Best STEM at a liberal arts school?

But it is always advisable to run the net price calculators on all schools, including NYU.

Recent runs of NYU’s net price calculator indicates that it has improved its financial aid, but from very bad to just bad (used to show net price in the $30,000s for highest-need students, now shows in the low $20,000s – try for yourself). Also, its net price calculator asks relatively few questions, so it may be less accurate than those at most other schools.

(One of its predecessor schools, Polytechnic Institute, which is now the engineering division, used to give better financial aid.)

NYU is also said to offer both explicit merit scholarships and preferential packaging of financial aid to students it really wants to recruit.

@MinuticusMinimus -

Ah, Chad Orzel, a friend of mine (rugby teammate) back at Williams. Great guy. I’d urge you to contact him directly if you want to ask about Union; he’s a really nice, approachable guy and won’t bs you.

If an engineering option is important, Swarthmore is one of the few top traditional LACs with a strong engineering department.

@ClaremontMom About the weather: yes, I hate it. I’m born in Cali but can’t stand the weather. I’m used to four seasons since I’ve been living mostly in Europe. Everyone gives me strange looks when I say I dislike Cali weather.

@sentimentGX4 You’re absolutely right. I totally screwed that point up. I totally blanked and forgot Mudd was a LAC. Not used to LACs specializing in STEM. I had Rose Hulman in mind when I was talking about the absence of a PhD. Hulman is an institute of technology that doesn’t offer a PhD. That is horrendous.

Again, sorry for the mix up.

@marvin100 Thanks a lot! Will look into it!

Later I realized you probably meant that the weather is boring not miserable…That I’ve heard (no real seasons). I’ll concede that, we do have boring weather (and for some a reason to dislike it). But personally, I’ll take that over bitter cold winters!

I have to ask, why is a tech school not offering a PhD horrendous?

@“Erin’s Dad” I thought the poster meant that their mistake was horrendous! Now that I re-read it, I think your interpretation may be the correct one.

Yeah, got to agree with the mystification about Rose-Hulman not offering a Ph.D. being horrendous. Here’s the deal: there is a small collection of schools out there that devote themselves to technical disciplines that are also exclusively focused on undergraduate education. Two of them, Harvey Mudd and Olin, I’d put up against any school in the land for outstanding undergraduate STEM education. Rose-Hulman is in their same category and is also excellent. Don’t let the fact that its got “Institute of Technology” in its name make you think it’s in some totally separate class of schools and therefore somehow required to offer graduate degrees.

All of those schools are quite small (Mudd and Olin are downright tiny), and the trade-off, just as with LACs, is you don’t get the same breadth and depth of research and course offerings as you would at a large research university. What you get in exchange is high-caliber instruction in small classes taught by professors (not TA’s) who consider teaching to be their highest priority, and research groups that are geared toward providing opportunities for undergrads. In my opinion, that’s a trade well worth making, but then, I have a daughter at Olin, so I would say that.