Delaware: Why or Why Not?: 2012

<p>I did not mean to insult anyone, and I’m sorry you feel that way. The demographics are what they are, but of course there are many students outside of the primary demographic groups, including you apparently and including my own D who is not white, not upper middle class and comes from an urban environment. There are good reasons to believe that a very diverse educational environment (geographically, socioeconomically and racially) is beneficial to anyone fortunate enough to be part of one. This is not a comment on the fitness of UD students generally and certainly not on you personally, but only on a setting which is relatively homogenous. We chose UD for the many other positive reasons already indicated by many who responded to this post. However, the relative lack of diversity is something many prospective students might take into account, and so I chose to address it here.</p>

<p>momof2giants is right. My D came from a truly diverse, inner city NYC public high school, with all of the attendant issues and benefits. Coming to UD was a very different experience. A good one, to be sure, but she’s had diversity and isn’t getting it at UD. Of course, there are about 9 people in her major in hear year and all but one are female, so she will have to get her diversity where she can find it!</p>

<p>My S (now a freshman) liked Delaware and it turned out to be his second choice. I think it was the 8 hour drive home (to near Boston) in the rain and heavy traffic after accepted students day that turned him off. The day after he arrived home, he went out to UMass Amherst to visit a friend and my wife got a text that said “this is where I’m going”. He likes being able to come home for a weekend, but still feels like he went “away” to college (it’s about 2 hours). I’m happy with it–he’s getting a good education (engineering) and I’m saving about $15,000 a year.</p>

<p>UDel does have a white suburban feel. So do most flagship state universities outside CA. My D, now graduated, chose UDel in part because of the extraordinary proportion of students who were OOS. </p>

<p>Congrats to all who will be freshmen this Fall, wherever you choose to attend!</p>

<p>We went to Decision Day at Delaware yesterday and we are still undecided. The campus is beautiful, the students seem very nice…but I still don’t know if it’s the right school for my son. Is it a good school academically? Will they help him in getting internships? Will he get into a good MBA program, with a degree from Udel? When we applied it was my sons safety school, so we really don’t know much and the information given on Decision Day wasn’t very hepful. Though he got into other schools with possibly better academic reputations, we seem to be drawn to the school… Any Advice</p>

<p>So hard to to “tell” someone what to do as thisis such a personal decision and what works for one person may not work for another, but here was our experience. We started looking at schools early on in my D’s junior year. She had a very specific major so we her choices were fairly narrow. She saw several schools and even did some summer programs at other schools prior to visiting UD. Of those schools there were several she could see herself at and was excited about them…until she walked onto UD’s campus on a rainy miserable day (if you can love a school on a miserabole rainy day then it can only go uphill from there). She fell in love and that instantly became her first choice. What drew her to the school on that first day:</p>

<p>-The people
-Main Street
-Look and feel of the campus
-General Location (we are OOS) and proximity to major cities
-Her particular academic program
-Sports</p>

<p>My D was accepted to 6 out of 7 schools and waitlisted at one and UD was the last school she heard from which was agonizing since that is where she wanted to be. When the acceptance came she said send the deposit that day which we did.</p>

<p>She is now finishing up her Freshman year and has NO regrets. She is very happy and loves it. I asked her how she felt about her decision and she said that this was the perfect fit for her. Loads to do, people are great and academically she is pleased.</p>

<p>Good news story for us, but as I said early on it doesn’t mean that your graduate will feel the same way. It’s a big decision for an 18 year old to make and sometimes the decision doesn’t always work out, but if they go with their gut and make a list of all the things that are important to them and compare it to what the school has to offer it does help.</p>

<p>Good Luck!</p>

<p>nyc2464:</p>

<p>The only thing I can add to my previous comments to you is that several of my D’s friends while she was at UD (2006-2010) were Accounting majors. They were able to obtain excellent internship positions during the summers at top notch Accounting/Business Firms in NYC (JP Morgan and several others) and ended up getting jobs at these firms following graduation. Actually there is a large contingent of UD alumni working and living in and around NYC. My D (a nurse) lives in NYC on the upper East Side and works at New York Presbyterian/Cornell Medical Center. NYC is almost like UD “North”. They do have a very active UD Alumni Association in NYC.</p>

<p>While I know this is hard to delineate it probably would be best for him to choose the school he feels he best “fits in” with. If that turns out to be UD I feel if he works hard and does well he should have no problem in doing well in all the areas of your concern. Best wishes to him in making his decision. I sure he will do just fine where-ever he decides to go.</p>

<p>Why not look on the career services website and the the departmental website? You will see whether the internships look to be what might interest your son. My D’s department has pages and pages of internships. Many/most departments list opportunities and the career services website absolutely does.</p>

<p>nyc- I sent you a PM. You can contact the specific department and ask to talk to someone there about internships.</p>

<p>My son got accepted to Rensselaer, Worcester Poly Tech, URI & UD. He decided on UD because of the quality of the chemical engineering program. It is always very highly ranked and the faculty is top notch. He got accepted into the honors program and received decent scholarship money, not as much as the other two private schools, but enough to make it competitive.
Newark is a nice town, you can get to where you are going from there and it is a safe location. The campus is beautiful and we have family in the area. The interview he went on convinced us that there was an edge job-wise to attending UD with Dow and Dupont being large corporate donors of the school. All in all, it made up a good package. UD has a great deal to recommend it. It is a quality school in a broad spectrum of areas. It does a lot of things very well.</p>

<p>

That’s very big. My D had a teacher for an elective class who was a visiting professional in the field who commuted down from DC for that class. The person is an important professional at the top entity in that field and has had incredible suggestions for the students, has suggested internships and has provided recommendations that carry a lot of weight. Point being, sometimes they can make excellent connections when going to a college that is closely linked with some of the top companies in a particular field. I believe UD has those links in chemical engineering. BEst of luck to your son.</p>

<p>Hi- my D is not attending UD though it was one of her top 2 choices. She was also accepted to Drexel, Pitt, Penn State, Temple and JMU. We are PA residents.</p>

<p>In the final analysis, Drexel offered the excitement of a city environment, the intimacy of small class sizes in her major, and the opportunity to gain experience through the Drexel coop program.</p>

<p>Delaware was attractive for its beautiful campus and traditional college experience. But, in the end, she made a different choice.</p>