My daughter is considering two, well maybe three, colleges for the fall but is having a hard time deciding which would be best for her. She is interested in mechanical engineering and is primarily concerned that she will have good employment opportunities when she graduates. She was accepted to University of Illinois Urbana Champaign honors program and that is her first choice but they are unable to give her any financial aid so we are putting that choice to the side. (She would graduate with over 100k in debt.) The other two programs are Boston University and University of Rochester. She feels that Rochester is probably a better school but she’s not thrilled about the setting. BU is much more appealing as a place to spend the next four years but she doesn’t know if the program is good enough.
Can anyone on this list shed some light on these two programs in terms of the experience she might have and the opportunities they will each create once she graduates? Thanks.
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BU has risen as a university to a top ranked institution. And the engineering school is fantastic. If anything the engineering college at BU is very challenging, always has been. Boston is one of the best parts of the country for a engineering opportunities. Rochester is a decayed economic region that has had many years of mass layoffs. Think how that may effect internship opportunities ? Not knocking UR, but BU is where I would send my kid if cost was affordable. It is NOT settling academically.
What GPA do you have to maintain to keep your merit awards?
Boston University is an excellent choice…if affordable, and you feel confident that the GPA to keep your merit award is attainable.
Why does your daughter feel Rochester is a better school?
You know…while I might pick BU (my kid is a grad so I’m a bit biased), your daughter is the one going to college. Let HER choose where she wants to be.
Not sure what GPA you have to maintain. I think it’s 2.0, maybe 3.0. In either case, I’m not worried about that. U of R is a great school. They put more money towards research than BU and I think it’s a bit harder to get into. It’s just the location that bothers her. I agree that my daughter should decide. It’s just that she really doesn’t know what to do and it’s causing her a lot of stress. I was hoping this community could offer some insight that might help her make a decision that she is happy about. So far, BU seems to be the favorite but I’m wondering if that’s because it’s not as well known a college as BU. Thanks for your input!
BU is a more competitive admit than UR. Not sure where you are getting your data.
I’m from New England, university of Rochester is quite well known in these parts. But around here…if someone was applying for engineering in Rochester…they would have applied to RIT.
I think it might boil down to location, location, location as I would assume both programs are ABET accredited.
Does your daughter want to live in the biggest college town in the country…Boston…which is a great city.
Or would she prefer the smaller city location of University of Rochester.
Wherever she chooses to go, encourage her to do an internship to give her the experience employers want.
Also, have her look at the programs/research labs each schools has. My daughter discovered that ME at some schools were more “old school”, and didn’t have the opportunities for medical devices or robotics she was interested in. (As a mom who doesn’t understand engineering, I was looking at factors such as scholarships, location, caliber of school, and employment rate of the school. All that didn’t matter if she couldn’t pursue her primary interests.)
Your daughter may not know which direction of ME she wants to pursue at this point, but guide her to look at the school that will give her the most opportunities.
My gut would say that UR is better known for engineering BUT if she feels she would be happier at BU then that would be a fine choice as well. I can see where she would prefer being in Boston and I do think that students do their best when they are happy and comfortable.
BU and Rochester are fairly close in rep and probably in quality too, so I think she should feel free to choose 100% based on fit and cost.
She should check out degree requirements and classes in her major to make sure BU fits well there, too. Academic fit is the most important thing, IMO – you go to school to learn, not for a fashion show… to borrow from DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.
If BU passes the academic fit test, and if BU’s vibe and environment suit her preferences, she should choose BU.
Below is a profile of the freshman class admitted for the fall of 2017.
Total Applicants: 60,815
Total Freshmen: 3,400
Percent Admitted: 25%
Average Rank in High School Class: Top 7%
Average Overall Grade: A-
SAT Composite (Average): 1452
ACT Average: 32
That is pretty competitive and you can’t compare these overall rankings. BU is huge, and they have a school of fine arts, school of communication, etc. How do you think those kids do on the Math SAT ? If you compare BU ENG vs Rochester, that is all that should matter if that’s what you’ll study. Stats are not broken out, but I can tell you BU ENG is a very tough school. I would worry about merit tied to GPA in any engineering program, and BU is known for tough grading. She would be on a curve with some very bright engineers. That is a great deal of pressure.
If you want to see engineering ranking from a practical perspective (employers would hire which grads)
BU is in the top 50, along with Rochester Institute of Technology, NOT U of R :
I posted the assessment from the current USNWR, which used the most recent standardized data available at the time of its publication. The BI data dates to a year earlier, and has not been updated as far as I know.
As to the topic of selectivity rankings in general, they commonly consist of three measured components: HS rank, standardized scores and acceptance rate.
Again, dated data you are looking at, my link was 2017 for BU AND 2016 for UR. SAT and class rank are way up at BU this year. They get more applicants than almost any private college, so they are getting pickier each year. The SAT range you quote is not what BU reports for 2017.
Just trying to help you make an informed decision. Believe what you want. UR was in the past a more competitive school overall, but not in 2017. And for Engineering, BU had been higher ranked for a long time. Academics are close enough that this should not factor into the decision.
There are many other differences, and few would toss a coin overall, but academics alone, you can toss a coin.
I’ll note that standardized selectivity data appears to have been called for up-thread (#7).
They may well be, but the data posted for BU (#12) registers that for admitted students, the majority of whom will attend school elsewhere.
I’d agree that these schools may be effectively similar in terms of selectivity. However, USNWR did most recently categorize URochester as “most selective” and Boston University as “more selective.”