Drexel vs. Lehigh vs. Lafayette

Colleges and Universities A-Z Drexel University
1

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I posted this on other thread but got not responses...probably deserves an independent thread since people looking at Drexel will also be looking at these another other colleges:</p>

<ol>
<li>My son is looking at Drexel, Lehigh and Lafayette. Can a current Drexel student or someone else who is familiar with these schools provide an opinion.</li>
<li>Drexel's acceptance policy is lower than Lehigh or Lafayette - does that mean Drexel is an average school? i.e. it does not have the same caliber of professors, facilities and opportunities for undergraduates?</li>
<li>Is Drexel considered a "good local school" or does it really compare with those that have a nationa standing? Can anyone provide some details.</li>
</ol>

<p>Thanks</p>

2

<p>1 Main differences: Drexel is a large university especially known for engineering school, that offers a coop program and is located in a major city. Lafayette is a small liberal arts college in rural PA. Lehigh is a medium sized university located in the depressed city of Easton PA.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>not sure of answers here.</p></li>
<li><p>Drexel is ranked nationally among universities in the top 100. I believe it has also been on the USNWR list of “up and coming” schools.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>If your son has the “stats” to get into Lehigh- he would likely be admitted to the “honors” program and get merit aid at Drexel. I don’t think either Lafayette or Lehigh are known for merit aid.</p>

<p>I would suggest visiting with your son as you will then get a better feel for what the schools have to offer and what the differences are. Drexel is free to apply to so there is no downside to applying and seeing what kind of merit aid is offered.</p>

3

<p>“Main differences: Drexel is a large university especially known for engineering school, that offers a coop program and is located in a major city. Lafayette is a small liberal arts college in rural PA. Lehigh is a medium sized university located in the depressed city of Easton PA.”</p>

<p>Lafayette is not located in a rural area. Matter of fact it is the school located in Easton, which is far from “depressed” (unless you are referring to a particular city ward several miles from Lafayette). Lehigh University is located in the city of Bethlehem. The Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton metro area has a population of over 800,000. </p>

<p>Lafayette offers the Marquis Scholarship, a $20,000 per year merit award, to top students (think 1400+ SAT, 3.8+ UW GPA, top 5% in class). At Lehigh top students can compete for full or half tuition scholarships as well as $10,000 per year Dean’s Scholarships.</p>

<p>These three schools are very different but all offer excellent opportunities in engineering. If your son is thinking of a degree other-than-engineering one school may well be better than the other.</p>

4

<p>Thanks for the corrections Hudson. Had my geography mixed up. The Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area is an area of former steel towns which fell upon hard times…think “living here in Allentown” by Billy Joel…</p>

<p>That said I have heard that Lehigh has a very nice campus and college-y feel. I think it would be quite a contrast to the city setting of Drexel. If that is at all an issue, again, you should visit.</p>

5

<p>As a current Drexel student from the Lehigh Valley, I feel oblidged to post here. =D</p>

<p>Locations: </p>

<p>Drexel: In University City district of Philadelphia (yes, West Philly, cough cough), extremely urban campus. Urban-looking buildings, etc. I don’t think it really can get more much more urban than Drexel. =P</p>

<p>Lehigh: Kind of the in the corner of Bethlehem, but in it’s own little campus, lots of green and lots of trees… oldish looking brick buildings that you like to see from prestigious schools. Unfortunately once you start stepping off campus the surrounding area is kind of known for its gangs, if I remember correctly. But Bethlehem is a great little city, they bring in cutesy tourism for being known as “The Christmas City,” it hosts the great Musikfest every year, is a great promoter of arts and music, etc. </p>

<p>EDIT: Lehigh is also built into a hill. Not “it’s built on a hill,” it’s built into a hill. The guy who invented the escalator went to Lehigh. No joke. =P Thought I’d mention it.</p>

