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I think what you meant to say is “having more (high quality) students …” Suppose Cal and Cal Poly both graduate 1000 engineering students each year. It should be obvious to readers that which school will get more companies and why.</p>
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I’ve never said otherwise. Quality and quantity.</p>
<p>That specific comparison probably isn’t as favorable as you’d think though, Cal Poly seems to outperform considering the level of its student quality. Hmm, perhaps I should use this to bolster my argument somehow…</p>
<p><a href=“http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MechEngr.stm[/url]”>http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MechEngr.stm</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://www.careerservices.calpoly.edu/gsr/04-05/me.pdf[/url]”>http://www.careerservices.calpoly.edu/gsr/04-05/me.pdf</a></p>
<p>Hmm… Cal grads got higher median salary, went to seemly better companies (and more of them) and seemly better grad school programs. Help me out please - I must be missing something … it has been a long day. </p>
<p>BTW, I wasn’t picking on Cal Poly - it just seem like a better comparison (than Yale) given the same geographical region with Cal.</p>
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Yes. $2000. Very impressive…</p>
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Ummm…the Cal Poly data is for 1 year. The Cal data is what looks like 3-4 years…obviously they’ll have more companies and a larger selection. Technically, I should have also added the AeroE Majors with Cal Poly ME - as Berkeley Aerospace is within ME.</p>
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No argument there. I’ve never said anything about grad school admissions. Grad school admissions is heavily intelligence loaded, and Cal beats Cal Poly hands down there.</p>
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Yep. Cal gets you 2k/year extra and better grad programs. Hardly the type of delta one would expect from what is likely a 250 point SAT difference (out of 1600) in student abilities.</p>
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I knew it - you were going to say this! As I have explained in some post ago, the real “premium” usually comes in the form of fringe benefits, e.g. signing bonus etc, which are rarely reported. The basic idea is simple - employers want to bring in new hires on as much equal footing as possible. </p>
<p>BTW, The medium salary premium in 04/05 was actually $2500.</p>
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I’ll agree. </p>
<p>However, I disagree with the implication that Cal grads benefit from this disproportionately. The best Berkeley students, the ones who would likely get the highest signing bonuses, go to grad school. At Poly this rarely happens. Call it self selection.</p>
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I missed that. Thanks for pointing it out.</p>
<p>The similarity in the companies that come to the schools are amazing though. I mean, obviously it looked like more bay area firms went to Cal, but I was amazed at the similarity and makeup (small & large) of the companies.</p>
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<p>First off, what I have ‘admitted’ is that there are a lot of mediocre engineering jobs out there that indeed require not much IQ to do. But nobody who is capable really wants those jobs, not if they can get something better. There are some engineering jobs out there (i.e. a lot of Google stuff) that will indeed exercise your IQ. </p>
<p>Secondly, again, we have to be clear about what we’re talking about. Nobody is disputing that Yale is not as good in engineering as, say, Berkeley or Michigan. The question is, whether Yale is better than, say, Michigan State or Oklahoma State. Seems to me that the data indicates that Yale is better. </p>
<p>We also have to be careful about what we mean by ‘top quality engineering jobs’. I have always said that there are plenty of mediocre engineering jobs out there. I’m sure that schools like Michigan State do very well in placing students into those kinds of jobs. The leading light in engineering in terms of desirability these days is probably Google (now the #1 most desirable employer according to Fortune Magazine). Would Google be more likely to hire a Yale engineer, or a Michigan State engineer? {Probably Google wouldn’t hire either one, but if they had to choose one, who would it be?). I suspect it would be the Yale engineer. </p>
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<p>Well, I don’t know who these ‘most people’ are. Might you identify them? </p>
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<p>Come on, you can fill in the blanks. Do I really have to type everything? A weak predictor of getting students into the top jobs. </p>
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<p>Fine, then have it your way. What is your data that indicates that Yale does not have as good of an engineering name as schools like Michigan State or Texas Tech? Again, according to USNews, engineering recruiters rank Yale higher than those other schools. So where is this evidence that Yale has a weaker engineering name than those other schools? </p>
