Top schools are needed to have the best opportunity for the following:
Tech startup culture, access to funding and faculty resources for getting research early on(maximizes top phD choices), high- tech consultant groups that particularly recruit at ivy/MIT/stanford and the like.
Also, of importance to many high-achieving high schoolers, is the top peer group such schools offer.

Most engineering programs grade most courses in a curve. Often, not always, the median is set at 3.0, which means half the class is getting less than a B. Engineering GPAs often are lower than humanities/arts GPAs at the same college.

Engineering course grading curves can be very tough. I remember courses where 50% correct was an A+, 35% correct was a B and 25% correct was passing (barely).

No one accidentally gets an engineering degree from any ABET engineering program. Rankings of engineering programs are largely meaningless.

Some engineering programs have intentional "weed out" classes designed to fail a certain percentage of the class. A tell tale for this is whether the number of junior year students in that undergrad engineering program is visibly smaller than the number of freshman year students in that same program. Often these programs will accept some marginal students and give them a chance to succeed via hard work.

Other engineering programs graduate with an engineering degree almost all the students who matriculate into that program. Same comparison of # freshman eng students to # junior eng students, except that the two numbers will be very similar. These programs often decline to admit marginal students.

Neither approach is "better". They are just different. Important for the student to know what type of program they are applying to.

That’s very good.

As a hiring manager, I would say the key thing is ABET accredited engineering program. ABET means that all engineering programs are rigorous. It also means that engineering curricula are mostly the same anywhere.

The main exception is size; larger engineering programs can offer a broader range of upper-level engineering electives, but students often are a number not a name in large programs. Smaller programs usually mean one is a name and not a number, but also often mean fewer upper-level engineering electives. Fewer or more might not make a difference to a student, if the student's preferred upper level engineering electives are available.

Another thing is that degrees in "general engineering" are almost meaningless for technical jobs. Get a specific degree (e.g., Aero, Civil, EE, or other).

In the last two years, try to select rigorous upper-level electives that relate to the specific area where one wants to work. Rigor matters, not just in HS, but also in college and beyond.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to to frankly and honestly answer: is your goal to be an employee, a small business owner, or an inventor?

Literally no one on this board dreams of raising a small business owner.

All that risk!

Anonymous wrote:You need to to frankly and honestly answer: is your goal to be an employee, a small business owner, or an inventor?

Literally no one on this board dreams of raising a small business owner.

You need to to frankly and honestly answer: is your goal to be an employee, a small business owner, or an inventor?

The key things are:

(a) does the college offer the specific degree sought [AeroE, CivilE, EE/ComputerE, MechE, or whichever]

and

(b) is the school ABET approved [or is it CalTech, MIT, or Stanford - as they don't bother with ABET].

I work in a nationally prestigious engineering organization, as a non engineer. Everyone around (and above) me has state u degrees. Not for the most part UCB/UCLA/Michigan or the like either.

Feeder schools are important to specific employers.

Does your son have a dream to work in a specific industry/for a specific company?

If so, being at a feeder school can be more important.

See if you can get a placement report for the #98 school. Or use LinkedIn to look at alumni bios.

Many schools place kids in a regional radius around their campus. Is that a plus or a minus for your kid.

The number/rank doesn't really matter. The factors above are what you should consider.

If he’s keen on pursuing a career in engineering, the school ranking doesn’t matter much as long as the program is ABET certified. It’s a tough major no matter where you do it.

The higher ranked engineering schools generally only matter if he wants to keep the door open for certain Silicon Valley companies or go into consulting or finance, which typically only recruit from a few schools. Wall Street is very interested in engineering students these days, but only from the “prestige” schools because they remain dinosaurs with their recruiting.

But if he has no interest in that - and most engineering students don’t - where he gets his degree doesn’t matter that much.

Unless you have a brass rat, it doesn't really matter where you went to school. Can you do the work?

There are non-engineering job options available for engineering students from top schools (e.g., in finance or consulting), but pretty much any engineering job is open to an engineer from a respected school with good grades.

My son is planning in majoring in Engineering -- one of the schools he really likes is ranked 98 on the US News engineering rankings. How much does this ranking matter for career down the road? Thanks