Looking at the ivy+ schools purely from a engineering departmental strength point of view, MIT, Stanford, Cornell, Columbia, Penn and Harvard are perceived to have substantially stronger engineering departments than Yale.
Now how that affects the choice of an undergrad looking to major in engineering depends.For undergrad departmental strength as well as overall school strength matters. So in my opinion if it is Yale vs MIT/Stanford/Harvard then MIT, Stanford, Harvard are the clear choice. For Cornell/Columbia/Penn the choice would be less clear. It would be a trade off between perceived departmental quality and perceived overall quality and prestige so it depends on your priorities and also career interests and what kind of an engineering education you want.
I don’t think Harvard is a part of that group. Their engineering school is a bit like Yale’s - strong in certain niches but not across the board. Heck, they only became ABET accredited last year.
If you like lists, and who on CC does not like lists comparing programs? lol. USNWR ranks undergrad engineering programs at schools that offer up to a doctorate in engineering (in other words, small engineering schools like Harvey Mudd are not included in this list).
MIT/Stanford
Berkely
Cal Tech/Georgia Tech
U of Illinois/ U of Michigan
Carnegie Mellon
Cornell/Purdue
Princeton/U Texas Austin
Northwestern
Johns Hopkins/ U of Wisconsin (Madison
Duke/Columbia
U Penn
Harvard
Vanderbilt/Yale
Brown/Dartmouth/WashU
Referencing @Penn95’s comments above regarding “ivy+” schools… I would place MIT, Stanford and Cal Tech in a class of their own then followed closely by Carnegie Mellon, Cornell and Princeton. Cornell really is the school that dominates the Ivies in engineering because of its long history. Also, the size of the school gives it more engineering breadth and depth than the other top Ivies. I’ve annotated the list because I did not want to type 44 different college names onto this thread, but obviously there are some great public schools near the top of this list starting with Cal Tech and Georgia Tech. I am surprised as anyone to see Yale (the main topic of this thread) to be listed at #37 and tied with Vanderbilt. However, Yale engineering is small which could be a benefit to a student wanting to get to know professors and do research.
@Sam-I-Am While the USNews undergrad engineering rankings list is fairly accurate for the most part, the methodology is very weak, it is based only on the subjective judgement of deans and top faculty at peer institutions.
I think the USNews graduate engineering rankings have a stronger methodology and is a more meaningful list for engineering strength, which applies to undergrad too. Now for undergrad looking at the overall undergrad quality of the school matters also, not just the specific departmental strength. That us why you see many engineering undergrads choosing ivies etc over a place superior in engineering like Georgia Tech.
1.MIT
2.Stanford University
3.University of California—Berkeley
4.California Institute of Technology
5.Carnegie Mellon University
6.University of Michigan—Ann Arbor
7.GTech
7.UIUC
8.Purdue
10.UT-Austin
11.Texas A&M -College Station
12. Cornell
12.USC
14.Columbia
14.UCLA
17.UCSD
18.Princeton
19.Northwestern
19.Penn
21.JHU
21.VTech
23.UCSB
24.Harvard
24.U Meryland
24.UWashington
.
30.Duke
.
38. Yale
.
57.Dartmouth
.
65.Brown
The USNews rankings are heavily influenced by the size of faculty. I’d personally pick some schools like Dartmouth or Yale above some colleges in the top 10, simply because they offer a lot more resources per person, not to mention the flexibility of choosing the classes/majors you like.
DS is in CS, which some here might not count as Engineering :). He has met many CS students from other schools at internships, interviews for internships, conferences, friends on school breaks, etc. While there are times when he might wish that he were at some of the other schools on the list, because of their larger number of course choices, overall he holds his own against students from most of the schools.
For CS specifically, and more particularly theoretical CS, some of the schools listed above Yale are comical. For example, DS’s Penn friends would agree that placing Penn above Yale is nonsense. They refer to his internship choices as “God Tier.”
To @reunyshard’s point, DS appreciates the access he has to professors. He hasn’t figured out why more students don’t avail themselves of the opportunities, but that’s a topic for another thread on another day.
@IxnayBob Placing Penn above Yale for computer science is not nonsense. Far from it. Most Penn people would not say that. Sure the difference for undergrad is not too big. But Yale CS kids do not have better internship choices than Penn kids, not true. The opposite is probably slightly true. A huge number of Penn kids go to silicon valley after graduation. Yale does not have a big tradition with sending people to Silicon Valley. Also the CS research funding at Yale gets lags Penn and the CS research output in general. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-06/want-a-job-in-silicon-valley-after-yale-good-luck-with-that
@Penn95, DS’s HS sends a large percentage to Penn, and many of his close friends attend Penn. He has visited Penn a number of times, and meets up with Penn friends on breaks. Perhaps he has a skewed sample, but what I said upthread is what he believes, based on their discussions.