Best Engineering Colleges List Has Few Surprises

A familiar roster of schools has grabbed the top spots in U.S. News & World Report’s annual engineering school rankings, released earlier this month.

            Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was named best among schools offering a doctorate in engineering, while Rose-Hulman Institute and Harvey Mudd College tied for the top spot among schools at the bachelors and masters degree level.

            There were no shockers in the list, known as “Best Colleges 2010.” Two mild surprises were the addition of the University of Texas-Austin in the doctorate-level group and Milwaukee School of Engineering in the bachelors/masters category. Neither made last year’s top ten lists.

            In last year’s survey, MIT and Rose-Hulman earned the top spots, while Harvey Mudd was second in its category.

            Schools in the “doctorate top ten” included: MIT (1); Stanford and Cal-Berkeley (tied for 2^nd); Cal Tech (4); Georgia Tech and University of Illinois (tied for 5^th); Carnegie Mellon and University of Michigan (tied for 7^th); Cornell, Purdue and University of Texas (tied for 9^th).

            Schools in the bachelors/masters top ten: Rose-Hulman and Harvey Mudd (tied for 1^st);  Cooper Union (3); U.S. Military Academy (4); U.S. Naval Academy (5); Cal-Poly-San Luis Obispo and U.S. Air Force Academy (tied for 6^th); Bucknell and Franklin Olin College of Engineering (tied for 8^th); Milwaukee School of Engineering and Villanova (tied for 10^th).

            U.S. News’ web site lists only the top ten in each category. To get the larger list, readers need to buy the magazine’s Best Colleges book.

            Other notable schools (included only in the print edition) include: Rice (19^th); Duke (26^th); Harvard (26^th); Yale (40^th).

            Interestingly, the Midwest’s Big Ten schools (5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 17, 19, 26, 45, 57) fared better than the high-profile Ivy League schools (9, 12, 26, 26, 26, 40, 51).

            Under specialties, MIT was best in aerospace/aeronautical, chemical, computer engineering, electrical/electronic, materials and mechanical engineering.