Top 7 Engineering Colleges Of World

Students interested in engineering should take a hard look at the strength of undergraduate engineering programs at the colleges they're considering. Unlike many other professions (such as law), where the choice of undergraduate major is only moderately or not at all important, engineers must learn a very substantive field and can benefit tremendously from work with top faculty and fellow students.

These are a few of the very top engineering programs in United States.

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT

MIT's school of engineering is known throughout the world both for its research accomplishments and its training of tomorrow's engineering leaders. Based in Cambridge, MA (down the street from Harvard), MIT has been around since 1861. Approximately 60% of MIT undergraduates are in the school's engineering programs.

2. California Institute of Technology

Caltech's undergraduate program is small, with only about 200 students in each class. Also, students at Caltech (in all programs) have a surprisingly low four-year graduation rate of about 80%--no doubt due at least in part to the difficult of the curriculum. Still, Caltech is known as one of the country's top engineering colleges and one of its most exclusive as well.

Caltech is located in Pasadena, California

3. Stanford University

Stanford is one of the nation's most prestigious colleges, and the undergraduate engineering program is every bit as elite as the college itself. Stanford requires that all high school students simply apply to the university as a whole. They can declare an engineering major in the junior year. However, they need prepare for an engineering major with the right math and science courses in the freshman and sophomore years.

Stanford is located in Palo Alto, near San Francisco.

4. University of California-Berkeley

Berkeley is considered by many to be the nation's top public engineering school. It's undergraduate engineering programs--which include a number disciplines such as Engineering Physics, Computer Engineering, and Nuclear Engineering--are are consistently ranked among the top programs in their respective categories.

The undergraduate engineering program at Berkeley as about 2700 students, which makes it account about 12% of the undergraduate student body.

5. Harvey Mudd College

Harvey Mudd is the only school on our list that does not offer a Ph.D. That at least arguably makes Harvey Mudd more focused than some other schools on undergraduate education.

Harvey Mudd does not offer specific engineering majors, but only a general engineering degree intended to give students a broad education in engineering fundamentals.

The typical class size is just 15-20 students. Students work extremely hard. The college is located in Claremont, California.

6. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

While many top engineering programs are located on the coasts, the University of Illinois presents one of the nation's top engineering colleges in the heart of the Midwest. A large school (over 5500 engineering undergraduates!) with a number of departments consistently ranked among the top in their respective areas, the University of Illinois is one of the most selective and most respected undergraduate engineering programs in the country.

7. University of Michigan

The University of Michigan, a large research university located in the beautiful college town of Ann Arbor, boasts one of the country's top few public engineering programs.

Students are admitted to the College of Engineering as incoming freshmen, and then to specific engineering programs after the freshman year.

About 5000 students are enrolled in Michigan's undergraduate engineering programs (about 1200 per class). The acceptance rate is 73% and average SAT (old scale) is 1380.