Engineering school in Northwestern vs U Mich

College Search & Selection
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@IWannaHelp. I really don’t know the numbers but urop is just one way to do research. As a freshman my son applied and got two project grants and one had a research component to it. He was not in Urop. There are many ways to do this at Michigan. Urop to me is like a club. Many students just connect with a professor by email to do research,etc. Not sure how it is tracked to be honest. I am sure some apply for grants and some do not but if you want to do it it’s there for the taking.

@phoebehana4 I think there are mock 4 year plans of study on their website or call engineering and they can let you know where they are. This might just give you a clue. Also talk to the scholarship department since the academic advisor might not know the particulars of the scholarship. Just a call might do it.

Enjoy your visit. If you can do a basic general session that might be helpful. Also campus day for admitted students is going on now. Maybe you can do one of those to get the feel of the campus.

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Here’s a link to UMich’s COE post graduation report: http://career.engin.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/30/2017/02/annualreport1516.pdf

It’s super detailed and has co-op and internship numbers and salaries as well. Great report!

@knowsstuff is correct that you can easily pull up a 4 year plan of study for your daughter’s major. It won’t be exact but it will give you an outline. Here’s the link to Mech E for NU: https://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/mechanical/documents/undergraduate/suggested-course-schedule-2016.pdf

UM: https://me.engin.umich.edu/academics/undergrad/handbook/bachelors#Sample%20Schedule

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“: I think that Ann Arbor & Evanston offer different environments. One is a mega college town while the other is a sophisticated suburb. Doesn’t make one better or worse in general–just different.”

For an 18-22 yo it makes a large difference! Also A2 is quite sophisticated that just happens to cater to its base better than Evanston.

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@momofsenior1. Thx, I looked but couldn’t find it. Also keep in mind that the 4 year plan will change if your bringing AP credits with you etc. At Michigan all your first year classes except like one class is on central campus and taken with the general population. So Calc or physics is taken with business, medical, engineering, lsa etc students. Not sure what NW does. Some schools engineering is by themselves for most of their classes. In your sophomore year through senior year most of your classes are on North campus. Now your with mostly engineering but with the design, theater, science kids etc. NW does something similar as well combining these creative minds.

@phoebehana4 if your Michigan scholarship is only for engineering and nothing else then that might give me pause especially if your daughter is not 100% committed to engineering. Kids change their minds through out their college experience. I know of kids getting LSA money but it is transferred if they change majors. I hope that would also be the case in your situation. I wouldn’t want my kid to feel pressured to stay in a discipline if they found their calling in another. Plus engineering is tough and usually they find out the first semester or year if it’s going to work out. My sons Calc 2 class was very sparse compared to the Calc 1 class. He had Calc 3 in high school and said neither class was easy FYI.

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@rjkofnovi. Both are actually great college towns but different. Evanston has more nicer restaurants that you would find on main Street and over and Ann Arbor is built with stores /shops that cater more to the students. But if you want some excellent restaurants you just go over a block or two at Michigan. Ann Arbor being larger just has more to offer. Don’t really think one is better or worse. I like the fact that at least on Central campus it just surrounds you. I just think the students have more choices which makes it more diverse. Not many kids are going out to eat $30.00 steak dinners at either schools. I love Evanston but if I lived there it would become more of the same food places to go to. Again with meal plans etc just don’t see this as a big deal.

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Michigan’s 4 year plan just lists all of the courses and a flow sheet. It doesn’t seem to break it out by semester like other school’s do. IMO, not as helpful as NU’s site but you can get an idea of what’s needed to graduate.

Absolutely the 4 year plan on line doesn’t take into account any of the individual difference with AP/DE credits. For my DD (different school), her co-op and minor changed her 4 year plan considerable. Then there is a major concentration.

I will say that in terms of technical courses required for the major, I found little difference amongst the ABET accredited schools. The academic differences were more in how the schools approached the first year of engineering, if AP credits could be used, and then what concentrations were offered within the major.

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Around here in my locale, NU has a little more (not a ton more) “ooh” value or cache than Michigan, in terms of the overall academics. Folks around here are still impressed with UMich no doubt. And although UMich has a better ranking for engineering, the UMich scholarship restriction would be the deciding factor for me as a parent. Kids change their majors all the time.

I mentioned “school spirit” and sports, because they were a factor in my kid’s admissions decision. Big sports fan. My kid still gets geeked up sending me pics of well-known athletes that attend the same class or classes. And there’s nothing like ESPN Game Day coming to Ann Arbor for a big game (last year it was the Whisky game) and being out there in the audience holding up a funny sign for the cameras.

