Engineering: Madison vs Minnesota (TC)

College Search & Selection
1

Hey all, as decision date approaches, I am faced with a rather large conundrum, I am looking to major in biomedical or chemical engineering but I have no idea whether to choose Madison or Minnesota (TC). I have heard a lot about Madison being a more prestigious school, but many of the people on this site and Reddit don’t seem to have much to back it up other than the “sports are great” or “Minnesota sucks”. For me, the cost is the same, but I really do not know whether I will have a better experience at Madison or Minnesota. I am mainly focused on academics and hope to further my studies through graduate school so I do not know which would be better. In terms of campuses, I felt that Madison did not live up to the expectations that everyone seems to have for it, but with the UMN literally in the middle of Minneapolis, I feel that I cannot pick between them.

Does anyone have any insight? If so I would truly appreciate it if you could back up your statements with links or something so that I have a firm background to make my decision upon.

2

It’s a coin toss. The two are closely matched and the more you research the more you will find pro/con one or the other. The decider could be the chances for being accepted into your proposed major. Look at the facilities. Then, whatever you decide- DO NOT LOOK BACK. You will have great experiences regardless of which campus you choose.

3

“It’s not unanimous, but it’s close. Wherever one finds countdowns of the best college football towns in America, Wisconsin’s home of Madison is usually at the top. It’s been ranked No. 1 by NCAA.com, Sports Illustrated and USA Today—with the latter publication giving it the top spot on two separate occasions.”

How much do you like football? When my daughter was evaluating college choices for engineering, she was not excited about being in the best college football town in America. We visited on a Saturday during an away game, and every single person was wearing red. One nice thing about U of M is it is diverse. There is less school spirit, as evidenced by the fact that students on campus wear logos from other colleges. If you are mainly focused on academics, you may find yourself marginalized.

Also, I’m not sure how set you are on engineering. My daughter was not. Because she was not sure about engineering but knew she belonged in a STEM major, she also liked that U of M has a College of Science and Engineering. U W had a College of Engineering and then a College of Arts and Sciences. This daughter is now three years out of college and is pursuing a PhD in Geology.

This past year, our youngest daughter applied to college. She is in the same boat – a STEM kid but not set on engineering. We toured Madison but she ended up not even applying. She was more open to having football be a focus on campus because she has been in the pep band at her high school.

One thing that seems to make sense is that people at colleges away from a metropolitan area tend to drink a lot. At the U, there is plenty to do that doesn’t involving drinking.

4

Students not interested in sports are NOT “marginalized” at UW. The campus is large enough there is room for all sorts. A minority is still a significant number.

5

Minnesota requires a 3.2 college GPA to choose any engineering major you want; lower GPAs face competitive admission, but most majors are not filled to capacity and let everyone in with a 2.0 GPA.
http://www.advising.cse.umn.edu/cgi-bin/courses/noauth/apply-major-statistics

Wisconsin has college GPA minimums to enter or stay in each engineering major; these vary by major.
https://www.engr.wisc.edu/academics/student-services/academic-advising/first-year-undergraduate-students/progression-requirements/

At both schools, biomedical and chemical engineering are among the competitive majors to get into.

6

My not remotely interested in sports kid is most likely going to Madison. He is going to be in the school of music and there are plenty of those types there, in other arts, in engineering, international students, academic types, grad students, etc. When there is 40,000 students there is someone and something for everyone.

We live local to the U of MN and let me tell you game days the school spirit is out in full force with the maroon and gold and drunkenness in the streets. I actually don’t think the schools are that dissimilar though U of MN is VERY urban. The U of MN is on my kid’s list too. There are pushing 700,000 people in the Madison metro and you’re in reasonable range for Milwaukee and Chicago area. I think it’s a considerably different experience than going somewhere like UIUC or a far flung small LAC.

Anyway - I think the U of MN is actually generally underrated so I don’t buy into one being vastly superior to the other academically in most areas anyway. Especially when you’re talking about engineering. I think it’s win/win. Have you dug down and looked at individual faculty members in areas you’re interested in? Have you talked to faculty?

