Click here to go to the NEW College Discussion Forum

How does Swarthmore rate in engineering?

By Voigtrob (Voigtrob) on Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 04:42 pm: Edit

Prolly some of the best engineering you'll find at an LAC... other contenders would be:

Olin
Bucknell
Rose-Hulman

Hmm, that's all I can think of.

By Baltodad (Baltodad) on Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 05:40 pm: Edit

Olin and Rose-Hulman aren't LACs. Olin is exclusively engineering (it's "Olin College of Engineering"). And R-H is the "Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology" (it offers majors in the sciences to the small percentage of students who don't majo in engineering).

In answer to the question, Swarthmore only has a "general engineering" major... no mechanical, industrial, chemical, etc. specialization. It's pretty much expected that grads will go on to graduate school to learn a specialty. As might be expected, it's a small department... around 100 students. As I recall, it rates respectably on the US News ranking of engineering programs where the highest degree in bachelors or masters. (Rose-Hulman has been in first place 5 straight years.)

By Mike2008 (Mike2008) on Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 05:59 pm: Edit

Olin has cross registration with Wellesley, Brandeis and Babson colleges
The students can take class to those colleges similar to Harvey Mudd.

By Baltodad (Baltodad) on Tuesday, March 16, 2004 - 11:14 pm: Edit

Students at Olin take classes in other fields, but they're all engineering majors.

By Subtrunks (Subtrunks) on Thursday, March 18, 2004 - 09:10 pm: Edit

If I were to do engineering in Swarthmore and maintained a decent gpa of 3.0-3.5 and a relatively ok courseload, could I get into Caltech's, MIT's, Stanford's, and Columbia's schools of engineering?

By Brownalum (Brownalum) on Friday, March 19, 2004 - 04:29 am: Edit

Subtrunks, yes you could. Your best bet is to get a strong preparation in physics and math, with some basic engineering courses and some research experience.

Across all undergraduate programs, Caltech, Yale, Harvard and Swarthmore actually have the highest placement rates into the top graduate schools of engineering. Dartmouth, Brown, Princeton, and MIT are not far behind.

By Redwingray (Redwingray) on Friday, March 19, 2004 - 12:08 pm: Edit

Brownalum, you said --
"Across all undergraduate programs, Caltech, Yale, Harvard and Swarthmore actually have the highest placement rates into the top graduate schools of engineering. Dartmouth, Brown, Princeton, and MIT are not far behind."

I would GREATLY appreciate any sources for this or related information. It's closely related to exactly what I'm going back and forth on right now.

I'm interested in studying biomedical engineering. If there were no such field as biomedical engineering, I'd be much more likely to be a physics, math, or biology major than a chemical engineering or electrical engineering major. While not etched in stone, my plan is to get at least a masters in biomedical engineering (i.e., I have NO present plans to go to medical school).

From this perspective, I have some 11th hour decisions to make about what "style" of undergraduate biomedical engineering is most appropriate for me. I know I'm not alone with these concerns. The biggest concern is choosing between the large, well-known programs offered by schools like UMich, UPenn, UIUC, NU and the lesser known (from an Engineering perspective) programs offered by schools like Yale, Harvard, and (to a lesser extent) WUSTL.

There are things I like about the former, things I like about the latter. But since I'm fairly confident I'd like to keep my options open to attend the TOP grad schools in biomedical engineering, I'm looking for all possible evidence to suggest going to say Yale, Harvard, or WUSTL (great schools all, but not "ranked" at the top in BME lists) won't in fact close doors. As you know, there are MANY people who suggest you are wasting a biomedical engineering undergraduate education (and closing doors) unless you attend Duke, JHU, MIT, UCSD, UMich, Cornell, UPenn, NU, and some others.

Thanks to all who can shed light with their opinions and source info.