The class sizes wouldn’t worry me at all, because the class sizes (15:1 per CDS) at UMich just haven’t been that big freshman year, even the “weeder” classes. Another poster mentioned new facilities (football/athletic building), but that also wouldn’t be a determing factor, because UMich has been in the process of upgrading their campus for years, including a new student union building and academic and athletic/recreation facilities. And there’s been a building binge of new upscale apartments all around Central campus as well. In fact, my kid just rented one for sophomore year.

All in all, I’d pick NU due to the scholarship limitation and for a bit more overall academic cache.

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The scholarship limitation at Michigan would be the biggest concern for me as well.

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This is by far the biggest concern. Are you prepared for full pay at UMich if your child falls in love with Chemistry/Physics/Math or some other A&S program. She might decide to become a Environmental Policy lawyer. Do you want there to be pressure on her to remain in Engineering if her heart is elsewhere? If her other choice was somewhere she hated then I’d be more inclined to support UMich but in this case I’d be in more favor to go to NW with the options it provides.

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Yup, that’s really the key right there. There’s really no big deal to be an Engineering major and to add other majors and minors, but if she hates engineering and wants nothing to do with it, then that’s a huge problem.

I wonder how negotiable UMich would be with that restriction?

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My guess is that its non negotiable.

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My son looked at both schools for mechanical engineering, and Michigan was the clear winner for him out of the two (he ended up doing ED at Cornell but Michigan was a close second). The one thing that really stood out to him was the huge number of student-led project teams at Michigan. I know that NU has some teams as well, but nothing on the scale of what is offered at Michigan. Someone above mentioned NU’s co-op program - you should be aware that doing a co-op there adds another year to the undergraduate experience.

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Both schools have tremendous strengths. But I agree that the noncontingent scholarship at Northwestern tilts the scale in that direction, especially given roughly equal costs. Ongoing freedom to choose a path as interests evolve is valuable. (I would also guess that there are fewer barriers as far as switching into most programs at NU than at UMich, although I don’t have detailed knowledge on this front and assume it’s not an unmitigated open door policy at either school.)

Another factor to consider for a female student is gender-parity in STEM. Engineering at Northwestern is 33% female, vs. 25% at UMich. ('14-15 stats so there may have been some shift since then, but it’s a non-trivial difference). Interestingly, the trend is reversed in CS, which is 15% female at UMich and only 9% at Northwestern. http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/local/women-in-engineering-and-computer-science/2089/

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I can’t find any info for NU, but UMich CoE is 27% today.

https://www.engin.umich.edu/about/facts/

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Typically, NU does not give merit scholarships as such, but there are a few (including National Merit), and a couple of them have a GPA requirement or a “satisfactory academic progress” requirement. There are no other restrictions, generally.
https://undergradaid.northwestern.edu/types-of-aid/scholarships-grants/northwestern-scholarships.html

NU may have given a financial aid scholarship equivalent to the contingent engineering scholarship from Michigan? In either case, it would not be contingent on major.

Given that the OP’s daughter only recently decided on engineering, and has been interested in other science majors, the Michigan scholarship seems to come with a large risk. Although post #54 suggested she could just go ahead and declare for engineering and she could always change later, the terms of the scholarship quoted by OP require that the student be enrolled in engineering each year to receive the scholarship for that year.

At NU she could easily transfer from McCormick (the engineering school) to Weinberg (the arts/sciences/humanities school). A number of the courses that engineers take first year (math, chem) would fulfill requirements for many of the science majors as well (probably also true at Michigan).

NU certainly has school spirit, both in sports and in other ways, though its sports are not as huge and campus-galvanizing as Michigan’s. When NU was in the Big Ten West championship this year, a donor paid for 11 buses worth of students to go to Indianapolis and the demand was intense. There are many sports fans on campus and they meet and talk sports and go to games whenever they can (my son is a little bummed that he’s not getting to see many of the women’s basketball games - in the NIT championship game this Saturday! - because he has practice for his club sport in the evenings this season). Dance Marathon has a large participation rate as do other campus activities like Greek life, clubs, club sports, theater, a capella groups, etc.

OP’s daughter hopefully will visit both schools for accepted students’ day and see how she feels about them. But if she has any doubt about staying in engineering, the question is whether OP would be all right with sending her to Michigan without that scholarship.

76

Glad you are coming to visit Ann Arbor. It’s hard to get a real feel for the school otherwise. Try to take the Segway tour if available. Central campus is under construction now with the Union and Natural Sciences building

My son in a junior at Michigan in ChemE, and we live in Ann Arbor, so we are pretty familiar with the environment. My wife and many friends work and teach at the U.

At Michigan, some engineering majors are more than 120 credits. ChemE, for example, is 128. Engineering has very limited options for electives too - required classes in the major run 60-68 credits, plus foundation classes (bio, chem, calc, physics, etc.) Engineers are also encouraged to study abroad for 1/2 or a full semester (you pay your normal tuition+expenses). A foreign language is not required.