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<p>Uh, your logical error is simple - you can’t “believe” something to be a fact. Something either is a fact, or it isn’t. If it is a fact, then it has to be based on data, which I have asked you to provide, and which you either don’t have, or don’t want to show us. </p>
<p>If this is just your “belief”, then it’s not really a “fact” then, is it? It’s really an opinion. And if it is an opinion, then your opinion can definitely be anti-anything.</p>
<p>But like I said, if you have actual facts, by all means, please present them. Like I said, you asked me to present my data. I have done so. Now I think it’s fair for you to respond in kind.</p>
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<p>Again, nobody is debating that certain schools like MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, etc. are top-notch engineering schools known nationwide. </p>
<p>The question is, whether schools like Michigan State, Texas Tech, and the like also have strong nationwide reputations. I know that when I think of Michigan State, I don’t think of excellent academics. I think of 2 things - sports and parties. Neither of these attributes makes me particularly confident about the skill level of a Michigan State engineer, relative to a Yale engineer. Now, of course it is true that I’m sure that plenty of Michigan State engineers find plenty of jobs within their region, just like Yale engineers surely find jobs within their region. But that has nothing to do with a national reputation.</p>
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<p>And they don’t NEED to have that many engineering firms around, because, like you said, there aren’t that many students in the first place. </p>
<p>You seem to be arguing about things on an absolute numbers level. I agree that Michigan State almost certainly has more engineering recruiters around . The problem is that there are also a lot more engineering students competing for those recruiters, and hence the individual student is not really better off. What does it matter if there are lots of recruiters around if you can’t get the job you want, or you can’t even get the interview that you want, because the slots get taken by the other students at your school? It’s as if those recruiters weren’t even there at all. </p>
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<p>See there it is again - the unfair comparison. Nobody is denying that Cal is a better engineering school than Yale. </p>
<p>The fair question is Yale vs. Michigan State. Or Texas Tech. Or one of those other schools I mentioned. Perform a statistical analysis on THAT situation.</p>
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<p>And they don’t NEED to have that many engineering firms around, because, like you said, there aren’t that many students in the first place. </p>
<p>You seem to be arguing about things on an absolute numbers level. I agree that Michigan State almost certainly has more engineering recruiters around . The problem is that there are also a lot more engineering students competing for those recruiters, and hence the individual student is not really better off. What does it matter if there are lots of recruiters around if you can’t get the job you want, or you can’t even get the interview that you want, because the slots get taken by the other students at your school? It’s as if those recruiters weren’t even there at all. </p>
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<p>See there it is again - the unfair comparison. Nobody is denying that Cal is a better engineering school than Yale. </p>
<p>The fair question is Yale vs. Michigan State. Or Texas Tech. Or one of those other schools I mentioned. Perform a statistical analysis on THAT situation.</p>
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Yeah.</p>
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Actually, this wasn’t the argument. My point was that quantity is also very important. Large schools help build reputations. And hell, Yale Engineering just doesn’t have a big reputation. Not good or bad, it’s just not big at all. Just like Brown (do they even have engineering?) or Colombia don’t have big engineering reputations. I mean - not compared to RPI or WPI…</p>
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I suspect they wouldn’t hire either as well.</p>
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People who go to small primarily liberal arts colleges that happens to have an engineering school?</p>
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Ok.</p>
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Didn’t we go over that grad data is not what we are arguing? I’ll talk about this “data” later anyways…</p>
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You’re correct.</p>
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You presented irrelevant grad data. Lets, for a second, assume that it was undergrad data. You imply an assumption that I disagree with. You assume that recruiter rankings are a function of the quality of the graduates strictly (maybe not, you just assume quantity is not a factor). I disagree with this assumption. I think that the recruiter opinion of a school is dependent on quality and quantity. This sort of system would likely under predict how good Yale grads are because of the small size of the program. So basically, they are getting screwed because their program is small. (How very anti-Yale of me to suggest.)</p>