<p>Lafayette: In the corner of Easton, but in a much more reclusive rural area than Lehigh… as in you have absolutely no reason to be on/around campus if you’re not there for Lafayette-related events. And umm… I don’t know about you, but I’ve never liked Easton. xD It’s a good city, has the State Theatre, and all I just… never… really… liked it. xD idk. It’s a city with idk, violence and things, like all cities, but Lafayette itself is pretty far from all of that, as compared to Drexel and Lehigh.</p>

<p>Both Lehigh and Lafayette are the two big prestigious/well-known colleges in the Lehigh Valley (and they have quite the rivalry if you didn’t know :wink: ). Drexel is rather well-known in the Philadelphia/South Jersey area.</p>

<p>Size/Type:</p>

<p>Drexel: Known for engineering, but has a bazillion other majors/colleges, has a ton of students (I’m too lazy to look up the stats, but like 13k undergrad?), again… urban.</p>

<p>Lehigh: Big-ish, more liberal-artsy, but still has an outstanding engineering program, seemed to me to have a rather… priviledged population? Does that make sense? xD</p>

<p>Lafayette: Quite small compared to the other two, liberal artsy, again, great engineering program. Priviledged population as well. =P Also, all undergrad if I remember correctly (so not so much research as in the other two)</p>

<hr>

<p>Overall:</p>

<p>If I had to rank them according to prestige, I would go Lehigh, Lafayette, Drexel, but of course there’s a million other things to consider. Co-op for one, which only Drexel has, which gives their students a huge advantage. Plus, you know location. The three environments of the colleges are vastly different, and if you’d like I could tell you my past experiences in visiting them (as last year I did visit all three :wink: ).</p>

<p>As for my personal case, I didn’t even bother applying to Lehigh since I figured I wouldn’t get any merit aid and when I visited, it just felt really high-and-mighty like “Oh this is my safety in case I don’t get into Harvard” (as I joked with my friend… man I am terrible I’m sorry xD). I got the Marquis Scholarship ($20k) from Lafayette, visited during one of those days, and overall was not too impressed… I believe I was in the CS group and some Electrical Engineering professor gave us a vague tour of the department. Lafayette is much more liberal arts/humanties oriented than the other two I think, as well as being much much smaller. From Drexel I got a $28k scholarship and liked the urban campus, size, co-op program, and all. So it was Drexel for me. =)</p>

<p>And I know for Drexel, they accept according to major, so the engineering program is much much more challenging/harder to get into than the grand majority of the other majors. So the statistics of current Drexel students is for the ENTIRE unversity, not just the engineering college, which skews it quite a bit. I’m inclined to think that the Lehigh engineering program is still more difficult than Drexel’s, but with Drexel’s co-op program, Drexel engineering students can no doubt give Lehigh engineering students a run for their money.</p>

<p>Errr does that help? If you give me more specific questions, I can give you more specific answers. =)</p>

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<p>Hudsonvalley and Pamom…thanks a lot for your replies.</p>

<p>Olliee, thanks for taking the time to write so much of detail. I was really looking to hear from a student and you gave me exactly what I wanted. I did visit all three so clearly see the difference in the setting for each of them.</p>

<p>I am just beginning to review the engg program for Drexel and want to get a clear idea of what courses I will get credit for (based on the APs I am taking). How would you suggest I go about that? </p>

<p>Also, are you an engg student? What is your major?</p>

<p>I also want to get a sense of the type of student who attends Drexel. Is he/she extremely driven to learn and research? Are you having discussions with your peers where you have a peer group that are entrepreneurial? Do you think the school is where people who may start the next great company come?</p>

<p>I think coops are very important but there is also one truth to it - and that is - it is designed to get you a job. I am not interested in just getting a job, instead I want to join a school where the atmosphere charges your creative thinking and helps cross barriers thru interactions with peers and professors. I want a school where even beyond your major you find that there are opportunities to expand your horizons and learn much more - whether it be thru social interaction, clubs, etc.</p>

