<p>So I received a full tuition scholarship from Illinois Institute of Technology, but I also received a really good scholarship (their highest amount apparently) from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. I know I'm going to one of the two. The problem is is that Rose-Hulman is $10,000 more than IIT. I'm going to talk to Rose-Hulman to maybe lower that, but any advice? Should I just go with the cheaper school? I liked Rose-Hulman a lot better, but is it worth spending the extra how much.</p>
<p>I'm going into Chemical Engineering with probably a double major in Chemistry.</p>
<p>Well, if you liked Rose-Hulman better, you should go there. You will do better at a place you are happy at. Besides, that’s not a huge difference in price when it comes to happiness. Also, if you go by the rankings, IIT isn’t really on the radar these days.
FWIW, I plan on transferring to IIT, but that won’t be for another year or so.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice! The problem is is that my parents are also paying for my other brother to go to IIT right now (it costs probably as much as Rose-Hulman would have cost me for him) and they just got done paying for my oldest brother to get through IIT. So finance is definitely a big issue. I have been looking for outside scholarships like crazy, but is it worth paying the extra $10,000 a year just because I really like the school? I do not care for IIT at all except for the fact that they gave me a good scholarship and my brothers go there (my older brother is now in grad school there). I just don’t know what to do.</p>
<p>I think you should go to Rose-Hulman if you like it better. You can just take out a loan for it. 40k is not bad in the grand scheme of things, as you’ll be an engineer. I’m in the same boat too…go to the cheapest school or the school I want to go to…</p>
<p>I hear ya, that’s what I figure but my parents seem very bent on not needing to take out a loan so as to “not leave me in debt when I graduate”. I’m going to work on it and see what I can do. I feel Rose-Hulman to be a better overall undergrad school also. Oh how fun of a talk it will be with my parents… Good luck though Scorpioserpent with your choice!</p>
<p>40k, wow, that sounds a lot to me, and I’m middle-aged! I would suggest running a calculation to see what your monthly payment will be, for different lengths of loans. I think you will be surprised. Speaking as an engineer, you won’t be rolling in money! I remember thinking I’d have it made, and just four years after getting my MS, I was standing in an unemployment line when the economy took a dive. So be careful taking on too much debt.</p>
<p>Thanks MaineLonghorn! I’m definitely looking into all of the possibilities. I’m looking into a lot of scholarships though to try to reduce that amount. I’ll just have to see.</p>
<p>Thanks and good luck to you too! I’m between Drexel and Rowan…I guess another thing to consider is that, in this economy, it might be easier to get a job from a more well known engineering school…Oh it’s tough, though. But I didn’t think 40k, is much considering all those kids oweing almost 100k, which is crazy. Yeah, I’d say try to get what scholarships you can. A good co-op through school can pay a good portion of that as well, which is why I’m considering drexel.</p>
<p>As far as the rankings go, I wouldn’t worry too much. There’s not a $10k/yr difference in academics between IIT and Rose-Hulman of which I’m aware (please correct me if I’m wrong), especially for undergraduate engineering education.</p>
<p>What do you like more about Rose Hulman? Smaller class sizes? Perhaps IIT has an honors program or something… that generally will get you smaller general education class sizes, and by the time you’re in major, you’ll generally have <50 students in any given class, and sometimes much fewer than that. Having gone to a university with huge class sizes for the intro level and having done the Honors program (taking the honors sections for courses I cared about and regular sections for some) I can attest to the difference.</p>
<p>If you like the program better, that’s an even tougher call. I don’t know anything about IIT’s and Rose-Hulman’s ChemEng and Chem programs (other than that the ChemEng program is likely accredited by ABET)… and there can be wide variation in what these majors cover in terms of content. Add to this the different ways each school can handle general education and extra programs (minors, concentrations, foci, etc.) and you could make a convincing case for going to the more expensive of the two.</p>
<p>All this being said, if you can’t think of a good reason for liking Rose Hulman better, why pay more to go there? If your only reason for going Rose Hulman over IIT is a difference in rankings (and perhaps a hypothetically correlated earnings potential), you may be sadly mistaken upon graduation. If you see a difference in the programs and find one significantly more attractive than the other for what you want to do, you may regret for the rest of your life not doing the more attractive program (note that I don’t mean intellectual rigor, as that can’t really be quantified and probably doesn’t differ by much $$$ per year… I mean the actual curricula).</p>
