Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

If you are interested in studying engineering, you may want to check out the program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The following information will help you decide if it is a good fit for you.

RPI is located in Troy, New York and approximately 7,501 students attend the school each year. Of the 1,582 students who graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2021, 799 of them were engineering majors.

Want to know more about the career opportunities in this field? Check out the Careers in Engineering section at the bottom of this page.

RPI Engineering Degrees Available

• Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering
• Master’s Degree in Engineering
• Doctorate Degree in Engineering

RPI Engineering Rankings

Each year, College Factual ranks engineering programs across the country. The following shows how RPI performed in these rankings.

Note: While rankings may be a good starting point when you're researching a school, they don't necessarily highlight all of a school's strengths. Don't forget to check out the other details that are available for a school to see if it has what you're looking for in a program.

Bachelor’s Degree Overall Quality & Other Notable Rankings

The engineering major at RPI is not ranked on College Factual’s Best Colleges and Universities for Engineering. This could be for a number of reasons, such as not having enough data on the major or school to make an accurate assessment of its quality.

Ranking Type	Rank
Most Focused Engineering Doctor’s Degree Schools	12
Most Focused Engineering Bachelor’s Degree Schools	20
	37
Most Focused Engineering Master’s Degree Schools	39
	72
Most Popular Engineering Master’s Degree Schools	89
Best Engineering Master’s Degree Schools	98
Best Value Engineering Master’s Degree Schools	244

In 2021, 157 students received their master’s degree in engineering from RPI. This makes it the #90 most popular school for engineering master’s degree candidates in the country.

There were 57 students who received their doctoral degrees in engineering, making the school the #64 most popular school in the United States for this category of students.

Engineering Student Demographics at RPI

Take a look at the following statistics related to the make-up of the engineering majors at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

RPI Engineering Bachelor’s Program

During the 2020-2021 academic year, 799 students graduated with a bachelor's degree in engineering from RPI. About 69% were men and 31% were women. The typical engineering bachelor's degree program is made up of only 25% women. So female students are more repesented at RPI since its program graduates 6% more women than average.

About 54% of those who receive a bachelor's degree in engineering at RPI are white. This is above average for this degree on the nationwide level.

The following table and chart show the race/ethnicity for students who recently graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a bachelor's in engineering.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Students
Asian	90
Black or African American	29
Hispanic or Latino	70
White	432
International Students	116
Other Races/Ethnicities	62

RPI Engineering Master’s Program

Of the 157 students who earned a master's degree in Engineering from RPI in 2020-2021, 73% were men and 27% were women.

Of the students who received a engineering master's degree from RPI, 53% were white. This is above average for this degree on the natiowide level.

The following table and chart show the race/ethnicity for students who recently graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a master's in engineering.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Students
Asian	13
Black or African American	3
Hispanic or Latino	12
White	83
International Students	34
Other Races/Ethnicities	12

RPI also has a doctoral program available in engineering. In 2021, 57 students graduated with a doctor's degree in this field.

Concentrations Within Engineering

If you plan to be a engineering major, you may want to focus your studies on one of the following concentrations. The table shows all degrees awarded in this field awarded for all degree levels at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. A concentration may not be available for your level.

Concentration	Annual Degrees Awarded
Mechanical Engineering	289
Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering	138
Electrical Engineering	131
Biomedical Engineering	130
Chemical Engineering	97
Civil Engineering	88
Industrial Engineering	57
Materials Engineering	37
Nuclear Engineering	23
Environmental Engineering	17
Systems Engineering	6

Related Majors

• Natural Resources & Conservation
• Architecture & Related Services
• Engineering Technologies
• Biological & Biomedical Sciences
• Physical Sciences

Careers That Engineering Grads May Go Into

A degree in engineering can lead to the following careers. Since job numbers and average salaries can vary by geographic location, we have only included the numbers for NY, the home state for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Occupation	Jobs in NY	Average Salary in NY
Software Applications Developers	52,640	$116,830
Systems Software Developers	19,690	$115,120
Civil Engineers	16,790	$102,250
Industrial Engineers	12,030	$94,700
Mechanical Engineers	11,280	$91,820

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• Image Credit: By UpstateNYer under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.