No Top-25 Program Is Strong on Everything

Each program’s five component scores; the grey bar spans its weakest to strongest. Hover a dot for the full profile.

Major Emphasis and Program Scale are percentile ranks across all 308 programs; the other three combine several ranked measures. Source: College Transitions 2026 Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Ranking (CIP 14.19, 308 programs).

Rank	Institution	Major Emphasis	Program Scale	Academic Rating	Earnings & ROI	PhD Productivity	Score
1	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	93.2	71.1	89.8	98.9	99.8	92.1
2	Carnegie Mellon University	88.0	67.2	88.7	97.6	95.9	89.5
3	Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus	92.5	99.4	73.4	89.8	98.1	88.1
4	Cornell University	59.7	74.4	87.2	96.5	93.4	85.8
5	Worcester Polytechnic Institute	97.7	88.8	77.2	81.5	91.6	85.1
6	Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute	94.5	84.1	73.3	83.5	96.5	84.4
7	University of Notre Dame	74.7	64.6	89.7	90.3	87.7	84.4
8	Duke University	58.4	50.5	94.6	97.4	89.1	84.1
9	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	52.3	95.1	80.4	88.9	94.2	83.8
10	Rice University	83.4	44.5	89.0	89.2	93.0	83.4
11	University of Maryland-College Park	66.9	97.7	72.4	86.4	92.2	82.5
12	Stevens Institute of Technology	96.8	80.2	76.1	91.0	73.2	82.3
13	Lehigh University	84.4	55.0	81.5	91.5	86.4	81.9
14	Purdue University-Main Campus	80.8	100.0	72.7	75.0	90.7	81.4
15	California Institute of Technology	96.1	23.4	89.6	81.0	95.6	80.8
16	Northwestern University	56.2	51.5	93.2	91.9	81.8	80.7
17	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	72.7	98.1	70.7	79.8	89.2	80.5
18	Northeastern University	80.5	93.5	74.8	91.4	64.5	80.0
19	Stanford University	51.3	38.6	85.7	99.6	88.9	79.6
20	Colorado School of Mines	99.7	97.1	56.2	78.5	88.3	78.7
21	University of California-Berkeley	26.3	88.0	70.0	95.0	94.8	78.3
22	Kettering University	100.0	82.5	54.3	92.7	80.0	78.2
23	University of Florida	45.1	96.8	78.6	71.4	93.3	78.1
24	Johns Hopkins University	51.6	31.7	84.3	95.3	91.8	77.8
25	Michigan Technological University	98.7	91.9	56.8	72.2	94.4	77.7