<p>My son is a senior this year. He is a football player and has received interest from: RPI, Tufts and Carnegie Mellon.</p>
<p>He is interested in going into Engineering (not sure on exactly what engineering major yet) and I was hoping on getting some feedback on how these 3 schools stack up in Engineering.</p>
<p>I was also hoping to see how these stacked up regarding financial aid as well.</p>
<p>Thanks for any insights you can give.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon has the best Computer Engineering program. RPI would be second and Tufts would be third. CMU doesn’t always meet full financial need though. I would imagine Tufts to offer better financial aid and RPI to be in the middle.</p>
<p>Putting schools of this caliber in any particular order doesn’t mean much. A lot of it depends on what your son sees as his ideal college experience. Broadly speaking, Tufts would trail CMU and RPI in engineering rankings, but it’s still a well respected school. If however he’s into human factors, Tufts might top the list.</p>
<p>The readily apparent difference is in the school feel. There’s no denying the Jumbo spirit at Tufts. The sense of school pride is immediately felt stepping onto campus. CMU and RPI have more of a stereotypical tech school vibe.</p>
<p>As for aid, it depends on what you’ll qualify for for n needs based financial assistance. Tufts awards no merit aid.</p>
<p>Good luck. Can’t really go wrong.</p>
<p>^^What Eyemgh said.</p>
<p>Clearly RPI and CMU are excellent. Don’t know about Tufts but my guess is that the school offers a fine education, given its overall reputation.</p>
<p>They are all great schools. We’ve visited all three. I thought my IB student / musician would really like Tufts (I did) . Tufts engineering school is only about 15% of the students, so there is lots of opportunity to dabble in other area. But he was more drawn to STEM schools. It’s all about fit… make sure you visit at some point. </p>
<p>Are you looking for need based FA (Financial Aid) or merit award? All would have FA. I think only RPI has merit award.</p>
<p>Tufts does well with need-based financial aid, but NO merit aid. There is a distinct difference between Tufts and the others as noted above. Tufts is a small-medium research university that feels more like a LAC. Engineers are only 15% of the student body. Engineers dominate at CMU and RPI. So the environment feels very different. My son chose WPI over Tufts because he decided he really liked the nerdier environment. He preferred WPI to RPI (where he also go in).
RPI offers some merit aid to lots of students but not a lot of $$$ except to the most exceptional ones I believe… My son was offered merit aid at RPI but got a lot more at WPI. Those two compete a lot for the same students.
They are all very good schools! Hopefully you can visit to learn more first-hand.
Perhaps the Kiplingers report can help you… [Kiplinger’s</a> Best Values in Private Colleges-Kiplinger](<a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php]Kiplinger’s”>http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php)</p>