<p>24/7mom:</p>
<p>IBE is an accredited BS degree in business. It is NOT an accredited engineering degree. This means that you can't take the engineering license exam. Most fields of engineering don't require the license however, and some IBE students get engineering jobs. Certain engineering jobs do require a license, mostly civil and a couple of the others. With IBE, you select a major from the business or engineering school. I believe a majority choose an engineering major. You can also make up your own major and have it approved by the school. For example, some people do a custom math/finance major in order to get a job as a finance analyst. IBE gives you 4 years of business and 3 years of your major all crammed in 4 years. This of course means that you take a lot less humanities and all the extra nonsense.</p>
<p>If you want to be a licensed engineer or simply want the accredited engineering degree it is possible to do with IBE. If you come in with credits from AP or classes at a community college, or take summer courses (Lehigh or comm. college), you can finish IBE in the normal 4 years with the IBE degree along with a degree in your major. Lehigh also offers a Presidential Scholarship; if you finish your first 4 years with a 3.75 GPA or higher, you are offered a fifth year of tuition for free. Many IBE students meet this requirement and come back to finish a degree in their major. Some also come for the fifth year for a Master's degree. Also, I should note that for the first 2 years of IBE you are required to keep a 3.25. If you fall below this you are put on IBE academic probation and you have a year to get back above the level.</p>
<p>There are a lot of options with IBE, and the advisors are very helpful. I believe that average starting salaries for IBE are something like 10K higher than the business school avg and about 5K higher than the engineering school. IBE students also get to register for class before others in their grade and get an IBE exclusive career fair. Lehigh is fortunate to have many companies that love Lehigh graduates and come back every year. As IBE builds its reputation (only been around for I think 7 years plus or minus a few), more and more companies are clamoring over each other for graduates of the program</p>
<p>As far as visits, I only visited once before applying, and it was for an open house. If you know somebody at the school and simply come visit them, I believe that there's a spot on the admission to fill that in. I didn't do an admission interview, but when I visited I spoke with one of the IBE codirectors and a professor from Industrial engineering (possible IBE major), and made mention of the talk in my application. I used the common application, and if I recall correctly, there was only a box you had to check to be in IBE. However, I believe that visiting with the codirector and showing my interest in the program in my application was beneficial.</p>
<p>If your son is worried about it being a nerdy program or anything like that, its not. We all have normal social lives like everyone else. It does have a great reputation and when you tell people "I'm in IBE" they suddenly think you're some kind of whiz. </p>
<p>I think that U Penn has something similar to IBE. Lehigh also offers computer science and business, which isn't engineering obviously, but is interdisciplinary.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lehigh.edu/%7Einibep/inibep.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.lehigh.edu/~inibep/inibep.html</a> <- That's the IBE website. Every student has a personal webpage, some including their course curriculum. </p>
<p>If you or your son have any questions about IBE or Lehigh in general, feel free to email me at <a href="mailto:mtl310@lehigh.edu">mtl310@lehigh.edu</a>, or send me a PM on here.</p>