<p>I would assume the same major companies generally hit all three colleges, so I can’t imagine employment outcomes being noticeably different. I live in close proximity to all of them and I think all three are amazing and overall have a lot of similarities, actually. Thank you for any insight.</p>
<p>The same companies do not recruit all three campuses equally. Tech firms recruit Michigan engineers more heavily than Notre Dame engineers. It is not comparable really. Michigan is only marginally better than Northwestern in Engineering, so in that case, you are quite right to assume companies hit both colleges equally. But Notre Dame is not in the same league. </p>
<p>So when choosing between Michigan’s CoE and Northwestern’s McCormick, one should go for fit, assuming cost of attendance is not a concern. Which campus environment appeals to you more? Of course, getting into the CoE or McCormick is not a given these days. Both should be considered reaches, regardless.</p>
<p>My D actually likes the first year engineering program at Northwestern, but she does not like the campus. At the end, she picked Michigan CoE over NU partly for a financial reason.</p>
<p>All are very good engineering schools. However, you may want to take into account which programs are offered at each school. For example, Notre Dame doesn’t have a program in Biomedical (BS), Industrial or Material engineering. While NU doesn’t have a program in Aerospace. </p>
<p>So is UMich ranked higher because of some of those niche offerings? </p>
<p>Mechanical, electrical and computer is offered by all three, are the outcomes and employment opportunities going to be different depending on which college I go to?</p>
<p>Department rankings also take into consideration faculty achievements. For engineering faculty, becoming a member of the National Academy of Engineering is viewed as an engineering accomplishment for the scholar’s work in research. Michigan has a bigger, and more distinguished engineering faculty than Northwestern and a much more distinguished engineering faculty compared to Notre Dame. </p>
<p>
On-campus recruiting will likely be different.<br>
Contact the school’s career center and ask them for a list of employers that have recruited engineers on campus over the last year.
More well known engineering programs will be targeted for on-campus recruiting by more national, blue-chip employers.</p>
<p>I recently graduated from a graduate program in umich engineering. My thoughts…</p>
<p>From my understanding much of the undergraduate rankings are reflections of the graduate rankings. Umich’s undergraduate engineering is often ranked better than Northwestern and Notre Dame, but to a freshman or sophomore engineering student there will be little difference between these programs. What you are taught is pretty standard. </p>
<p>The major difference comes when as a junior and especially senior in the sense that a senior’s (for example in EECS) experience will not be much different from a 1st year PhD or masters student. You’ll literally be taking the same courses. For example a PhD student is required to take several 400 level courses that are actually targeted for seniors. You might have a 400 EECS course with 55% undergrads and 45% grad students. Undergrads are regularly in 500 level courses targeted for grad students. In these courses you will be taught be professors who are well known and regularly publish in their fields. In my opinion these professors can teach the state of the art in the field and bring aspects of their research to the classroom for seniors. The “rankings” reflect this, and companies that come to Michigan find this deeply important. For example you might go to a career fair and they will put up a sign saying you must have taken these specific 400 and 500 level courses. Companies are aware of a university’s curriculum, and if they are not happy with it, they won’t recruit. Doing well in one of these course will also help for grad school admission when you get letters of recommendation. Also, it has been my experience that umich engineering regularly gives research opportunities to their undergrads…again this an opportunity to work with the leaders in different fields of engineering. </p>
<p>Isn’t NU and ND much harder overall to get into than CoE, which you can apply directly to? Just find it fascinating that CoE is easier (for me) to get into but not as nice.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily, but you are in-state for UofM and that is still a tipping factor if you can check the box on the grades, test scores, etc. Notre Dame has it’s own holistic admissions process and it’s own tipping factors like legacy, religion, etc. which is what makes it’s admit rate selective more than the quality of it’s engineering program. Northwestern is private so again has it’s own set of admissions criteria and it’s engineering program is higher ranked than ND and probably a closer ‘competitor’ to UofM with cross-applications and competitive admissions to the engineering program. ND is the outlier in your list- Purdue would be a closer fit if you are looking for 3 comparable highly ranked engineering programs within a regional driving proximity. </p>
<p>^ UIUC would be a closer competitor too and it is in the vicinity of Purdue.</p>
<p>True billscho. and UIUC is also ranked in the top 10 for engineering so you are correct in including that school if the OP is looking for top 10 engineering undergrads within driving distance.</p>
<p>The only issue with UIUC is that their financial aid to oos is very poor (when compare to UMich or Purdue).</p>
<p>UofM is the OP’s “best buy” since the OP is in-state. It is a twofer - a top ranked engineering problem at an in-state cost.</p>
<p>^ And in state admission rate.</p>
<p>and that would be program…not problem, so sorry.</p>