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The best data would likely be from their career center. I don’t think they publish it.</p>
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Once again, I haven’t said quality isn’t a factor. But to say quantity isn’t a factor seems mind boggling to me.</p>
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Except that selection at job fairs does matter, even if competition is slightly increased. At a job fair you can’t get the job you want if it’s not even there to begin with. </p>
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The name Cal was simply a place holder. I could have put Santa Barbara City College. The argument still stands though.</p>
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They usually don’t. But, many schools have very strong “regional” reputation. E.g. Texas Tech falls into that category and, IMO, competes very favorably against their regional peers. Many local, regional and even TX-HQ companies rely on these regional schools almost exclusively for new hires. Again, the current US News survey just doesn’t account this and mislead readers into comparing “national” to “regional” schools. A more useful recruiter-based ranking like WSJ’s ranking of b-school is more appropiate. Compare the “national” programs e.g. MIT and Berkeley in one group. Put regional schools, e.g. UCI, Cal Poly etc, in their geographical regions. Perhaps then, we will have a better idea where Yale and Cal Poly truly stand. :)</p>
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<p>WPI? Really? </p>
<p>USNews ** undergrad ** Engineering ranking</p>
<p>25-Columbia
34-Brown
60-WPI</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=320159[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=320159</a></p>
<p>Now, granted, these aren’t ‘reputational’ rankings. But come on, these aren’t exactly small differences in the rankings. We’re not just talking about a handful of ranking slots. When you’re down by 25-35 ranking slots to some schools, it’s hard to believe that your reputation is really better than those other schools. </p>
<p>What you seem to be missing is that ‘reputation’ is not always a desirable thing, and in particular, may not be something that you want to enhance via size. In particular, a * bad <a href=“relatively%20speaking”>/i</a> reputation is something you certainly would prefer not to be enhanced by size. When you graduate a huge number of graduates who aren’t that good (relatively speaking), yeah, you’ll get a reputation on the market, but it’s not a rep you want to have. In that case, it’s better to have no reputation at all.</p>
<p>In other words, it’s better to come from a school program that nobody knows anything about at all, than to come from one that people know well, but know it for producing relatively mediocre graduates. You’re actually * worse * off in the latter situation. </p>
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<p>Yeah, but if they had to choose one, who would it be? </p>
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<p>Well, that’s not exactly a lot of people then, is it? You said it yourself - these are small schools. So how can these people comprise “most people”, as you said that it did? </p>
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<p>I would hardly say that it’s “irrelevant”. After all, grad + undergrad reputations do tend to be linked. MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and the like schools are famous in engineerining primarily because of their graduate schools. Be honest - if they didn’t run graduate schools, they wouldn’t be so famous. </p>
<p>But anyway, you asked for undergrad data - and it’s presented above. Again, Yale beats plenty of other schools in engineering that are far bigger than it - like Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Wayne State, New Mexico, Houston, Washington State, etc. These are some large engineering schools that got beaten by Yale. </p>
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<p>Again, nobody ever said that quantity wasn’t a factor * at all *. However, like I said, it’s a weak predictor, compared with quality. </p>
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<p>Uh, competition is just “slightly” increased? Have you seen some of the competition at the larger engineering schools? Some of the booths have lines of people queued up that snake all the way outside of the auditorium and into the adjoining hallway. The vast majority of these firms at these types of job fairs will NEVER call you back because they’re too busy talking to other students. </p>
<p>You said it yourself - there really aren’t that many engineering students at Yale, and, frankly, in the region of SW Connecticut as a whole. So that means that the Yale engineers basically get first cut at any available job at any local engineering firm (and there are quite a few in the area). </p>
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<p>And when did I say that? I said that it was a * weak * predictor relative to quality, not that it was a nonpredictor. </p>
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<p>Uh, no it doesn’t. In fact, the argument completely falls apart, because you just changed the key dependent variable - the quality. * My whole point * was about the importance of quality vs. quantity. By radically changing quality (i.e. from Cal to Santa Barbara City College), you completely change the entire analysis.</p>
