah State as a catch-all for universities that are not very well known for their engineering programs. My intention is not to disrespect Utah State.)

I related my experience. Why don’t you tell us yours?

Actually, while you didn’t directly say that, the entirety of that last post of yours absolutely strongly implied that.

At my place of work, where a very large portion of the folks have advanced degrees (and in my division, nearly all of them do), we are made up of researchers from around the country from all varieties of schools. There are plenty of MIT and Berkeley grads, and there are plenty of Utah, New Mexico Tech, and Colorado School of Mines grads (and many, many others). They are, by and large, all doing similar jobs.

I’ll tell you what we don’t see much of… managers hamstringing employees based on where they got their degree. mangers look for engineers and scientists with the skills required to contribute. If that person came from Stanford, great. If they came from Missouri University of Science and Technology, also great.

^ It’s not “hamstringing” really. It’s just that managers must make decisions about how to dole out tasks. At my company, at least, they have built-in biases (preconceptions about capabilities).

Employees are needed for #1 tasks and for #2 tasks. The work has to be divvied up. The managers are predisposed to think that graduates from famous engineering schools are more capable. (Of course, they can be wrong.) But once you demonstrate that you can consistently nail these #1 tasks, you are on your way. Graduates from less famous engineering schools may never get these opportunities (which are limited) and can be tagged for a career doing #2 tasks.

The biases that people hold regarding educational pedigree are well known. (All of the SCOTUS judges are famously graduates of Harvard and Yale law school.) It’s not fair and, of course, one may succeed with pluck and determination, but it can be an uphill battle without the cachet.

At least, that’s my experience. (BTW, I didn’t attend a well-known engineering school.) The environment at other companies may be different.

I mean, if the extent of a manager’s skill in project allocation is that Elite U = good project, State U = bad project, that is a sign of a pretty bad manager…

Dilbert’s pointy-haired manager has some basis in reality. Otherwise, the cartoon wouldn’t be funny.

In that case Dilbert himself should be on top of the world because of his MIT pedigree, yes?

So according to you throughout this thread, these mangers are deliberately giving employees that didn’t go to MIT or Caltech the crap jobs (if they even hire them in the first place), and then deliberately not promoting them if they do well anyway due solely to the fact that they didn’t go to MIT or Caltech. How, again, is that not hamstringing these employees?