My son, an international student got into Boston University, Virginia Tech, and Rose Hulman for Computer Science. From Rose, he has received 25K$ scholarship.
He also got a conditional offer from Imperial College London for MEng in Electronic and Information Engineering (similar to Computer Engineering).
Regarding the Cost of attendance,
Boston University: ~ 86K$/year
Virginia Tech: ~ 58K$/year
Rose Hulman : ~ 50K$/year (with scholarship)
Imperial College London: ~ 70-75K$/year
Considering the opportunities for internships and jobs in the US, the US seems to be a better option. However, considering ranking, Imperial College seems to be better.
Either case, his goal is ideally to work and settle down in the US in the future.
Seeking advice on below.
If to choose the US, which one do you suggest? The cost will be very tough with Boston University but can consider if it is worth it.
If he chooses Imperial College London, there will be options to do BEng in 3 years or MEng in 4 years. Wondering if US universities will accept 3 years bachelor’s and if he could do MS from some top-tier university in the US. Any idea?
If to choose between US and UK, which one do you suggest?
Hard to cross the pond for jobs, if that is the intent – not just from a visa point of view, but from a lack of network point of view. Also not cheap.
Difficult to navigate the 3y batchelors situation.
Cambridge is like the MIT. Imperial is good, but is not Cambridge.
@neela1 Many thanks. I agree that studying in the US and working there afterward seems to be a more practical approach. However, not sure how much the ranking of the college would matter for getting the job or his overall career, as the ranking is not very high with the US college offers he has. Another thought is to consider taking a gap year, doing some stuff that he likes and doing some decent internships, and reapplying next year and hoping to get into some good-ranking US college.
Internships are unlikely to matter for US college admissions.
They just look at grades / scores / reccs / ECs.
Internships are unlikely to be meaningful because he won’t have meaningful skills yet for a meaningful internship.
And not sure what you mean by a higher ranked university.
Top schools pick very few internationals. As an example, I heard someone tell me that Harvard took 8 kids last year from all of India. The admission is not a function of an internship, I feel reasonable sure. Either the kids have extraordinary academics, or some notable community service etc.
You can try to take a gap year. I am unsure if it’ll make a difference. His academic preparation would have atrophied a bit more during this time – both in actuality, and in the eyes of schools that are assessing him for this.
Thanks, @neela1 These are good inputs. By good ranking, I meant tier-2 (UIUC, Rice, UT Austin, etc.) colleges. I am a bit unsure of how the current options (Virginia Tech, Rose, BU) compare with tier-2 colleges in terms of job prospects and overall career. Hence, conveyed the thought of taking a gap year and targeting to get into tier-2 colleges next year.
No one is going to diss a degree from Virginia Tech and their alumni network is also great at supporting grads.
If the DC area (including all states relatively near to DC - pretty much the whole eastern third of the us actually) is appealing, VT should be attractive. Their appeal likely goes even further. I just have my experiences in the eastern third.
It is not as if you spend time doing internships and your resume is enhanced enough to get into UIUC, Rice or Austin. They are currently evaluating you holistically on your math grades, language grades, history grades etc. A year later they would evaluate you appropriately as someone who has had an year after 12th grade. If this is all it took people will spend two years or 3 years to get into MIT or whichever school they cared about.
The system doesn’t work that way.
There are certain post-bac programs at expensive private high schools such as Exter etc. Not sure if they do any better in getting kids into colleges of their choice if the kid was not getting in after 12th grade.
What you could do, if you cared enough, is come into Virginia Tech (say), get a clean 4 for a GPA or something like that, and try for a transfer. There is no guarantee this will work. But at least it is a known path.
More like $60-65, unless the standard of living that you expect him to maintain is 2-3x higher than typical student living.
To be clear, even with the OPT, this is very, very unlikely to happen.
A bachelor’s from Imperial would 1) put him on a path to qualify for Right to Remain in the UK and 2) set him up well for a Masters in the US. A Masters in the US is more likely to lead to the level of job for which an employer MIGHT do the work it takes to hire an international.
The name brand / ranking of the university isn’t the problem. Anybody graduating with an engineering degree from VaTech (the best of your 3 US options) should be able to find a job (assuming that he has done well academically and in internships, and done the work to find the job). The problem is that once the 3 years of the OPT program are done, your son is unlikely to be so “special” that an employer will be willing to take on the long, expensive job of applying for a work visa for him, and he will be heading home.
As @neela1 said, that is not going to move the needle on admissions.
If the slight difference in cost isn’t a major issue, the better choice here is undoubtedly Imperial, IMO, They aren’t even in the same league (not because of some website rankings). In STEM, Imperial is the equal of Cambridge, with Imperial generally placing slightly greater emphasis on more practical aspects of most STEM subjects and Cambridge slightly on more theoretical aspects of those subjects (similar to the situation in the US where MIT tend to generally place slightly greater emphasis on more practical aspects of most STEM subjects and Caltech slightly on more theoretical aspects).
I think your 2 real choices are VTech (highly respected on the East Coast, especially for Engineering) and Imperial (recalculate costs, I find them a bit high).
He could do the 4-year Master’s at Imperial, since that usually includes a semester in industry with a research or practical project, applying to a US university during his 4th year and using his project&work experience as a selling point for a top US grad program.
Or he could do the 4 years at VTech, including summer internships (which can be anywhere in the US), hoping to impress a company that’ll retain him for OPT (3 years), after which he’d either have to get into grad school or go home.