I have been reading a lot about colleges lately since my son will be looking in earnest next year. I found a very handy list in my internet travels yesterday. It was USA's top colleges list and they had a page on the top engineering schools. I was surprised to see that the University of Rochester was not in the top 100 for engineering schools even though it's in the top 35 for colleges overall in the US. But what was more interesting was the acceptance rate to some of the best colleges. Truly ridiculous. I guess you have to be nothing short of a genius to get into those. Here is a sample.
| 2 | Harvard University (MA) | 9% | one |
| 1 | Princeton University (NJ) | 10% | |
| 4 | Stanford University (CA) | 11% | |
| 7 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 13% |
The thing I find unfair is that each college has a certain demographic they want in their class and even if you have fantastic SATs and a killer GPA, if you don't bring the right mix of background, personality and extra curriculars, you just won't get into the class.
So each of these colleges is in the top 100 or better for engineering schools in New York State. Suny Buffalo, RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst), RIT (Rochester Institute of technology), Syracuse University and Cornell (which is the closest to us and has a very low acceptance rate).
The big question remains as to what type of engineering Dan wants to do. He is great with electronics and mechanical stuff. He loves doing the sound systems and setting up electrical equipment. The highest paid engineers according to this article are chemical at almost 60K a year and Computer at $56,200 a year for starting salaries. Decisions decisions...
But the good news is engineers are in huge demand. There is a severe shortage, so much so that they are being imported from outside the country.
Any engineers out there, please feel free to chime in with advice about your particular field.
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