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WPI puts people into regional jobs. It’s as simple as that. They do it reasonably well. I wonder how many WPI grads work for top tier companies like GE in the Northeast…I would think it’d be a high number.</p>
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Most people on this forum?</p>
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And Yale Engineering still isn’t well known…</p>
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You’re still talking about grad data, right?</p>
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I go to the largest undergraduate engineering school in CA. So yes, I have been to big career fairs. And I think it’s a good thing.</p>
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Ok. I guess there is no reason to continue.</p>
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The name is irrelevant. The volume of applicants indicate why a recruiter would prefer a large school over a small one.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure what that proves. I don’t think that putting people into regional jobs proves much. As I have always said, there are plenty of average engineering jobs out there. But, frankly, who really wants those jobs? </p>
<p>I would have to put GE in that category, having known many engineers who worked at GE. Few of them seem to think that GE is a highly desirable and selective employer. GE is a very large company with a wide span of engineering jobs. Some of those jobs are highly desirable and coveted. In particular, any jobs that have been tagged with the Leadership Rotation opportunity is a coveted job (I know one guy who was in such a program). But there are a LOT of other jobs in GE that are not like this at all. </p>
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<p>Seems to me that most people on this forum are perfectly aware of the strengths of schools like MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, and the like. </p>
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<p>Evidently more well known than schools like WPI. Or Oklahoma State. Or Texas Tech. That’s what the peer and recruiter assessments say. </p>
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<p>No am I not. As I said in post #73, I am talking about undergrad data now, as reported here. Funny how you would quote one of my posts that contains a link, and yet not bother to actually look at the link. Here it is again.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/...d.php?t=320159[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/...d.php?t=320159</a></p>
<p>Yale engineering is ranked #43 * for undergrad *. I think that’s pretty good considering the hundreds of engineering programs out there. In particular, I see that Yale is ranked significantly higher than Texas Tech or Wayne State, or WPI. </p>
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<p>And the volume of applicants * also * indicates why a student wouldn’t want to go to such a school, because of the competition from all the other students.</p>
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Yeah. GE Aviation is pretty average. Sorry for bringing it up. </p>
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I’d suspect many people want those jobs. In fact, engineering in a top tier company like GE is probably the 3rd most desirable type of employment after undergrad - after Ibanking analyst and consultant.</p>
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Yeah, of course.</p>
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I know some people who work at GE. Competition to get into the leadership rotation is arguably harder than Goldman Sachs.</p>
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Of course.</p>
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It seems to me that this forum tends to over-predict the value of top schools in engineering.</p>
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I have yet to see one of these assessments.</p>
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That is a broken link. And a #43 ranking for a school with absolutely brilliant students? That can only be considered severe under-performance.</p>
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I suppose we should start comparing things. Would a Yale student do better for themselves going to Yale Engineering (for an Engineering job) or a similarly ranked, but much larger school. I tend to think the latter. Much larger exposure to employers - and likely graduating at a higher percentile.</p>
<p>Yes Georgia Tech acceptance rate is high. Georgia tech have Student body with SAT score of 1250-1480 with GPA of 3.8 and up. However, 1/3 of the entering freshmen either flunk out, change major to non engineering, or transfer to other school within next 2 years. “Look to the left, look to the right, one of you will be gone by graduation.” quote from president of Georgia Tech. So hypothetically speaking, Georgia Tech weed out students with 1250-1330 SAT score but even student with 1250 SAT score can study harder and can be top class if he endeavor in his course work but that’s hardly the case. </p>
