ivy league or public school for engineering?

[Anonymous]

DC is a junior looking at engineering schools. I noticed there are many public schools ranked higher than ivy league schools. What makes these public schools ranked higher than private schools? Does Berkeley, Univ of Michigan, Georgia Tech, Perdue and UIUC offer that much better of an engineering education than Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Univ Penn and Cornell?

[Anonymous]

For Engineering plenty of choices ..top are MIT, CalTech and Stanford

[Anonymous]

Engineering was an afterthought at Harvard and Yale for a long time. Whereas, it has been important at Cornell from the start as the land-grant school of New York state, which is why Cornell has the best engineering in the Ivy league. In other states, the land grant school is typically a big public school that has invested in engineering for a long time. In Massachusetts, the land grant school was MIT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is a junior looking at engineering schools. I noticed there are many public schools ranked higher than ivy league schools. What makes these public schools ranked higher than private schools? Does Berkeley, Univ of Michigan, Georgia Tech, Perdue and UIUC offer that much better of an engineering education than Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Univ Penn and Cornell?

You don’t even need to go to these bolded schools (nor MIT/CalTech). Most engineers in my company went to “affordable state university” programs. You would definitely get more respect for any of the bolded schools than for the Ivy programs. It’s not worth paying the Ivy premium for engineering.

[Anonymous]

You can honestly just look up “Big 10” schools and all of them are realistic and prestigious options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can honestly just look up “Big 10” schools and all of them are realistic and prestigious options.

OP — Michigan and Northwestern aren’t super realistic if you don’t already know that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is a junior looking at engineering schools. I noticed there are many public schools ranked higher than ivy league schools. What makes these public schools ranked higher than private schools? Does Berkeley, Univ of Michigan, Georgia Tech, Perdue and UIUC offer that much better of an engineering education than Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Univ Penn and Cornell?

Cornell is pretty well known for engineering, but it's a pressure cooker. As for the other ivy league schools there are many better options for engineering - both public and private. The core reason is the historical snobbery of the ivy league. Engineering was for the trades. It was pedestrian. Meanwhile dozens of smarter schools filled that educational space, from elite privates like Stanford, MIT, Rice, and CMU to a slew of solid publics. Pretty sure that in most engineering circles a degree from Maryland or Purdue is going to be taken a lot more seriously than a degree from Yale or Brown.

[Anonymous]

Our civil and structural engineers where I work all went to State U or community college and then transferred to State U.

They all have their State U diplomas on the walls at work.

We get EIT's from State U.

[Anonymous]

I'm 3:58 poster. We also have a few Environmental Engineers where I work. They all went to State U.

[Anonymous]

Here's a list of where engineers in one group at NASA got their engineering degrees. It's almost all state schools. They also list where astronauts went, which is also not dominated by highly selective colleges.

https://lesshighschoolstress.com/page/9/

[Anonymous]

Been a practicing engineer for the past 10 years. Besides a few from Cornell, I've yet to meet an engineer from another Ivy. The one impressing me most went to Penn State.

[Anonymous]

Does he really know he likes engineering? I’m a lot of ways it’s repetitive process driven work and it generally pays much less than other professional careers. I’m work for Air Force civilian — my 12 year old self loves it, my DW likes it a lot less since I don’t make much and often work 12 hour shifts during mission op

Obv CS/engineering at a FAANG is (or was) a good option. But CS doesn’t have the natural gate keepers of med/law nor the obsession with pedigree and class that finance has that prevented an oversupply of talent.

Good engineering schools are MIT CalTech, Harvey Mudd, CMU, GT, Mich, Purdue, etc. but if he has the chance to go to an Ivy, go there as if he changes his mind for career he will have a wealth of good options. Many engineering classmates switched to law or finance mid-program — engineering school is its own special slog.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Been a practicing engineer for the past 10 years. Besides a few from Cornell, I've yet to meet an engineer from another Ivy. The one impressing me most went to Penn State.

Engineering students from Ivy become quants on Wall Street

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For Engineering plenty of choices ..top are MIT, CalTech and Stanford

+ Berkeley

[Anonymous]

For engineering, you want a big university with lots of STEM research. Most Ivys simply aren't large enough (Cornell is the exception because it's an Ivy mashed up with a state university) or focused enough (e.g. MIT, Caltech where the school is smaller but it's almost all engineering).