Harvard, Princeton and Yale For Engineering.

[silverturtle]

<p>

Why eliminate Caltech?

</p>

<p>Although Caltech offers courses outside math, science, and engineering, the culture at the school does not likely reflect that very much; its student body is very focused on those subjects. MIT is similar to an extent, but not nearly as much. </p>

<p>

Do you know the acceptance rates at HYP for school of engineering?

</p>

<p>No, I doubt that they release that data. If there is a boost afforded to those who demonstrate an interest in engineering (and Princeton has indicated that this is the case there), it is small.</p>

[justadream92]

<p>silverturtle, is Stanford still your first choice? What are you majoring in?</p>

[silverturtle]

<p>

silverturtle, is Stanford still your first choice? What are you majoring in?

</p>

<p>I’m not sure what my top choice is, but it’s probably one of HYS, depending on what I decide to major in (which is uncertain at the moment) and financial aid.</p>

[itsmylife99]

<p>

depending on what I decide to major in (which is uncertain at the moment) and financial aid.

</p>

<p>What are your probable majors based on your interest? How much aid are you looking for?</p>

[ken285]

<p>

But if I were already at HYP and decided to go into engineering, the programs’ quality would definitely not deter me; I am sure that they are still very strong.

</p>

<p>… for the programs that they have. Besides Princeton, the other 2 have limited engineering majors.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

Think carefully about what you really want. In fact, most Harvard engineering students take some or many higher level courses at MIT.When trying to convince a future engineer who was accepted at HPM to consider Harvard, I got the response “Why would I go to Harvard and take classes at MIT, when I could just go to MIT.”

</p>

<p>The presumption is that the person actually got into MIT. I can think of quite a few students who were admitted to Harvard but not MIT. Furthermore, the totality of engineering resources available to Harvard students, especially when considering the availability of cross-registration resources at MIT, probably exceeds the engineering resources at Princeton. Princeton engineering students are not allowed to cross-register at MIT or any other top-ranked engineering school. </p>

<p>

And, for engineering, MIT carries far more prestige than HYP.

</p>

<p>

Probably because while Harvard and Yale vie for the top 5 spots in nearly every course, they take a lower spot for engineering.
Yale I belive in 39th, and Harvard 19th — for engineering according the usnews rankings.</p>

<p>Rankings ? Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences</p>

<p>Harvard is trying so hard to explain its rank!

</p>

<p>

However for extremely specialized courses like engineering this could be an issue. Most engineers and engineering firms know exactly or think they know how engineering is at Harvard and Yale I think. As I said HY are trying to improve their reputations in Engineering.

</p>

<p>The real question is whether prestige and rankings in engineering actually translate into tangible benefits for the typical undergraduate, and the sad truth seems to be that it does not, at least, not in terms of starting salary. With the notable exception of EECS, MIT engineering students do not make significantly higher starting salaries than does the average graduate from the same engineering discipline, especially when you factor in the highest cost of living in the locations where MIT graduates tend to work. Lest you think that I am picking on MIT, I would point out that the same is true of other top-ranked engineering programs such as Stanford and Berkeley - again, with the exception of EECS, their engineering graduates are also not paid significantly higher than engineers from the average school. Heck, in certain disciplines such as chemical engineering, MIT graduates in certain years were actually paid less than the national average. That’s right - less. </p>

<p>If employers truly valued the prestige and education of the top-ranked engineering schools, then you would think that they would pay a premium for those graduates. Sadly, they do not. Granted, it may be true that graduates from top engineering programs will progress faster in their engineering careers through their better training. But that nevertheless concedes the point that employers do not seem to place much value upon the engineering ranking itself if graduates from top-ranked programs are initially consigned to the same salary run as the average starting engineer. </p>

<p>

Why do you want to study engineering if your goal is finance?

