Admitted to Georgia Tech, admitted to Michigan. Aerospace Engineering interest plus strong interest in music minor.
Opinions? What place is “better”? Out of state tuition in both places , assume full cost of attendance
University of Michigan is a lot more expensive, is the extra cost worth it?
University of Michigan: $66,698
Georgia Tech: $50,270
Any opinions are appreciated
Hmmm … Harvard or Stanford … MIT or Caltech …
Congrats, such awesome choices!!!
Academically? Pickem
Location? Atl better weather, AA better college-town
Got one: GIRLS (assuming it’s a boy?) UMich wins!
(Also with music, I am sure UMich has to have better choices)
Michigan has the highly sought after SMTD (School of Music, Theater and Dance) program, but I assume you didn’t apply for that program.
As mentioned above, big city vs. college town, B1G vs. ACC sports…
You can’t go wrong with either program from an academic standpoint.
Touring a campus often results in one of the choices just feeling “right”. If that’s not an option before the acceptance deadline, you may just need to read all of the material from both, write down a set of factors you consider important and see how they stack up, and just make a semi-informed decision.
Visiting campus when class is in session, even if there are no formal tours, may be a benefit. But contact them in advance to be sure you can even access campus/buildings. Maybe just contact Admissions and ask “how do you recommend I best get to know your school to make my decision?”
I’m an EE at UM right now so I’m biased but I believe the balance of fun/school is much better at Michigan. If you want to focus only on academics, then going to Michigan isn’t going to prevent you from getting many jobs that you would’ve gotten at Georgia Tech. However, if you wanna go out, go to big sporting events, etc. Michigan has a massive advantage. Georgia Tech has an incredible reputation but I think the balance at Michigan is one that’s quite rare.
Would debt be necessary? If so, how much?
The answer to “is the extra cost worth it?” (or just “is the cost worth it?”) depends on the situation (assuming that you are the parent):
I am also interested in this topic. Our son is applying to Aerospace engineering. Here’s his acceptances so far-
Embry Riddle- accepted, Presidential Scholarship
CU Boulder- applied to Aero, offered Exploratory studies but presidential scholarship
Purdue- accepted to first year engineering
Michigan- same as Purdue
Georgia Tech- deferred
U of I- waiting til 2/19
Waiting on a couple more in March (ND, Northwestern (mech with aero focus as master)
Question- the obvious current choices are between Purdue and Michigan. While we are honored by the scholarship offers, ER is not his top choice, and Boulder’s exploratory studies doesn’t seem like a good idea. From what we’re gathering, Michigan has set requirements to get into the program after freshman year, while Purdue pits first year students against each other to gain acceptance into these competitive programs. We certainly understand that aero is highly competitive everywhere, so any insight we can garner is much appreciated.
We truly appreciate and value the community of parents and students on this site. Thank you!
@Momof2plustrips you may want to create your own thread with the list of admissions to schools and majors, including their net prices and what you are willing to pay without loans.
I have a junior chem e at Purdue. Purdue was her #1 choice followed closely by Michigan. The transition to major process at Purdue is straight forward unless you are a BME. Basically a 3.2 GPA in the required STEM courses guarantees a student’s first choice major: Transition to Major - School of Engineering Education - Purdue University
FYE courses are very collaborative and there are a ton of academic supports.
We’re in a similar situation, just include a few other schools on top of UM and GT. We were lucky to visit almost every school for Aerospace before Covid.
In my humble opinion, there is a difference that goes beyond the rankings (positive or negative is up to you and the personality of your child). Some of which has been touched on in this thread.
College town vs Big City. Big school vs smaller school. Girl to Guy ratio (GT is 60% male). GT is an engineering school with other majors sprinkled in (and we too visited the music department at GT for a minor). UM has a diverse educational campus. GT generally speaking is all business heads-in-books type of students. UM has a broad range of student types simply because there are more students and less competition in some of the other departments.
We came away understanding that GT is an institution developing ultra-competitive graduates. I wouldn’t say it is an educational meat grinder, but these kids aren’t playing around at this school. They are driven. They are ready to compete from day one. They have goals set 10+ years for their future.
We came away understanding that UM is your typical state school in many ways but it just happens to have amazing Engineering, Business, and Computer Science departments. The larger number of students creates a layered quality of enrollment where you will find go-getters like GT, average students as any state school, and the kids that are clueless in life and won’t be there long.
GT doesn’t offer the depth and breath of programs that UM has to offer. At least 45 programs in LSA are top 10 programs and 20+ are Top 5:
And there’s also the highly ranked Ross Business School, Engineering and CS.
I have little to add since it’s all above but if it comes down to affordability then you have your answer. Both are outstanding institutions of learning and both will get you jobs, internships etc as long as you are an active participant on campus. You don’t have a bad choice here. In engineering less is more… Speaking about debt here. I usually tell people go to the less expensive universities when their this much of a peer. The rest is up to you and your family. Having less debt to no debt is an awesome thing especially with an in-demand profession like engineering. $64,000 aprox is a lot of money to have to pay back compared to $0.00. Sure you can get internships to make $15-20 000 in maybe 2 summers to chip away at it but last summer my son’s Internship was canceled. So don’t count on it if you need to. On the other hand if you graduate with zero debt plus get said internship… You might have money in the bank to start your life vs owing money for years /monthly payments.
Life is about choices.