<p>Is Drexel such a school?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

7

<p>Ahhhh engineering. Of course. I’m a software engineering major, colloquially known as a “fake” engineering major. :wink: So we’re kind of half in the engineering college, but we don’t take the same required freshman engineering classes as everyone else. As in, regardless of if you’re Electrical, Chemical, Civil, Biomed, or Computer Science (ironically enough), or etc., freshman year you’re required to take the same intro to engineering labs with CAD and CS 122 MATLAB programming and robot building or whatever (I’m not entirely sure, I’m just rattling off what I hear from everyone else xD). But I know lots of engineers and am taking PHYS 101 with like 900 real freshman engineers so… again, I’m kind of a half engineer. =P</p>

<p>AP credits! Take a look at this crosswalk here to see course equivalents:
<a href=“Academic Policies - Office of the Provost”>http://www.drexel.edu/provost/policies/pdf/supporting/ap_crosswalk.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
So those are the credits that will transfer. I hear it’s generally advised that if you can get credit for an elective/non-related-to-your-major class, then of course take the credit. If it is related to your major and you feel confident that you know the material extremely well and don’t mind taking risks, then you should take the credit, and then whatever move up from there. Otherwise, especially for engineering, most people just re-take the class for a good review before they take higher-level courses, and get an easy A. Which I hear that your freshman GPA is weighted much much more than any other year, so if you can get a high GPA freshman year, you should be set for life ^^.</p>

<p>But uh yeah, send those AP scores to Drexel when you take your AP test, then follow-up with your Drexel adviser later in the year to decide which credits you want to transfer, and which classes you want to take. That’s basically how it goes.</p>

<p>Ahhh about the typical Drexel student. I’d like to think that we’re all pretty good students, and are all moderately career-oriented. Co-op kind of forces that on you, as you’re always working on your resumes, on co-op, looking for co-ops, interviewing for co-ops, etc. =P A desire to learn is pretty standard here, as is the desire to do well in classes. As for your other questions about entrepreneurship… I’m going to say that academically, in classes, Drexel isn’t that kind of school. But outside of classes, students are pretty active, there’s lots of clubs in whatever you want to do. I can’t quite remember all the clubs, but there’s quite a few engineering societies: Society of Women Engineers, Society of Pharmaceutical Engineering, I think there’s like an international investors society something or another, I remember this club that had a goal of collaborating all majors to make rollercoasters and a theme park, there’s this club thing about a concrete canoe… idk I’m pulling this out of whatever I remember. Here’s the list (if you can see it-- I’m not sure if it’s just accessible on the Drexel Network):
[Drexel</a> University - Organizations](<a href=“- DragonLink”>- DragonLink) </p>

<p>And there is quite a bit of research going on via professors and things, so if you are into research and have the aptitude for it, it’s available and worthwhile to get involved in it. There’s also random little things, like speakers occasionally, exhibitions at the gallery, idk. I think there’s Code-A-Thon being advertised in the CS department as well as a Hack-A-Thon a few weeks ago (like, work on a team for 48 hours to create and present some awesome program?). Idk.</p>

<p>So I’ll link you to the Drexel Now website. Drexel loves to highlight such things, research projects, presentations, events, etc., it makes them look great. xD Just to give you a feel for everything, just take a snoop around:
[Home</a> | Now | Drexel University](<a href=“http://www.drexel.edu/now/]Home”>News)</p>

<p>And well… it isn’t quite about getting a job. That’s sort of the lazy way we like to say it, “I need a job.” xD Drexel, again, is career-oriented, as in it prepares you for careers. So okay, it’s worth doing co-op to get work experience, but it’s also for seeing how to act professionally in such environments, how to work collaboratively on teams, how to communicate with people in a business setting, and like… actually being a competent participant in the professional world. So while Drexel won’t exactly give you such a shove to go against the flow and invent the next big thing, I think it’ll definitely provide you with the opportunities you need to realistically get there. And remember that the school is rather flexible on such things, if you want you can design your own major, can go outside built-in the co-op system and just take a internship wherever you want as your “co-op,” just… yeah. Whatever. =P</p>

<p>Does that help? xD</p>

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<p>Hey Olliie…mucho thanks. As I said to you on one of your other posts…thanks for all the great info you are sharing. I will go thru your posts again and come back with questions if any.</p>