NYU Tandon School of Engineering: A Ranking Overview

The NYU Tandon School of Engineering, rooted in the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute established in 1854 and the NYU School of Civil Engineering and Architecture founded in 1854, has a rich history of contributing to technological advancements. Today, it stands as a significant institution in the heart of Brooklyn's MetroTech Center, an urban academic-industrial research park, playing a major role in New York City’s booming tech landscape. This article provides an overview of the school's rankings, its academic environment, and its standing within the broader engineering education landscape.

Understanding University Rankings

It's important to understand the context of university rankings before diving into NYU Tandon's specific placements. Several entities publish annual rankings of Master’s programs in various disciplines, including Financial Engineering and Quantitative Finance, in the US and abroad. The field of university program rankings is largely unregulated, with ranking methodologies varying widely across different organizations. There is no oversight, standards, or quality controls regarding data sourcing, aggregation, or weighting. Some rankings of Quant Finance programs have gained credibility over time because universities willingly supply data to the ranking entities. However, others lack this credibility, making it vital to approach rankings with a critical eye.

Financial Engineering Program Rankings

The Department of Finance and Risk Engineering continues its upward trend in the rankings. In 2021, the FRE’s MS in Financial Engineering program achieved noteworthy rankings:

Ranked #2 by TFE Times.
Ranked #8 in the US by QuantNet, tied with the University of Chicago.
Ranked #11 in the world by Risk.net.

The MS in Financial Engineering program at NYU Tandon has historically trended upwards over the last five years in all three rankings. The program had a slight drop in 2021 in the Risk.net ranking as a result of COVID-19 and the way the entity accounted for admissions deferrals.

In 2020, Risk.net’s Quant Finance Master’s Guide placed the NYU Tandon School of Engineering M.S. in Financial Engineering fifth in the world, a significant leap from the previous year. Additionally, TFE Times listed NYU Tandon M.S. Financial Engineering as number three among the 2020 Best Master’s of Financial Engineering Programs, up from number four the previous year. NYU Tandon’s program - the first to be certified by the International Association of Financial Engineers - was earlier ranked ninth by QuantNet, an online resource for the financial industry.

Peter Carr, Department Chair, noted, “Our latest rankings - and the upward trend they represent - affirm the high caliber of our faculty, many of whom have decades of experience as industry leaders, as well as the drive and intelligence of our students.” Jelena Kovačević, dean of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, added, “We are thrilled to see the Department of Finance and Risk Engineering recognized as a global powerhouse in financial engineering."

General Engineering Program Rankings

As of 2024, the US News & World Report ranked NYU's undergraduate engineering program at #61.

Admissions and Cost

The Tandon School of Engineering has an acceptance rate of 47% for Master's and Doctoral programs. Tuition for doctoral programs is $2,428 per credit, both in-state and out-of-state. The Ph.D. student-faculty ratio is 4.6:1.

Faculty and Academics

The Tandon School of Engineering has 94 full-time faculty members. The school offers a range of graduate courses, Master's degrees, and Doctoral degrees in fields such as:

Biomedical/Bioengineering
Electrical/Electronic/Communications
Environmental/Environmental Health
Industrial/Manufacturing

All undergraduate and graduate programs at the engineering school are accredited by the Middle States Association. Undergraduate chemistry students have the option to pursue a degree approved by the American Chemical Society (ACS).

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Research and Innovation

NYU Tandon is committed to cutting-edge research, with $59 million in research expenditures reported in 2023. Some of the school’s first research institutes included the Polymer Research Institute, established in 1942, and the Microwave Research Institute, established in 1945. The American Chemical Society designated the Polymer Research Institute as a National Historic Chemical Landmark on September 3, 2003. The Microwave Research Institute developed electromagnetic and microwave defense and communication systems and later renamed itself the Weber Research Institute. Over the years the school has been a key center of research in the development of microwave physics, radar, polymers and the space program. During World War II the school's Microwave Research Institute worked on problems whose solution led to the development of radar, and later broke ground in electromagnetic theory and electronics in general.

Location and Facilities

The NYU Tandon School of Engineering main campus is in Downtown Brooklyn and is close to public transportation routes. It is located in the Brooklyn Tech Triangle and about a 20-minute subway ride from NYU's main campus in Lower Manhattan. It is also connected to the Washington Square campus by the NYU Shuttle Bus system. In addition to its main address at MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn, the school offers programs in Manhattan. The school played a major role in bringing about MetroTech Center, one of the largest urban university-corporate parks in the United States, while closing down the larger campus at its former Long Island Graduate Center. The school has seven buildings in Brooklyn, as well as leased spaces in some other nearby buildings. The engineering school also has a location in downtown Manhattan.

A Look at the School's History

Founded as the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, the school moved into its first home at 99 Livingston Street in Brooklyn. The first class, admitted in 1855, consisted of 265 young men aged nine to 17. The school conferred its first bachelor's degrees in 1871. In 1917, the preparatory program separated from the Institute and became the Polytechnic Preparatory Country Day School.

In 1854, the University of the City of New York, now New York University, founded the School of Civil Engineering and Architecture at a time when specialized schools of engineering were uncommon in America. Classes began in 1855 and the school awarded its first undergraduate degree in 1857. As the industrial revolution took shape, the school formalized its engineering curriculum and the school's first dean, Charles H. Snow, changed the name of the school to the School of Applied Science. In 1894 the University of the City of New York moved its engineering school to a new campus in the Bronx. The new campus gave the university space to build larger science laboratories that could not be constructed at its Washington Square site. With the addition of the new campus, under the leadership of Chancellor Henry Mitchell MacCracken, the University of the City of New York renamed itself New York University. The neighborhood surrounding the Bronx campus eventually became known as University Heights.

Enrollment at New York University expanded considerably from the early 1900s into the postwar decades. However, by the early 1970s this growth ceased due to rising crime and financial troubles in New York City. Also during that period from 1969 to 1975, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn was forced to rely on subsidies provided by New York state to keep the school afloat. The state supported Polytechnic on the basis that closing the school would create economic hardship locally.

Read also: Legacy of Fordham University

With both Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and New York University facing financial difficulties, the state brokered a merger with New York University's engineering school. By 1986 Polytechnic University in Brooklyn was the largest technological university in the New York metropolitan area and the second-largest in graduate enrollment in the nation after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Discussions about a merger with Polytechnic University and New York University began in 2004. Four years later Polytechnic University and New York University agreed to take steps toward a merger beginning with a formal affiliation between the two schools. Since the merger, applications to the school and incoming SAT scores have increased substantially. The school has also experienced an influx of students coming from outside of New York state. A gift of $100 million from Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon in 2015 resulted in the school changing its name to the Tandon School of Engineering.

Notable Alumni

NYU Tandon has produced numerous accomplished alumni, including:

Melville, chief engineer of the United States Navy.
Howard A. Chinn, Chief Engineer of CBS.
James Wood, fabricated the steel cables for the Brooklyn Bridge, making cable-lift elevators possible. He also contributed to the inventions of lockmaking, submarine, A/C generator, electric motors, transformer and the design of the modern refrigerator.
Hung-Chang Lin, invented the quasi-complementary (transistor) amplifier circuit, the lateral transistor, and the wireless microphone.
Hans Reissner, designed the first successful all-metal aircraft, the Reissner Canard (or Ente) with both skin and structure made of metal. Also, first solved Einstein's equation for the metric of a charged point mass.

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