7

I think that U of Minn also is underrated. There’s a lot to like about that school and it often gets overshadowed by UWM.

One large issue that I have about UWM is that the funding was cut by the governor (Scott Walker) by hundreds of millions of dollars (and then put into a professional sports arena in Milwaukee, I hear.)

In addition, Walker virtually got rid of tenure; it’s tenure in name only because he made a committee that can decide on tenure issues – and I’m sorry but I’ve forgotten the details of this committee, but basically the Uni, though taking less funding, is beholding to this committee that has the ability to fire professors. It smacks every so slightly, to my mind, of not giving the faculty free sway over their ideas, which is what tenure was about when it was developed: Academic freedom to pursue even unpopular ideas.

It takes awhile before major changes like that trickle through the rankings system, so UW is still ranked fairly high, but UW took a beating 1) in professors’ morale; 2) in professors leaving for other schools that had actual tenure – for many if they could leave they did leave, which meant that many of the superstars were lured away or went on the job market. That could be seen as making room for ambitious younger faculty and that’s a good thing, perhaps, but to my mind it felt worrying that the state, in the form of the most senior elected representative, doesn’t/didn’t support the school in the way that it used to (except for the football) and relies instead on the reputation that it built when there was more financial support.

That all left a sufficiently bitter taste in my mouth that, though I’ve spent many years off and on in Wisconsin, whenever someone asks me, I feel the need to tell them how sour I feel about the lack of support in Wisconsin, among the populace apparently to support a leader who would eviscerate one of the jewels of the state – and then re-elect him. Full disclosure: I have a relative who fully supported Walker in this and her quotes were things like: “Those fat cats at the university deserve this.” “What do they contribute anyway?” sort of thing. And this relative lives in Madison, the place where you’d expect support for the school rather than the reverse. Yes this relative did send her children to UW schools after voting against the funding and voting for more stringent oversight of the ideas there.

To my mind, I would avoid that negativity and go right to UMinnesota.

Wisconsin has a lot to offer, mind you, but sadly it went through the wringer described above.

8

fyi- it’s just UW- UWM is the Milwaukee school.

9

@dustyfeathers As the parent of a recent UW alum, we followed the budget cuts and tenure issues carefully, so I’d like to clarify some of your points. Yes, former Gov Walker cut the budget of UW seriously, though the worries of faculty flight turned out to be unnecessary. UW raised something like $150-250 million specifically for faculty retention and new hires, and while some folks left, there was not a rush to the door. In fact, we know a faculty member who left, spent 3 years at another public flagship, and returned. In the last couple years under Gov Walker, funding was substantially restored to UW. Under the new Gov Evers who beat Walker, UW budget is quite stable.

On the tenure issue, it is the Regents – the board which oversees the entire UW system – which now has the ability to terminate tenured faculty IF the entire academic program is cut. Not faculty on an individual, case by case basis. https://secfac.wisc.edu/tenure/

Last year, the Regents announced that certain humanities programs at a satellite, regional campus with 7000 students – Stevens Point, – would be closed as the idea was to make the campus more pre-professional and less liberal arts-y. Huge outcry instate, resulting in some programs being cut, but not as many as originally planned. In that circumstance, tenured faculty in the closed departments could be terminated, despite the tenure, though the plan was to offer them positions in other departments to the extent possible. So, it is not the case that individual faculty within a department can have their tenure overwritten. The entire department must be closed, and I am quite confident that programs are not generally being cut at UW.

That being said, Minnesota is a great school and especially in STEM, a student can’t go wrong with either UW or Minnesota Twin Cities.

10

Make sure you look at Madison’s very steep progression requirements for biomedical engineering. This was my daughter’s #1 choice school and she ended up going elsewhere because in the end she did not want the added stress of not having direct admission into her program. That being said, we loved a lot of things about Madison. I’m kind of sad she’s not going there. I have heard that there are a ton of biomedical internships in the Minnesota area, especially near Rochester. Best of luck with your decision.

11

Faculty retention recruitment fine. https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/education/university/efforts-to-recruit-university-of-wisconsin-faculty-slide-back-toward/article_30cd14b4-2155-584e-bfb3-6f6db709f60c.html