Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has been named one of the top engineering schools in the world. Industry-focused website Business Insider ranked Rensselaer fourth on its list of “World's Best Engineering Schools.” The rankings were based on surveys of engineers, professionals, and entrepreneurs working at technology companies.

“Rensselaer’s engineering programs are held in very high esteem among the academic and scientific communities. We have long been recognized for the quality of our academic programs, the unique experiences we afford our students, and the ability of our graduates to make significant contributions early in their careers. This latest ranking provides clear evidence of the value placed on our world-class engineering programs by the companies that hire our graduates,” said  David Rosowsky, dean of the School of Engineering at Rensselaer. “We are immensely pleased to be recognized by Business Insider as one of the best engineering schools in the world.”

Business Insider asked survey respondents to rate how valuable degrees from different engineering schools are to the future careers of graduates. Rensselaer placed fourth with a score of 4.16 out of 5, behind Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the top-ranked California Institute of Technology. Rounding out the top 10 were: University of California, Berkeley; Carnegie Mellon University; Cornell University; Georgia Tech; Harvard University; and Princeton University.

Survey results show the two most important factors in choosing an engineering school are the skills and knowledge acquired in school (74 percent), and the brand value of the school (19 percent). The survey identified IBM, Cisco Systems, Intel, Microsoft, and Oracle as key employers of Rensselaer graduates.

See complete results of the survey at: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-worlds-best-engineering-schools-2012-6

Founded in 1824, Rensselaer is the oldest technology university in the English-speaking world. For more than two centuries, the Institute has been a driving force behind breakthroughs in engineering and science in virtually every arena—from transportation and telecommunications to business, medicine, outer space, and cyberspace.

Today, 3,000 undergraduate students and 700 graduate students are enrolled in the School of Engineering at Rensselaer, and 70 percent of incoming first-year engineering students were in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class. The School of Engineering’s seven academic departments offer 30 different degree programs. Research conducted at Rensselaer addresses some of the world’s most pressing technological challenges—from energy security and sustainable development to biotechnology and human health—and the School of Engineering’s 165 faculty members are at the leading edge of their fields. The engineering faculty’s annual research expenditures total more than $50 million.

The School of Engineering is one of five schools at Rensselaer, through which students at all levels are engaged in and researching a wide array of critical 21st Century challenges. In addition to Engineering, the university offers more than 145 programs at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels in the schools of Science; Architecture; Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; and the Lally School of Management & Technology; as well as an interdisciplinary degree in Information Technology.