<p>University of Alabama offers full tuition to high scoring out of state students, plus an additional $2500 for engineering majors. These are some of the very students who might be admitted to top engineering schools. Would it be crazy for such engineering students to choose the free ride at Bama vs the top engineering schools?</p>
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<p>You do realize that this “discussion” is primarily experienced professionals arguing with a college student who wants to believe a certain position, correct? As someone who has hired hundreds of engineers, attending a lower tier engineering school permanent harms your future career options. It’s possible to get beyond that, but you start in a hole that, all else being equal, leaves you in a weaker position moving forward.</p>
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<p>Both of these schools actually do have a good and fairly well known reputation for engineering and CS, so they are not your average unknown universities with ABET accredited engineering programs, so they do not actually support your point.</p>
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<p>It depends.</p>
<p>Though I wonder how many students offered the Alabama Presidential Scholarship actually go there, as opposed to applying there to have a safety. It is probably very attractive to someone in a financial situation where going to some other school would require too much debt or put the parents in the poor house, but someone who managed to get enough financial aid elsewhere to close the price difference, or comes from a wealthy enough family to easily pay any school’s cost, is likely to choose an engineering school with a higher reputation (unless s/he really wants to settle and work in Tuscaloosa after graduation).</p>
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<p>Actually, all of the rankings that I can find do show CMU and Cornell pretty close in the various engineering subjects and CS (and CMU is not behind in every non-CS area). But it is the case that MIT (not Cornell) is usually the first target in the region for traveling recruiters.</p>
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<p>This doesn’t contradict what CRD claimed at all. He is an MIT alum three times over, and as such knows (as well as anybody) that MIT is the cream of the crop for engineering schools. He simply also knows (through experience as a recruiter and otherwise) that Cornell happens to have a top 10 world-class engineering college. This college sits right in the middle of a world-class university that has many diverse strengths that in many ways exceeds what CMU has to offer (CS notwithstanding).</p>
<p>Just a thought. If he’s visiting Carnegie Mellon, you could also visit Case Western. They have a good engineering program plus a business school. He could qualify for merit aid and although I do not know how many Jewish students they have, Cleveland has a big Jewish community.</p>
<p>Another school my D liked was Bucknell but I’m not sure it qualifies in a Jewish community.</p>
<p>Thanks, deb922. We actually registered for a full day at Bucknell over Veterans Day weekend, but I am re-thinking that for a few reasons. We are going to go to SUNY Binghamton, just for an in-state safety.</p>
<p>Chardo: We passed the University of Alabama table at a college fair last weekend. I mentioned to DS that they give great merit aid. He looked at me like I was crazy - Alabama? Long Island bias again. Part of who we are. Can’t help it. I’m sure it’s a great school.</p>
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<p>It’s more complicated than that. At MIT, about 50% of SB students go on to grad school. So that decreases an already pretty small student population even more. Of the students pursuing employment, certain high-profile industries target MIT (banking, consulting, hedge funds, VC, Google, etc) and get their pick of the top remaining students. Industry gets the table scraps (granted, those tend to be pretty good table scraps). If you’re not offering high-profile money, recruiters tend to avoid MIT for that reason.</p>
<p>That said, it’s a pretty good position to be in as an MIT student. The recruiters that come to campus are ones that are virtually impossible to talk to as an Auburn or Lehigh student, and those recruiters are paying a premium.</p>
<p>Even if the same recruiter goes to MIT and Lehigh, they’re not hiring for the same position. There’s a big difference between being assigned to work in a remote plant or factory vs. being on the fast track and assigned to work at the corporate headquarters in R&D. You’ll have very different careers from those two starting points.</p>
<p>^ Thanks for the interesting and informative post BanjoHitter.</p>
<p>LINYMOM, it seems like you have the right idea already. It’s a balance between choosing the school with the best academic reputation, and choosing a school that DS likes and can excel in. Good luck!</p>
<p>Just to make sure I don’t leave any wrong impressions, I’m a big fan of CMU. I’m just a bigger fan of Cornell in my technical area. Being the 3rd stop in the northeast is nothing to sneeze at. Lehigh is very well respected too. </p>
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<p>The market value for MIT engineers is higher however than for most other schools so we do have to pay more. There is no shortage of recruiting at MIT. The last career fair a few weeks ago was mobbed. We pay extra to be on the first floor because many students don’t even get to the second floor. We do recruit at other well known schools also for the same jobs and it’s often the case that I can find grads from other schools that are equally strong for the same position. The salary however is set by HR and MIT engineers can command a premium because of both higher expectations and the competitive market. They come back with bona fide higher offers, and it’s hard for HR to argue that they are not worth it. This doesn’t happen as often with students from other schools, but it sometimes does.</p>
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<p>I agree with this.</p>
<p>Also, I found your follow-up to BanjoHitter’s last post to be more interesting reading about MIT’s stature.</p>
<p>I’ve found this thread very interesting.</p>
<p>Just wondering about engineering schools in the ‘west’.</p>
<p>My son visited Colorado School of Mines and loved the setting. We were told that 90% of the graduates get jobs right after graduating.</p>
<p>Haven’t read the whole thread, but Tulane no longer has an engineering school. They do still offer some engineering majors, like BME and chemical, I believe, but if your child wants to switch to a different engineering field, they won’t be able to.</p>
<p>Highly recommend Miami. I was a marine science major there, and as such, took the same math and physics as the engineering majors. A good friend just got the Singer scholarship, full ride, to study civil engineering. Loving it. Can’t beat the weather, the beauty of the campus, the arts and entertainment opportunities. </p>
<p>Son very much like yours, interested in BME, and we looked at many of your schools. Ruled out a lot because of weather and distance from home. We are in New Orleans. I thought Maryland, Pitt and CMU would be great fits for him, and are strong possibilities for grad school, as he knows there are no career options for him locally. </p>
<p>Son is currently at Bama, with a full ride in a great research honors program. Even though he is a mechanical engineering major, as they do not have BME as a major, he is doing biomedical engineering research. UAB is a good option, if he’s interested in medicine, and Birmingham is a very nice city with lots of cultural activities.</p>
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<p>Be very specific with them on their metric. Most schools have 90+% of students employed within 6 months of graduation, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. A student who graduates without a job is a lot more desperate than one still in school and will take a low paying or lower qualification position just to be employed.</p>
<p>What you care about is the percentage employed before graduation. That gives you a good perspective on how many people recruit there and how well the Career Services department works.</p>
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<p>I absolutely agree. One thing I’ve seen very clearly during this downturn is that the school makes a huge difference. Your first tier engineering schools still had plenty of hiring whereas the second and third tier schools were starved for recruiters.</p>
<p>The point of my previous post was to make the case that you see different people at top schools vs. other schools. Want to go into VC? You have virtually no chance at Lehigh. Want to go into Management Consulting? You have virtually no chance at Miami. And even within industries it varies. In addition to salary (as you mentioned), higher tier students usually get the first pick of location (New York instead of North Dakota), and roles (R&D at Phantom Works instead of quality control in a plant).</p>
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<p>excellent point!</p>
<p>^ where can you find that info?</p>
<p>I would ask at an engineering presentation or ask career services. I’m sure they have it. They are quick to provide the rates for AFTER graduation. This is a more insightful question.</p>
<p>@Chardo Usually they advertise those info during department open house. You can probably find it online also. After all, if they’re doing good in that area, it’s something they’re proud of and should be showing it off.</p>