</p>

<p>Whether you agree with iCalculus’s philosophy, the fact of the matter is that engineering students who don’t actually intend to work as engineers is a burgeoning theme within the top engineering schools - probably for the reasons stated above that engineering employers don’t really seem to value them. They probably are better off, at least financially, by choosing another career path rather than taking an average engineering salary for average pay. </p>

<p>Consider the sadly biting comments of Nicholas Pearce:</p>

<p>Even at M.I.T., the U.S.'s premier engineering school, the traditional career path has lost its appeal for some students. Says junior Nicholas Pearce, a chemical-engineering major from Chicago: “It’s marketed as–I don’t want to say dead end but sort of ‘O.K., here’s your role, here’s your lab, here’s what you’re going to be working on.’ Even if it’s a really cool product, you’re locked into it.” Like Gao, Pearce is leaning toward consulting. “If you’re an M.I.T. grad and you’re going to get paid $50,000 to work in a cubicle all day–as opposed to $60,000 in a team setting, plus a bonus, plus this, plus that–it seems like a no-brainer.”</p>

<p>[Are</a> We Losing Our Edge? – Printout – TIME](<a href=“http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1156575,00.html]Are”>http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1156575,00.html)</p>

<p>My take is, as long as engineering employers refuse to pay the graduates of the top programs better, then a growing number of those graduates will not really want to work as engineers. </p>

<p>

Working at Boeing, NASA, Medtronic, the DoD, etc. are not “menial” jobs. Please have some respect for the profession that you will be studying for in college and SHOULD be entering theoretically after college.

</p>

<p>Well, the truth of the matter is that many, probably most, entry-level jobs available to graduates from any discipline are menial, even if the school is top-ranked. Let’s face it: most liberal arts graduates are consigned to relatively menial jobs. The reality is that our higher educational system produces boatloads of graduates who don’t really have capabilities that the economy actually demands, especially in these sundered economic times. Granted, the counterargument is that while colleges may not provide directly applicable vocational skills, it does develop the capacity to quickly develop such skills - but whether this actually happens is far from certain. I can think of many college graduates who ended up stocking shelves and manning cash registers at the mall. Exactly what sort of skills are they developing that they couldn’t have developed by just taking those jobs right out of high school?</p>

[confidentialcoll]

<p>

The real question is whether prestige and rankings in engineering actually translate into tangible benefits for the typical undergraduate, and the sad truth seems to be that it does not, at least, not in terms of starting salary. With the notable exception of EECS, MIT engineering students do not make significantly higher starting salaries than does the average graduate from the same engineering discipline, especially when you factor in the highest cost of living in the locations where MIT graduates tend to work. Lest you think that I am picking on MIT, I would point out that the same is true of other top-ranked engineering programs such as Stanford and Berkeley - again, with the exception of EECS, their engineering graduates are also not paid significantly higher than engineers from the average school. Heck, in certain disciplines such as chemical engineering, MIT graduates in certain years were actually paid less than the national average. That’s right - less.</p>

<p>If employers truly valued the prestige and education of the top-ranked engineering schools, then you would think that they would pay a premium for those graduates. Sadly, they do not. Granted, it may be true that graduates from top engineering programs will progress faster in their engineering careers through their better training. But that nevertheless concedes the point that employers do not seem to place much value upon the engineering ranking itself if graduates from top-ranked programs are initially consigned to the same salary run as the average starting engineer.

</p>

<p>this is probably the most valuable piece of analysis in the thread, and explains why MIT, Harvard, Yale and Princeton engineers flock in large numbers to finance / consulting / medicine / law. And for any of those industries an HYP engineer might almost be seen as more valuable than an MIT/Caltech engineer.</p>

<p>I myself am a Columbia engineer who is working in finance, for many of the reasons sakky cited.</p>

[datalook]

<p>

Probably because while Harvard and Yale vie for the top 5 spots in nearly every course

</p>

<p>Not true. Yale is not that great. To make your sentence correct, you have to replace Yale with Stanford or Berkeley.</p>

[itsmylife99]

<p>Really? Come on! Yale is AWESOME. USNEWS labels it the third best college in the whole of US. Of course this is not to say that Stan isn’t awesome, but not as good. At least for me. I am assessing a college holistically not for any specific course here.
Berkeley is prestigious and well known and all that but with stuff like this - [California</a> Budget Crisis Hits Its Prized Universities - TIME](<a href=“http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1911455,00.html]California”>http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1911455,00.html)
I don’t know 'bout you,but I wouldn’t want to attend a school with such a crisis. If I’m paying 50k a year, the least I expect is the library to be open 24x7. This was true at Berkeley a few years ago, but they shut at midnight and during weekends now!</p>

