Deciding between these 4...

College Search & Selection
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<p>So I have applied to Alabama, Dayton, Notre Dame, and Vanderbilt.</p>

<p>I have visited all and I feel that I will definitely be very happy at any of those 4 institutions.</p>

<p>Alabama and Dayton I will be in the honors college. Notre Dame or Vanderbilt, I'm not even sure if I'll be accepted. But overall choosing between these 4 I'm having some issues.
I will be a chemical engineering student, and I would like to be in a 5 year bachelors+masters program.</p>

<p>Main question: How important is prestige/rankings?
Dayton and Alabama are both on the low end of engineering rankings, especially compared to vandy and ND. How big of a deal is this though? Would it be worth it to pay 15k more just to go to ND or Vandy, or is it really not an issue? Say Vandy is 5k more expensive than dayton, but I slightly like dayton more. Would it be better to pay the 5k and go to vandy for the prestige boost (realizing I would love either of them)?</p>

<p>I'm just having a hard time deciding and I need some input. All the reviews I read, Alabama and Dayton kids say that the engineering programs are great. Yet ratings they are 2.4 and 2.2, while vandy and Nd are like 3.3 and 2.9. Is this hardly a difference? Is it unimportant entirely? Would I be just as successful if i went to dayton instead of vandy?</p>

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<p>Go to the one you like the best. If you liked Dayton better and it was 5k cheaper, that would be an easy choice to me. But only you can decide whether it’s worth it to you and your family to pay more for a more prestigious university. I can tell you that there’s little to no evidence that you’ll ever earn a pay back on the extra costs in the form of extra earnings from having gone to a higher ranked program. </p>

<p>(There are a ton of people here who really like their rankings. They’ll tell you I’m wrong about the payback. None of them will offer so much as a reference to a peer reviewed study supporting their assertions, but that won’t hamper their passion. Bottom line, do what <em>you</em> want.)</p>

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<p>Thanks for the input. My problem is that I really liked all 4. all have pros and cons. They are so close together in my choice. i’d almost feel bad choosing to go to a less prestigious university if i was accepted to both and the less prestigious one cost more… especially if i barely like it more. I guess I understand what you’re saying. It just feels weird…</p>

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<p>I’d put in the applications, see where you get in, see the aid you get at the schools (if it is a factor) and then decide.</p>

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<p>For engineering, on-campus recruiting for your internships and first job at graduation will generally be helped by either (a) being local to the employer, or (b) being at a school well known enough in the subject for the employer to travel to.</p>

<p>Why not Minnesota? Highly regarded for chemical engineering, but with a low cost of attendance (even for out of state).</p>

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<p>I don’t wanna go too far from home, and flying isn’'t an option. Notre Dame is 10 hours away and thats just about the farthest I would go. I’m not interested in choosing another school, i’m just trying to decide between these 4. From what I have heard at all, internships and coops aren’t hard to get. and according to alumni job placement reports, all of them have extremely high placement. So judging by your statement, as long as there are jobs when I graduate it doesn’t matter the prestige of the school? Going to vanderbilt or notre dame which have more prestige won’t be very beneficial in the job market over the other 2?</p>

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<p>

Engineering employers are very egalatarian. They aren’t going to care too much about the prestige of the school, and they certainly aren’t going to pay you a higher salary, so it’s best to save money and don’t go into debt, because you will not get a return on that extra investment (especially for Vandy and Notre Dame chemical engineering).</p>

<p>University of Minnesota - Twin Cities will have much more on-campus recruiting for chemical engineers than a non-target school like Notre Dame and Vanderbilt. </p>

<p>Search the schools for their career center and see what companies recruit on-campus.<br>
Alabama will likely be widely recruited by Gulf Coast oil and chemical companies.
Recruiting will be largely regional.</p>

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<p>You would have to be out of your mind to turn down Notre Dame or Vandy for Dayton or Bama. None of these 4 schools are Chemical Engineering powerhouses but the former are top 20 American universities who will serve you well should you change your mind (very likely) about your intended major and are well-respected across the country in every demographic.</p>

<p>You can leverage the ND and Vandy network anywhere you go across the country since their alumni base is scattered nationally and not locally like Dayton or Alabama.</p>

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<p>So I guess Lynxinsider was talking about people like you when discussing people who really love their rankings haha. I promise I won’t change my mind on my major, I’m not flakey on the subject like most incoming freshman. I understand what you are saying about the alumni network being larger, but that still doesn’t mean that I would have better job prospects or even higher paying salaries if I went to ND or Vandy. Others seem to think going to a school like vandy or nd would not give me the extra pay back for the thousand and thousands more I would spend on the education.
And I wouldn’t exactly say you would be out of your mind to choose a state school over vandy or nd… Thousands of kids with ACT scores 32+ go to state schools as opposed to higher ranked schools… Most people don’t have the money to shell out 50k a year.</p>