<p>I heard that Georgia tech and UIUC engineering programs are hard and higher risk of flunking out of school but it doesn’t mean Berkeley or Stanford are weaker in engineering program. People who got accepted to Berkeley or Stanford probably studied hard during high school and developed strong study habit to get through hard engineering course work that is setup within their school. In my theory, the reason why Georgia tech and UIUC accept many student is to get more funding from government for their Research. For Gatech, GTRI (Georgia Tech Research Institute) gets funding from government and companies. With larger student body, government will have to fund more toward Georgia Tech and those money will be spent toward GTRI. </p>
<p>Just because Georgia Tech and UIUC accepts more people, doesn’t mean these schools are second rate engineering school. I am sure students graduated from Georgia Tech and UIUC can perform engineering task as good as or even better than those graduated from Berkeley, MIT, Cal tech, or Stanford. Georgia tech have one of the best internship and co-op programs and Georgia Tech graduate is known for their credibility in workforce. All these 6 schools I mentioned above have excellent undergraduate and graduate programs. </p>
<p>I don’t know much about Purdue or Michigan State so no comment.</p>
<p>Yale engineering? ok I know you guys are discussing whether Yale engineer is more credible just because of “ivy league” title but seriously why would anyone spend 36,000 dollars tuition per semester to learn engineering from Yale?</p>
<p>gtg567, I agree with your general implication that publics are harder than privates. Berkeley is extremely tough though. I’ve rarely heard Berkeley Engineeing being easy.</p>
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<p>I think it’s better to compare Yale to schools ranked around #43. I believe employers would favor schools like Virginia or Colorado over Yale. So while I agree with you that Yale is better than an Oklahoma State, I don’t think it’s better than schools ranked right around its rank (and not even close to schools ranked 10+ ahead). That’s a more effective test for Yale’s perceived excellence in engineering.</p>
<p>You are insane if you think employers will favor Colorado over Yale because Colorado’s engineering is “ranked” higher. And there’s no perceived excellence here. Yale is considered one of the top 5 overall colleges in the United States and quite possibly the world (at the very least, top 7 or 8 in the world). Small or not, there is no way in hell Colorado engineers have an easier time finding jobs (and the jobs they want) than Yale engineers. UVA is a little bit closer, but still, there is no way in hell any employer would, on average, pick a UVA grad over a Yale grad (I don’t care what major).</p>
<p>And yes, I’d pick Yale any single day over UIUC or Georgia Tech. Not that I was smart enough to get into Yale (considering you can have 1600 SATs, be leader of 10000 clubs and have started your own hedge fund and still be rejected from HYPMS), but there is no way in hell doing well at Yale (again, ANY MAJOR) will yield less opportunities than doing well at UIUC or GT on the engineering side of things, and you’d also have opportunities for IB/finance jobs that no one from GT or UIUC gets. Schools like Cornell and Berkeley I’d have to consider, but still, Yale is Yale, and like it or not, that does matter. </p>
<p>And Mr. Payne: be realistic, seriously. That #43 ranking has nothing to do with the cognitive ability of Yale’s engineers. I really don’t care enough to look up the exact ranking criteria, but rankings for engineering schools in general will award research, not teaching. And the success of a school’s undergraduate student body (in college and upon graduation) probably has very little to do with it, as well. Also, who cares what percentile you graduate from when you are coming from Yale? Hell, some dude named George got out of there with a C+ and is now the leader of the free world.</p>
<p>You guys seriously need to just get a grip here. No one in the real world is going to care about some stupid rankings. Are they some sort of indicator as to the strength of a certain school’s engineering program? Sure. Useful for deciding where to go to school, even. But employers aren’t going to pass over a Yale engineer’s resume. Why? Because brand name matters in the real world. If you honestly think employers sit there with the latest US News Engineering rankings, sorting out resumes based on that then you need to get a grip. They will glance over the “education” section of a Colorado engineer and look for what he/she’s done that’s noteworthy. If they see Yale on there, that’s going to jump out at them whether that’s fair or even right. Getting into a school like that (HYPMS) is impressive in and of itself.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m extremely curious: which one of you guys turned down Yale for [big state school]? Especially if you did it because you truly believed you’d be getting a better education at the state school (more power to you if you do it because of personal fit). And don’t say “Even if I got in to Yale I’d rather go to [big state school]” because you’d almost certainly be singing a different tune if you had a Congratulations letter from Yale in your hands.</p>