Electrical Engineering in Midwest which school has the better program ?

My son was directly admitted to the Schools of Engineering at these four schools, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Iowa State,University of Missouri-Columbia, and University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Which of these schools have the better Electrical Engineering School ? We will be touring them for the first time( we are from California) and would like to find out as much information as possible about these schools. Thanks in advance.

I’m curious why he applied to any of these schools from CA. They are all competent, established programs, but certainly not any Who’s Who candidates that students typically travel from the coasts to attend.

I think Iowa State has the best institutional reputation for undergraduate engineering, but I’m not sure if EE specifically would alter that.

^^He chose these schools because he heard that they have good engineering programs and the off campus apartments are a lot more affordable than his in state choices. He also wanted to get out of his comfort zone and try living some place that had four seasons. His HS Counselor had made a comment that a lot of Mid-West schools don’t see very many Californians and that it would be easier for him to get direct admittance to their Engineering School.

All but Mizzou are their respective state engineering flagships. Mizzou is the anchor campus of the state system, and as a university, will feel similar to the others on the list (large campus, diverse majors and student body, big time athletics, well developed Greek system, etc.). Missouri S&T, with more previous names than Prince, but originally known as Rolla School of Mines and Metallurgy, is the engineering gem of the system. It’s also one of the few schools that offers a degree in explosives engineering. Of those on the list, I’d probably rank Mizzou last. I say that with a heavy heart as a Mizzou alumnus (not engineering). If however he visits Mizzou and falls in love, he’ll still be successful. There’s a pretty broad consensus that any student who puts their nose to the grindstone and makes the most of their opportunities will do fine at any ABET accredited program. Mizzou has substantially upped its engineering game since I was there.

Iowa State has a DOE National Lab, Ames Lab and that certainly sets it apart from the rest. All National Labs do very interesting cutting edge research, affiliated with, but separate from the universities they are aligned with (if they are).

When my uncle, who has a Stanford PhD and spent the bulk of his career in academia as a department chair, was advising my son, now a Senior ME at Cal Poly, he advised he avoid programs like Stanford (using that example because he knew my son had applied there) that are best known for their doctoral research. He suggested he instead focus on programs with good reputations for the undergraduate experience. His reasoning was that a significant amount of the instruction at the major research schools would be done by graduate students and too little of the emphasis was spent on real world engineering. That’s his perspective, and certainly not without detractors, but he has the bona fides to have an opinion worth at least considering. In any case, the first school out of his mouth was…Iowa State.

I don’t know about the other two, but that should not be construed as a negative.

I think that the intangibles after his visit will be very helpful, and that if he goes with his gut, he’ll be fine no matter which one he lands at.

For EE, you can check the course offerings and faculty listings to see which subareas are better covered at each school. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering has a list of subareas.

I also suggest you look at the college profiles found in the American Society of Engineering Education. http://profiles.asee.org/

The profiles will give you an idea of the size of the EE program, how many students enter and how many graduate, the amount of research money etc.

When you go and visit, be sure to see if you can talk to the enrollment recruiter for each school for EE, attend a class, tour labs and talk to students and the career center. Doing an in-depth visit really helped my DD with her decision. Also did any college offer your DS merit money? If they did, it would play into his decision too.