Lehigh vs Ivy League for Engineering

College Search & Lists
1

Hello,

I’m a high school junior looking to select my ED school. I’m looking for a great engineering school with great arts programs in parallel. Because of this, both the ivy and patriot leagues are on my radar.

I’d like some advice on whether to apply to an ‘engineering’ ivy (Princeton, Cornell) or Lehigh for my ED. I’m specifically looking for Mechanical Engineering programs, and have heard that these schools have great ones.

Thanks.

2

There are two separate rounds of early decision (ED1 and ED2). So you could actually select two ED schools.

Princeton and Cornell only participate in ED1, while Lehigh participates in both ED1 and ED2. So you could apply to Princeton or Cornell (which have particularly competitive admissions) in ED1. If you are rejected (which is statistically probable), then you would still have time to apply for ED2 at Lehigh (where the odds would be better).

For the Class of 2021, Princeton’s ED acceptance rate was 15.4%, and Cornell’s was 25.6%.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2016/12/15/princeton-offers-early-action-admission-770-students-class-2021
http://cornellsun.com/2016/12/13/cornell-sees-10-percent-boom-in-early-decision-applications/

According to the Lehigh Common Data Set, their total ED acceptance rate for the Class of 2020 was 59.9%. They don’t separate the rates for ED1 vs. ED2. There is some suspicion that ED1 acceptance rates may tend to be higher than ED2 acceptance rates.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/education/edlife/ed-ii-the-not-so-early-decision.html?_r=0

3

If you are interested in classes outside of engineering, you may want to look at Penn too. Penn encourages engineers to take classes, and perhaps add a second major or minor, in the other schools.

4

Princeton has EA, not ED. Princeton EA is restricted, in that you should not apply ED anywhere else, or EA to other private schools in the US. See https://admission.princeton.edu/how-apply/application-dates-deadlines/single-choice-early-action .

5

Bump

6

This is true, but I think it actually means “you should not apply ED anywhere else while the Princeton EA decision is pending”. If Princeton rejects or defers you in EA, then you should be released from any further obligations to Princeton, and should be free to restart the ED process elsewhere.

Princeton notifies applicants of the EA decision in mid-December. So if Princeton rejects or defers you, you would still have to time to submit an ED2 application at Lehigh, where the deadline is January 1.

Typically the most selective schools (like Princeton and Cornell) have only one phase of EA or ED. The slightly less selective schools (like Lehigh) have a second phase that occurs shortly after the first phase results are released. There are always going to be some highly qualified applicants that get rejected from the most selective schools during the first phase of ED/EA. The whole point of ED2 is that it gives the less selective schools a chance to lock in some of those desirable (but initially rejected) applicants.

One caveat: let’s say you apply to Princeton EA, and get deferred to the RD pool. So you apply to Lehigh via ED2, and get accepted. You are now committed to Lehigh, even if Princeton subsequently accepts you via RD.

7

Thanks for the info! I was also hoping to get some info on how good the programs are relative to each other.

8

Things you may wish to consider:

Cornell, Princeton and Lehigh are all excellent engineering programs. Among the three schools Lehigh has the largest percentage of students in engineering (31%), but Cornell has a larger engineering program in terms of enrollment.

With a 24% admission rate and only a 30-33 ACT average (lol), Lehigh is significantly easier to get into, on average, but they will reject you if you don’t show interest. If you think Lehigh is the best fit for you, be sure to visit and make it clear that you have a real interest. They really make an effort to admit students who want to attend.

They are all ABET accredited programs, with high graduation rates. Unlike some majors, salaries for mechanical engineers do not vary much by school, at least not within this group.

None of these three engineering schools have grade inflation. You really have to earn an A at all three. Don’t expect a 4.0 at any of them, or you will be disappointed. Lehigh is probably slightly less intense, and slightly less stressful for the same student. However, make no mistake that Lehigh students have a very significant workload of homework and projects. There just may be fewer moments where the assignments and projects are completely over the top.

At both Cornell and Lehigh you will spend a lot of time walking up hill. lol

Cornell isn’t close to any large city. Princeton and Lehigh are both within a 1 1/2 hour drive of both NYC and Philadelphia.

9

They are all good places to get an ME degree, but there are big differences in campus atmosphere.

  • Cornell is by far the largest, it is easily bigger than Princeton and Lehigh put together. Lots of "practical" majors (business, engineering, agriculture), as well as liberal arts. Largest engineering programs, most engineering research. Of the three, Cornell feels the most like a big state university (though much more selective than a typical state university).
  • Princeton is much smaller, and the most oriented towards liberal arts. Of the three, Princeton feels the most like a traditional liberal arts college (though much larger than a typical LAC, and with engineering).
  • Lehigh is small (like Princeton), but has lots of "practical" majors (like Cornell). Has the largest percentage of engineering and computer science majors. Of the three, Lehigh feels the most like a "tech school" (though much stronger in liberal arts, business, and sports than a typical tech school).
10

For engineering overall, the US News PA rankings can give you some idea. I’d recommend you use the source with discretion, however, in that most of the ranked programs appear to be very strong.

11

Building on @merc81’s caution about rankings: look at bands, not exact positions: these rankings are pretty blunt instruments, so a difference of a few places is rarely meaningful.

12

for ME and art, I would seriously look at Brown. I am in the silicon valley and think I have worked with more good ME’s from Brown than any other private east coast school. I don’t really know how their program compares to the other schools in the east, but I think they have a very solid program. They also have a reciprocal agreement with RISD which is one of the top art schools in the country.

13

My daughter is a freshman ME major at Cornell, and she also had Lehigh on her college list. After doing all of the college tours, she decided that a larger engineering program would be better for her, as it offered more opportunities in extracurriculars, other classes, etc. For example, Cornell engineering has 24 student-run project teams, which is much more than offered by Lehigh or Princeton. Both schools offer a simlar co-op program as well. Princeton does not offer co-op. Following what @nordicdad stated above, my brother was an ME at Brown, and he had great job opportunities after graduation.