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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Top engineering firms only really actively recruit grads from the Top engineering schools.   Not that other grads won’t eventually end up somewhere.  They will just have a different path to get there.  [/quote]

This. Prestige matters for engineering at the top levels. There are about 15 ivy/privates and 5 publics that are far above the rest[/quote]

Agree it matters for the top levels…but for regular engineering jobs that require just a bachelors, it does not matter a lot. However, smart and ambitious students target the top, just as they do in law or medicine. Also, peers matter and rigor of coursework. Our public magnet stem high school does dual enrollment with a 4 yr regional university that has engineering and is listed as T75. The courses are completely different than the corresponding courses at his ivy. The ivy syllabus covers the regional college semester in the first 6 weeks. The regional had multiple choice tests and rote plug and chug psets that were easy for the top high school kids. The transcript of the average graduate engineer at the regional has the ABET minimums. At the end of 4 yrs in engineering at ivy(or hopkins or stanford or MIT), they have done much higher levels.[b] Our family member is a professor at an elite school and advised our engineer to pick ivy/top private or one of the top 4 publics for engineering.[/b] He sees a difference in grad (MS and phD) students from less rigorous undergrad engineering programs. He has some industry funding and notes that companies look at transcripts for specific upper level courses not just ABET. Ymmv. [/quote]

Good advice.[/quote]The good advice is to pick an Ivy, top private, or top public? Maybe for investment banking, but not for engineering. Ivies don't even crack the top 10 for PhD feeder schools by total or percentage. My point is that choosing to pay Ivy tuition for engineering over in-state UMD or VT, for example, which are not top 4 publics, is probably bad advice for someone working as an engineer and doesn't seem determinative for PhD applications.[/quote]

Who said anything about PHD's?  We are talking about being recruited for the top jobs upon graduation from undergrad.  The Top 5 publics or Top Privates for Engineering absolutely make a difference here.  Anyone arguing differently just didn't get admitted to one of those schools to personally have that experience and are just being contrarians.[/quote]I mentioned PhDs because you brought them up in the context of your family member/professor at an elite college, and I pointed out that academia doesn't appear to be impressed with Ivy engineers based on PhD feeder school rankings. Your dismissive response of “who mentioned PhDs?” misses the point entirely. If elite schools really produce better prepared, more rigorous engineers as you claim, that superior preparation should show up in PhD admissions, too. Graduate programs are run by the same academics who supposedly recognize this elite training, yet they're not disproportionately selecting Ivy engineering graduates. You can't argue that elite schools provide superior academic rigor while simultaneously dismissing the one objective measure that would prove it.

Your post is condescending toward most engineering students and programs. The dismissive tone about “regular engineering jobs” and characterizing regional schools as having easy coursework that top high school kids, such as yours, can breeze through is insulting to the thousands of capable engineers these programs graduate. The anecdotal comparison between one regional school and an Ivy is hardly representative. Although you claim engineering schools don't matter for most jobs, casually mentioning your family member who's a professor at an elite school and attending a public magnet STEM high school feels like credential flexing rather than substantive argument. This academic snobbery perpetuates the myth that only elite schools provide quality engineering education, which isn't supported by the success of engineers from diverse programs. My kid is attending a top 4 public, so this isn't about personal grievance. I just wanted to call out your pompous elitism for what it is.
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