There are also an amazing number of research projects, from submarines to the well known solar car team to corporate sponsored projects. My son did a full year project researching 3D printing in space, sponsored by a NASA contractor. The project was so time intensive (and continued over the summer even where he was interning) than he dropped his course load to 13 or 14 credits per semester instead of 15 or 16. For these reasons many students take 4.5 years to graduate (AP credit notwithstanding).

There are incubators and coaches and tutors and labs for students to start their own businesses should they choose. The facilities seem endless.

The Tau Beta Pi honor society is very active on campus. They do a lot of peer tutoring. The engineering school sets up a buddy system for new OOS students to help them become acclimated to the campus.

Regarding AP credit, the engineering school will not recognize the same AP credits - sometimes - toward class credit when compared to other schools within Michigan. For instance, your daughter might need a ‘5’ to receive full credit, whereas a ‘3’ might be OK elsewhere. Some non-engineering AP classes, like American History might only cound toward general elective credit or not at all.

Socially, sports are outstanding - in almost every women’s and men’s sport - and improving. You get world class music (like Chicago) but at student prices - usually < $20 per ticket.

Dorms are only guaranteed for the 1st year, and apartments cost $600 (basic, 20 min from campus) to $1200 (luxury, 5 min from campus) per bedroom/mo. Most are somewhere in the middle.

The devil is in the detail with the scholarship and her other interests. There is a lot of overlap between the sciences and engineering too, and dual majors/programs. I’d check on the exact parameters of the scholarship to see how much flex she has.

Also, it’s going to take more time during her daily life to get around compared to Northwestern. Classes for 1st year will be mostly on central campus, and it’s a 15 min bus ride to North.

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@TooOld4School. You just scared me about the extra semester. My son’s in industrial engineering and it’s 128 but he had some credits and front loaded his schedule by taking 18 credits each semester. Now he can relax a bit but if course he won’t. He can actually take like 12 a semester and still graduate early… But at least on time.

He is also doing study abroad this summer with Michigan engineering in France then doing another 5 week internship in Israel in engineering on his own. So yes, engineering students can go abroad.

I would also look into
https://www.optimizemi.org/ and https://lsa.umich.edu/bli

My son did both in Freshman year and last summer. You want to create a business /student Organization etc. Michigan will let you do it and they got $15,000 project grants to boot with a graduate student that had a speciality in start ups. This led to his student org and conference this Sunday at Michigan. If you can dream it, Michigan can help you create it.

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The takeaway is that engineers need to plan ahead and working with an advisor (and meeting frequently) is really important. Many engineering students also take advantage of the 5 year undergrad/masters program which lets them double count some of their senior classes.

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In my original post, I mistakenly mixed up the merit-base scholarship from UMich (Engineering Scholarship of Honor) and the need-based Northwestern scholarship. The UMich, as stated before, is contingent on her staying in CoE but otherwise is independent of family income. The Northwestern scholarship, on the other hand, is evaluated annually although they do not expect changes if the family income stays unchanged. I just thought that I ought to make that clear.

I have been looking up the 4-year graduation rate for both schools. I’ve found information for the school overall but not specifically for engineering school. Are such data available?

I share the concern over the engineering-only UMich scholarship. On the other hand, I also feel that CoE at UMich seems to cover a lot more ground that should appeal to a wider range of students. I’d think that a CoE with 1300+ students would offer more specialty classes than one with 400 students?

Unfortunately, all the admitted student days at UMich are filled. We could not even get on a CoE campus tour before May 1st. I have only myself to blame. Daughter has been accepted into UMich on EA. We were waiting for Northwestern RD and the financial aid award, which became available in the last weekend.

The information y’all have provided is extremely helpful. I will bring these questions to the academic advisor at either school.

80

The UMich admitted student day isn’t the be all end all. We didn’t even tour North Campus, so there must a separate tour for that. We explored Central Campus, the UGLI, a few buildings with classrooms (Angel, MLB), the Law Quad, East Quad, and the old student union just before remodeling started. We got to see the inside of a dorm on the Hill, which was beautiful, most dorms on Central (West, East, South, etc.) and the Hill (MoJo, Couzens, etc.) are since they’ve been remodeled.

You also breakout into the various colleges and can ask questions. The slideshows were informative in a trivia-ish kinda way, a speaker to discuss financial aid and then ask questions. Honestly, you can go to each department and get this info. Oh, and you get some swag.

Call CoE and see if you can add your names to a date you like. If not, I’d just go on that day where CoE is having a sessions and just tag along. I’d mill around Central Campus and when you see a group being shown the Big M on the Diag, and the group leader telling the group the story of running naked at midnight from one statue to another to lift the curse of stepping on the Big M, just pretend you’re impressed and part of the group. And if you’re really good at pretending, you may get a free lunch. But I’d rather eat at Amers, Savas, Fred’s, etc. in AA. :smile: