<p>mikemac - interesting links. It seems that a major factor in the attrition rate of engineers is too much focus on the theory at the expense of teaching real world applications. This is what I was alluding to in terms of why I thought that the curriculum for ECE at Cornell was so much better than when I was an undergrad. Cornell's curriculum is very hands-on focused with design classes starting very early in the program. Hence, even though the lectures can be large, the bulk of the learning comes from the design projects conducted in the lab as part of a team. I had assumed that all engineering education had migrated to this form of teaching, but perhaps I was being a bit charitable toward other programs (which counters the notion that all ABET programs are equal - they may use the same textbooks and cover the same material, but how that material is taught can be significantly different.)</p>
<p>Along these lines, perhaps the real suggestion for weenie's son is to focus on schools that have a good mix of applied learning, and introduce it early in the program and not be so concerned about class size.</p>
<p>mikemac brings up a good point. At UCSD and UCLA (and probably many similar schools), the attrition rate of engineering is around 35-40%. Most of these students will continue at the college but switch to another non-engineering major. This means that for them, it's good that these universities offer a wealth of other majors. This could be more difficult at some small schools that specialize in engineering. </p>
<p>fundingfather: From talking to my D (4th year CS major) and other students, I think one of the major reasons for the attrition is the sheer amount of work they must put in relative to other majors and the difficulty of the material compared to other majors. Some simply can't handle it and others simply don't want to handle it. There are others who discover it's not what they thought it was going to be (i.e. CS != playing computer games).</p>
<p>There is some validity to being able to transfer to another major in a larger college setting - and that possibility should not be discounted in the decision process. However, in reality, how many people who enter engineering with reasonably open eyes are going to want to transfer into something completely outside the realm of what is covered in a school like RPI? Certainly if there is a potential to want to do a complete 180 and study music or philosophy, a larger university setting may be more appropriate. However, I would guess that most people who start in engineering but ultimately decide it is not for them will ultimately end up in a related program in which the "techie" schools also excel. I'm sure there are examples to contradict this theory, but I would be surprised if it is very common to transfer that far from the initial inclination.</p>
<p>I was surprised by how many students who started in engineering ended up switching to communications, history, psychology, bio, etc. I think 180s aren't unusual.</p>
<p>Weenie, Case is known for good merit scholarships. Lehigh is a great engineering school. We were looking for a Computer Science school last year and here is my list:</p>
<p>RPI (this is where he ended up and after 1 day of school, he hasn't quit yet!),
GaTech (seemed like a great school to me and they actually offered a couple small scholarships...he didn't even apply for the big ones),
UIUC (big school, but great programs and facilities, expensive as an OOS),
Bucknell (small, more well-rounded school, out in the middle of nowhere),
Lehigh (very conservative and known as a 'party school', but produces great engineers),
Northeastern (large, but a great coop program and nice scholarship $$ despite what they say),
Drexel (my husband says they aren't in the same league, right next to UPenn),
Case (known for good mert $$, feeling snubbed by the east-coaters, one of my top picks),
U Cincinnati (this is known as a good engineering school more locally),
CMU (very little merit $$ and they require SAT2s, which didn't sit well with my S),
U Rochester (feels similar to Case, less merit $$),
Syracuse (not sure if they are as strong in engineering, but they have a good CS program)</p>
<p>We read the brochures from WPI and went to visit and were totally turned off.</p>
<p>Don't know if this helps, if you want more specifics on what we learned, let me know.</p>
<p>Perhaps a different way to look at it. It looks like you are concerned about schools being too "techie". Perhaps what you and your son are looking for are universities with an engineering school as one of its schools. Perhaps Bucknell or Villanova on the smaller side (4000-6500 students).</p>
<p>As one other poster pointed out, there is significant attrition in engineering programs. It is a lot of work. So, it is also a good reason to go to a university with other programs. You can transfer to those programs without having to transfer schools.</p>
<p>UVM Lauren - not trying to give you a hard time, but I said that he should look at UMass Lowell, which has an excellent engineering school. I think we can both agree that UMass Dartmouth would not be a good place for a really talented, ambitious student when those other options are available.</p>
<p>It is a very small (under 3,000 undergrads) school. The campus is very old. I don't think we saw a building built in the last 50 years. (I thought it was interesting to see the contrast with Segues and old buildings, but my S just didn't care for the campus.)</p>
<p>The admissions people that presented were not very knowledgeable. (That is being kind.) One of them had recently graduated from another college in town and was more knowledgeable about that school than WPI. The other was a senior. </p>
<p>No one in the admissions office that day knew anything about the program that my son was interested in. I would think that since these people are the 'marketing arm' of the university, they should know about the programs (at least a LITTLE bit), but we must have asked everyone we saw about it and couldn't get any info (one did offer us the brochure they had already mailed to us). They had sent lovely brochures, but there was no substance behind them that we could find. (We had pre-registered for our visit and let them know what he was interested in.)</p>
<p>The presentation focused on the oversees trips almost exclusively. As I remember, all students are required to do an overseas program. The presenters were very well-versed in the program that the one senior had participated in (building an irrigation system in Thailand, I believe), but could not provide any examples of other programs. It honestly sounded like most students participated in this particular program. </p>
<p>It didn't feel like there were a whole lot of opportunities. Despite the fact that they tout 'over 50 programs', the campus resources felt limiting. It seemed that if you were a mechanical engineer, perhaps it was a good place to be. </p>
<p>We were puzzled by the high reputation of the school, as we didn't get it when we were there.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone for so many good ideas and thoughts!</p>
<p>apple: Your list is great. Your son sounds a lot like mine. No SATIIs! No way, no how. Ha. I don't care.</p>
<p>My son liked WPI; he liked the smallness of the school. My take on it was that it is probably just fine for an undergrad, in spite of less-flashy resources. Maybe it is quite a nurturing place? It reminded of a LAC with a strictly technical focus. I agree that their tour and presentation are much less techie than other similar schools. For instance, we went into very few buildings. BUT I am sometimes skeptical about the fabulous looking facilities that schools show off -- do undergrads really use those microchip clean rooms (or whatever - I don't even know what half that stuff is)? </p>
<p>Thanks for other suggestions on here eveybody. I do know about Bucknell, Lehigh, Villanova, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, etc. -- but I also know we can't pay for them and we won't get $. Hence my quest for affordable options.</p>
<p>I think I'd prefer to see my son at a better-rounded university than a techie school, but, he doesn't really see it that way. I think it would be much more fun and he'd have more options. We are going forward with visits to more univeristies -- and I'm going to make sure that we get good tours/information about the engineering departments.</p>
<p>Weenie-- probably more important than the dog and pony shows at the places you visit will be one on one time with undergrads in the engineering department. You should encourage your son to see who from his HS is at any of the schools you visit to see if he can do an overnight or just schedule lunch or dinner. In our experience, kids vastly underestimate the workload in most engineering programs.... not the difficulty, but the sheer workload. Make sure your son has a handle on this before he applies to tech schools exclusively.</p>
<p>He may find that even the "slacker" kids in an engineering program are working much harder than he'd like to which might suggest looking for an engineering program with other alternatives come sophomore year.</p>
<p>I'm curious about the no SAT II stance.... what's the big deal, especially since most engineering schools require the Math II (presumably would be a cake-walk for a prospective engineer) and at least one science. if he's test-averse, that's another thing to consider..... engineers don't write a lot of papers, and the bulk of the evaluative work in a tech program consists of weekly Problem-sets and very frequent tests.</p>
<p>Hi blossom,
No he is not test averse. He simply thinks that taking the SATs twice should do the job. What can I say? I think he'd find any of the SATIIs to be no big deal at all, but I guess it sort of has to be his call.</p>
<p>I am worried about the work load, but I also believe that he is certainly better prepared academically than most other kids (well, maybe not at MIT...). We'll see. </p>
<p>I like the idea of trying to hook up with kids from his HS on these visits. I'm going to pursue that. Thanks.</p>
<p>I did a quick skim of the replies & didn't notice one possibility in Alabama - Univ. of AL in Huntsville (which is independent of UA in Tuscaloosa) has close ties w/ NASA and a number of tech firms in the area. Its student population is far more diverse than at most AL schools, as is the faculty. Top students appear to get a lot of individual attention and aid. The univ. used to be largely a commuter school, but that is changing. Two new residence halls have been built recently (two older ones need remodeling) and other construction projects are underway. Engineering and business are the university's top colleges. The feedback I hear is poor on most of its liberal arts profs, except for music. Presidential scholarships are scaled to compensate for the difference between in-state and out of state tuition, and endowed scholarships may cover the remaining costs.</p>
<p>I just skimmed this thread and it seems to me people have been making suggestions all over the map. I think perhaps it would be helpful if you draw the lines more clearer in terms of:</p>
<ol>
<li>the most you want to see in tuition--10-15K, 15-20K, 20-25K? (I hope this isn't too personal)?</li>
<li>school size--what exactly is too big?</li>
<li>prestige/perceived caliber -- how low can you go? Someone just suggested U of AL in Huntsville, but I've never heard of it. Is that too low for you? Does it matter if your son will be one of the only few with >1400 on SAT in his classroom?</li>
