My son has been excepted to all three schools. Honors program for Drexel and UM. We live just outside of Philadelphia, but only moved here recently. Drexel is pretty unknown in St. Louis, or previous home. so we don’t have any real feel for reputation. Scholarships should make costs pretty comparable to the three schools. If anything Drexel might be the least expensive. He plans to major in Computer Engineer if at Penn State and what ever would be comparable at the other schools. Does anyone have any perspectives.
I am from Texas so take this how you will.
Source (http://www.studypoint.com/admissions/drexel/)
The big difference is Drexel is a private school with national reach (49% Out of State students). The class sizes are going to be smaller, your son will have the opportunity to do a 6 month co op if he wants to, it is an urban setting (and close to home for him) so between intimate classes, being in Philadelphia, and being close to home, he has an excellent safety net if anything goes wrong. I am also under the impression Drexel has undergone a lot of updates the past few years. As far as major, he can do either Computer Engineering or Computer Science at Drexel, not sure what he was accepted for here. For a private school, Drexel has excellent resources, connections, and a solid academic reputation.
I almost transferred to Maryland during my undergrad at Purdue. Maryland is a very pretty campus and has solid mechanical and aeronautical programs. I don’t know anything about computer engineering or computer science there. I know crime is a concern there and I have also seen people be concerned about crime in Philadelphia around Drexel. I can’t speak to either of those though because I haven’t lived in either city (I am a potential student for Fall 2015 at Drexel).
Maryland and Penn State are going to have the same advantages/disadvantages for the most part. They are both capital schools, have a ton of students, have a lot of resources, have name recognition from sports, and a large part of their student body percentage wise comes from in state/in area.
The class sizes will be big, if the computer science/computer engineering programs are large, he is probably going to have to face a lot of dream killer classes, it will be harder to get professor recommendations, and he will have to be highly competitive with his classmates to get the better jobs.
However, you son is studying to be an engineer so his coursework will be hard wherever he goes and wherever he goes, as long as he completes an engineering degree with reasonable academic results, he will end up with a solid job. It is going to come down to fit for him. The setting of the universities, the sizes, and what he likes to do. Maryland and Penn state have HUGE sports teams and if that is a big thing for him they might be better. Drexel has Basketball and soccer that are fun to watch and support among a handful of other sports. All of the schools will have sports clubs he can participate on and hundreds of student organizations for him to get involved with. If he is looking to research in his undergrad, I would bet its easier to do that at Drexel than Maryland or Penn State but I have no sources to support that. it is just in general easier to get professors interested in you at a smaller private school than it is in a capital school.
For Penn State, from what I understand, it is in the middle of nowhere. I had two friends who went there from Texas and transferred after their freshman year. One kind of regrets it and might go back. Penn state has a great culture and community overall. It just physically isn’t an exciting location so if your son isn’t good at finding things for himself to do or needs to be able to enjoy night life outside of just a bar scene, it might not be a great place for him. Sometimes all of this can be fixed if your son has a car and can do what he wants as he pleases.
Long story short, I think it is important what your son is looking for in student life. Does he wants a huge student body, a smaller student body, an urban setting, a remote setting, does he want to be away from home or within reach of home etc. etc. All three schools are ranked for undergraduate engineering in US news.
I hope this helps!