<p>Plus class sizes - on an average 60 students per class when any other top university has an average class size of 20? It would be fine if Berkeley was less expensive but they’re the same price, maybe even higher.</p>

[itsmylife99]

<p>[National</a> Universities Rankings - Best College - Education - US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-universities-rankings]National”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-universities-rankings)</p>

<p>Follow this link.
Yale is at 3, Stanford at 5, Berkeley at errr… 22.</p>

[poste3]

<p>Can someone please explain why would someone looking to go into finance major in engineering instead of finance?</p>

[datalook]

<p>In terms of depth, breadth, and quality of the academic departments, quality of faculty, Stanford and Berkeley are hands down better than Yale.</p>

[monydad]

<p>The “good” engineering schools get more out-of-region recruitment within engineeering, more breadth and depth of courses and majors, perhaps coop programs, etc, to help students explore vistas and decide where to forge their path within the engineering profession. They are better for the interested students, who want to be engineers, in these respects.</p>

<p>To go into investment banking one is best served to attend one of the universities where investment banks recruit heavily, and in this case the offerings within the engineering college, in traditional engineering subjects, is practically irrelevant. ditto for the (larger number of) Arts & sciences students they hire.They want the smartest people they can get, the nature of their specific training in fields irrelevant to investment banking is in many cases of little consequence.</p>

<p>If you actually want to be an engineer, for this purpose you might be best served by attending a good engineering school.</p>

<p>If you want to be an investment banker, for that purpose you should go to a school where investment banks recruit, whatever your intended major.</p>

<p>Front-office investment bankers are deal makers and salespeople, many engineering students do not have the skills and/or temperament to excel in these jobs, and would be better off as engineers. Many engineering types wind up stuck running numbers and doing quant work as staff people supporting traders and dealmakers who are not engineers, and this can get frustrating despite the huge financial rewards. Others can make the transition to more satisfying jobs.</p>

<p>Those few engineering students who have this choice of paths available just have to decide what they want to do with their lives. Most don’t have the choice though.</p>

<p>If you decide you want I-banking later, there is another shot if you can earn a top school MBA.</p>

[itsmylife99]

<p>^ Well said. </p>

<p>What according to you, are some engineering colleges where the banking firms recruit heavily? Same as the top 10 for engineering list?</p>

[TheAnalyzer]

<p>monydad, there are a couple of schools that have excellent engineering departments and are also target schools for the major investment banks</p>

<p>Princeton University is one of them, as is Stanford.</p>

<p>

If you actually want to be an engineer, for this purpose you might be best served by attending a good engineering school.</p>

<p>If you want to be an investment banker, for that purpose you should go to a school where investment banks recruit, whatever your intended major.

</p>

[UCBChemEGrad]

<p>^ Hey, JohnAdams is back…as “TheAnalyzer”…haha!</p>

[greenexcess]

<p>^ actually, stanford is a level or two below princeton for investment banking. Princeton is a much better option.</p>

[rjkofnovi]

<p>Did the quotes below the statements give it away?</p>

[UCBChemEGrad]

<p>^ That coupled with the P’ton and 'furd promotion… :)</p>

[monydad]

<p>"What according to you, are some engineering colleges where the banking firms recruit heavily? "</p>

<p>At my firm, when I was there, the direct-undergrad hires from engineering schools that I can now recall mostly came from MIT. I’m pretty sure the Ivy league engineering schools were also well represented, but offhand I can only recall liberal arts grads from these schools. Direct out of undergrad, that is. I know Columbia SEAS grads get hired out of undergrad since my nephew, who hopefully is not confidentialcoll, is one. However I don’t recall any when I was there.</p>

<p>However I spent most time in front office IB, not trading support where perhaps many quant types might have landed. And equally importantly I’ve been out for a good while.</p>

<p>many ex-engineers, from undergrad at harvard, cornell, berkeley, others, came to us as associates following MBA hiring.</p>

<p>Engineering training is not necessarily an advantage for generalist banking positions, in some ways I think it’s an impediment. engineers are trained to find a quantititative answer, however sometimes in business intuition, persuasion and leadership are what is required.</p>