<p>Thank you AuburnMathTutor!! I definitely appreciate that you go past the rankings because that’s what I’m trying to do also. So here’s how it is:</p>
<p>Rose-Hulman: $20,000/yr; no special honors programs or what not</p>
<p>IIT: $8500/yr; Camras Scholar (the highest position to be in at the University), Probable $5000 Undergraduate Research Opportunity every summer, Free study abroad opportunity (because of my full tuition scholarship)</p>
<p>^^The numbers above include room and board and also work studies are taken out.</p>
<p>The above is all immediate stuff I can do as a freshman. I think for undergrad it won’t really matter where I go especially considering both of these schools are tech schools and therefore good at engineering. The classes seem relatively the same for each so I don’t think it would make a large difference. It’s just so hard of a decision because I liked the atmosphere of Rose-Hulman and the department better and it would be hard to swallow $13,500 a year extra… (I got my full package from IIT today and the number above is what it’s looking like)</p>
<p>I do plan on going to grad school after at hopefully a very well regarded school (so I would work my butt off at either of the colleges).</p>
<p>Advice in light of my new info? Thank you!</p>
<p>I’m still going to see if I can try to make up the difference though with RHIT, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.</p>
<p>If it were me, I would go to IIT. The fact that you plan on going to a more prestigious graduate school afterwards anyway, coupled with the much greater monetary benefits at IIT and the extra programs you mention, makes it seem choice. I understand that a certain school can have a better atmosphere, and atmosphere is important, but then you have to ask whether the atmosphere is worth that much to you. To me, it wouldn’t be. To some people, it could be… idk. To me, the same steak tastes about the same at Outback as it does at Ruth’s Chris, and honestly, the steak would probably still be pretty tasty at my apartment (total sty). The trick is that it’s the same steak, which you seem to be saying it pretty much is… and there is something to be said for eating it in a nice room with pleasant music and romantic lighting. To each his own.</p>
<p>FWIW, my graduate advisor is an IIT grad and is one of the more respected experts in his field and an NAE fellow. You can definitely get a great education there.</p>
<p>I would choose IIT, and not just because my Dad went there double majoring in chemical and mechanical engineering. After graduating from IIT he did grad school at Univ. of Illinois. He loved both schools. IIT because of its beautiful modern campus architecture, and Illinois for its football team.</p>
<p>Illinois is a basketball school, but that doesn’t mean that the football games can’t be fun… they are. Just don’t expect to go to major bowl games more than every couple years, because our stupid athletic department is not very good and firing coaches that have a demonstrated lack of coaching ability (can you tell I am bitter that Zook hasn’t been fired yet? haha).</p>
<p>The basketball team is on its way back after a few years of shaky recruiting that really hurt the program. I am unbelievably excited about that, and may have to order DirecTV just so that I can get Big Ten Network down here in Texas, haha.</p>
<p>For the time being, I suppose I will just have to cheer on the rest of the Big Ten in the tournament… Boiler Up!</p>
<p>^ talk about those recuriting blunders, losing Eric Gordon to IU must have been tough. And choosing to offer Mike Cole over Robbie Hummel, that one hurt. Robbie’s family grew up hardcore Illinois fans and I believe he was one too. With a healthly Robbie Hummel, Illinois could be making a deep run in the tourney right now</p>
<p>Are you talking about Bill Cole or Mike Davis? Either way, Hummel panned out way better. His uncle is actually a chemistry professor at UIUC, so I don’t doubt he WAS a huge fan, but like all other things recruiting related, it is kind of a crapshoot what you get. You have two guys to choose from in high school and even if one is clearly better, the other may be the better college player. Oh well. We just need a big man and someone who can drive to the basket and we will be on top (or close to it) again. The class we have coming in this year should provide that and more, so I am pretty excited.</p>
<p>We have another 7 footer coming in in Meyers Leonard, except this one actually has some meat on his bones and athleticism to boot. We have the McDonald’s All-American Jereme Richmond, and Crandall Head, who was a McDAA nominee.</p>
<p>And Illinois also went to the Rose Bowl in the 1950’s when my Dad attended. He came to the game and liked California so much he moved here as soon as he graduated. :)</p>
After graduating from IIT he did grad school at Univ. of Illinois. He loved both schools. IIT because of its beautiful modern campus architecture, and Illinois for its football team.</p>