<p>My comment sounded a bit one sided towards bama and dayton, but I really do want to go to vandy or nd too. It’s just not as simple of a choice as you make it out to be. Vandy and ND both have things I don’t like about them. I just have to decide if those are things I could put up with for 4+ years.</p>

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<p>And from what I have seen in graduate surveys, Alabama, dayton, and notre dame (couldn’t find one for vandy) all have identical starting salaries (about 60k). About the same percentages of students from them have some sort of plan (grad school or job). The only major difference is a higher percentage of ND grads are going to grad school, while higher percentages of the other 2 are entering the workforce.
So just saying, the name of Notre Dame got the grads an equivalent salary to less heard of schools like dayton. That makes me skeptical of paying the extra money for the name, and not getting a different salary… How important is name for grad schools? Or is just having good gpa, etc. the important factor, not name. Why do I notice so many kids going to other schools across the country for a masters degree, when they could just do a 5 year combined bachelors master at the same school, cheaper, and faster?</p>

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<p>When you have all the financial packages on the table, run them through this handy calculator from our friends at FinAid: [FinAid</a> | Calculators | Award Letter Comparison Tool](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Award Letter Requirements - Finaid)</p>

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<p>What is each school giving you? </p>

<p>How much merit are you getting from Bama and UDayton? </p>

<p>Are you getting free tuition plus 2500 per year from Bama? If so, then your remaining costs (including travel) will be about $10k per year or less depending on meal plan and dorm selection.</p>

<p>What are your stats?</p>

<p>What is your likely “family contribution” at Vandy and other elites?</p>

<p>I wouldn’t pay too much attention to Bama’s ranking because it is rising because of the millions and millions that are being invested there in new facilities, new profs, etc. They will have added 900,000 square feet of Science/Engineering reseach buildings by the time you’re a soph there. Over 700,000 square feet have been completed for the mega-sized Science and Engineering Complex.</p>

<p>keep in mind that the univ as a whole has jumped 21 national ranking spots in 2 years…I don’t know of any other univ in the Top 100 that did that. Increases in sub-rankings will certainly follow. </p>

<p>Bama is one of the few univ that can still hire new profs, so it’s able to grab the best ones while others are cutting back. </p>

<p>There’s a reason why the federal gov’t invested millions in these new facilities over the last several years. High tech companies are located in the state and are moving to the state. Bama rec’d more fed money for new buildings in 2010 than any other univ in the country. </p>

<p>Since Bama is located in the stae that has the second largest Research Park in the nation (Cummings Research Park), you should have no fear about employment, salary, grad school opps, etc. </p>

<p>Engineering salaries are the same no matter where you graduate from. Exceptions might be Cal Tech and MIT, but even then the difference is not worth mentioning.</p>

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<p>What if you change your mind for engineering though? Vandy and ND are two of the biggest brand names you can have on your resume if you seek to make any sort of career switch or progression. You would be closing some doors for sure if you turn these two schools down in favor of Alabama but do what pleases you I guess.</p>

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<p>I’m definitely not changing. I’m very sure about my choices. Thanks for all the input everyone. I’m still just struggling to decide if the extra money for a more competitive school is worth it over bama or dayton. I’m getting the maximum scholarships at bama with the stipend. I have a 32 act. 4.2 wgpa. Dayton i’m eligible for 55k+ over 4 years. so it will still be fairly expensive. I just gotta wait till I have all the money offers and acceptances in front of me. I’m just speaking in generalities of how much more the name of vandy or notre dame will help me in the future.</p>

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<p>Shhh … if that gets out, CC would dry up and blow away.</p>

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<p>^^^ Haha I know. It’s so hard to get good, legitimate opinions, because most of the time people just say, “College A is ranked 20th while College B is ranked 99. You’d be crazy not to go to college A.”</p>

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<p>dayton is in a really depressing, unsafe area.</p>

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<p>That’s partially true. I’m from Dayton, so the areas familiar. I certainly wouldn’t call it unsafe though. It’s far away enough from the bad parts of downtown. The Oregon district and brown street are relatively nice. I wouldn’t be going too far from any of those areas. Depressing is a perfect word for Dayton though haha. The campus is nice though</p>

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<p>Dayton is a nice school with a good community feel. It’s not in an unsafe area - I live not far from campus. HOWEVER - it is in a small, declining city in the Midwest with very little going on.</p>

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<p>OP - since you are from Dayton, I would go out of town for school. Expand your horizons!</p>