</ol>
<p>It seems that there aren't that many schools that are well-known in engineering (also decent in other areas), cheap, and small. So how much can you compromise in #2 and #3? When I applied, I was looking for mid-sized schools mostly but I did apply to Michigan. At that point, #2 wasn't as big of a deal as #3. What about your son? </p>
<p>As an engineer, I know schools with good names in engineering. But unfortunately, I don't know anything "lower" than WPI/RPI. The schools that are relatively cheaper are probably too big (e.g. Wisconsin and Minnesota).</p>
<p>"
The presentation focused on the oversees trips almost exclusively. As I remember, all students are required to do an overseas program"</p>
<p>I haven't looked into WPI that carefully, I know of it mostly because my best friend's brother went there many moons ago. I don't remember seeing anything about overseas programs - if they were required that would be a big no no for my son - he hates foreign travel. Quick look through the website at the Global Perspectives page, doesn't make it look required... Hmm.</p>
<p>The suggestion of overnights is a great idea. Last summer we went to the standard visits/tours. My S walked away from those totally unimpressed. His reaction was that they weren't telling him what he wanted to know about the programs. When we'd ask questions specific to what he was interested in, they wouldn't know. Perhaps it's the 'engineering mind', but he was very frustrated with the 'typical' visits and the information gleaned from GC and websites.</p>
<p>When we had whittled it down to 'top 5' that he had been accepted to, we found a student that my S could stay with at each school and did an overnight. (Some schools have websites with kids you can contact, others were found through this group. GaTech does a great job of just making this happen.)</p>
<p>In addition, we contacted the engineering school and CS dept and scheduled meetings with representatives during the overnight visit. What we found was that gave us entree into the departments and several times we happened into labs where students were hanging out and were more than willing to talk to him.</p>
<p>This really gave my S both some differentiation between the schools and a sense of 'how hard' engineering / CS would be. At several schools, there were discussions about 'how we keep our students successful' (apparently even the 'bright kids' get lost in these programs sometimes). Research projects were discussed, graduate school / career opportunites were a topic as well. They could point him to what the top companies were that hired from their programs. The students talked about 'all-nighters' and had pizza boxes with cold pizza a couple places. We went in early spring, so school was in full swing.</p>
<p>These visits are really what made the difference to him in allowing him to choose with what he felt was valuable info. Before that, he said it would have been 'eenie-meenie-miney-moe'. </p>
<p>I know that some people would say this is way too focused on 'career development' and college should be about over-all learning. But when you have a child that is motivated in a specific direction, I think it's appropriate to support their dream.</p>
<p>You're probably right, it's not required to go overseas...I just looked at the site and it says 3 projects are required and they have 23 'project centers' around the world. But perhaps you can do your projects on campus? I would check. </p>
<p>Our presenters made it sound like it was a given that the students would travel overseas.</p>
<p>Hi Weenie! Another thing you might consider is an engineering dorm at a larger university. S could live with other techies (who would have similar workloads) and still have all the advantages of a big U. At least two of the schools we visited have engineering dorms (PSU and CU-Boulder); I would guess quite a few others do.</p>
<p>If you are seeking merit awards, then you should not have a small limit on the number of applications, because you never know.</p>
<p>Clemson offers merit to about 45%; NC State is listed as the #1 best buy by Princeton Review.</p>
<p>My D is a SO at Case, not in engineering. The first year GPA reqirement for merit awards was 2.75 and 3.0 in later years. There is a lot of supplemental instruction available and students do form study groups. The school is supportive to those who seek it; she has met with the deans (who know her now) about scheduling problems; she has been assigned a CIM grad student tutor for piano help, etc. Every parent of a Case student I know raves about Case. But Case is not a match for everyone either; it's not a party school and most students work hard. There are also scholarships for URM, talent, and music, etc. that have no GPA requirement.</p>
<p>
If you go on a UIUC-engineering study abroad program, there is no tuition for the semester(s), only a $800 registration fee. If you co-op, it takes 5 years to graduate, but you earn up to $40,000 annual rate while on co-op and no tuition bill.</p>
<p>GaTech also has some very tuition-reduced study abroad programs for OOS engineers.</p>
<p>WS17, the other factor to consider in UIUC's favor is that they hold the tuition rate for 4 years (I don't know about the 5th year) as long as you don't switch colleges while you are a student. We asked about this type of policy at other colleges and were laughed at. </p>
<p>We actually put together a spreadsheet to factor in such items as tuition increases vs. 'fixed' scholarships (is it a 1/2 tuition scholarship that increases as tuition increases or is it a $16,500 scholarship for each year) and how various programs handle semesters abroad.</p>