<p>We will be visiting schools with S during spring break in March. This is the first kid interested in engineering (mechanical) so our experience in this area is limited. What are some of the key things to look for and questions we should be asking to help evaluate the programs? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Look for ABET accreditation.</p>
<p>re: ABET-- Not necessarily, with mechanical engineering, unless your son wants to get his PE license, which typically isn't required for mechanical engineers (unless they do things like plumbing and A/C-heating plans).</p>
<p>Look at USNews... don't scrutinize the exact rankings, but pick the top twenty or so, then look at the individual colleges and see which ones are appealing to your son. Any of the top twenty or thirty ranked universities will provide a good education, but if your son isn't happy where he goes to college, he's not going to thrive there.</p>
<p>1) Amount of labs?
Controls lab? Internal Combustion Engines lab? Fluids lab? Thermal/Fluids lab? Robotics lab? Do undergraduates take classes in these labs? All of the labs or just some of them?</p>
<p>Machine shop: More than one? Level of student access? CNC machines? All manual machines?</p>
<p>2) Level of club activity? Formula SAE? Formula Baja? Human Powered Vehicle? Super mileage? </p>
<p>3) Professors - talk to 5 or 6. Do they seem approachable? I've generally found that nicer professors are better professors. Thick accents? Start docking points.</p>
<p>Ooh. Good points, Payne. Seconding that...</p>
<p>my-3-sons. I am in MA and just went through this with S2, a complete turnaround from son1 who had a more typical major in mind. Engineering is really different, from what I have learned. Most engineering programs are located in large private or state universities (I believe it is costly to keep the equipment, professors, etc. that good engineering programs need), or in strong, technical science/engineering schools while a few are in "LAC style" settings, but not many. You must set foot on a few campuses to help your son decide if he prefers the technical style school, the very large campus or maybe wants the more LAC style. The technical schools, RPI, WPI, MIT, etc. have a very different feel, different student body, for the most part balanced towards males (maybe not MIT) and are more focused on engineering/sciences. They can offer great liasons, projects, internships, equipment/labs, professors, research opportunities, etc. But, the social setting is different. The larger state and private programs (Northeastern, UMich, UMass) offer bigger student bodies and more diversity of opportunity outside of engineering, a consideration if you think he might not stay in engineering or if he has many interests outside of engineering, but they are quite large schools for the most part. You will also find engineering at the Ivies. Some programs are quite small and attract (as we heard repeatedly) many pre-med students, some students who want to go into IBanking and about 1/3 who want to be engineers. The larger, broader engineering programs like Columbia and Cornell attract a lot of top students from around the world and are very strong engineering programs for engineers.</p>
<p>Does your son have a particular area of engineering he is interested in? Not all schools have all types of engineering so you might want to be mindful of that. Some may have mechanical but not aerospace, etc. Is your son interested in working right after his bachelor's or is he more interested in pursuing a graduate degree (research oriented bachelor's). Some schools are better feeders to industry and some are better feeders for graduate schools and some do a little of both. You might ask what percentage of students go to work after graduation, to graduate school, etc. If he is interested in graduate programs in engineering, he should find out where the students go on, typically - what kinds of schools. Nearly all schools we looked at assured us that they were ABET accredited. With ABET accreditation, the curriculum required is the same across all schools even though bigger schools with more engineering concentrations have broader curriculum choices. Some schools have a very minimal program or a more general engineering program (Swarthmore is one that emphasizes a general engineering degree,). </p>
<p>Some of the best engineering schools are not the schools one reads about most on CC. For example, Georgia Tech is a very highly regarded engineering school but certainly not high on USNews ranking. You have to leave the CC view of "best schools" behind a bit. You can check the USNew & World engineering rankings although there is another ranking (can't remember the name) that many here felt was more valid re: engineering. Schools will vary in their rankings based on the type of engineering (mechanical versus chemical, for example). </p>
<p>You might ask your son what he is expecting to do at college. The technical schools have fewer clubs, activities, etc or at least less diverse ones. </p>
<p>Classicrockerdad and a few others answered some questions for me about how recruiters viewed students from different schools. If you cannot find those posts, let me know, I might have them. </p>
<p>Oh, some of the smaller, more LAC schools we found in the NE area included Tufts, Villanova, Lehigh and Lafayette but two of them do not offer more than a Bachelor's degree in engineering. </p>
<p>My son refused to apply to some we thought he should have. In the beginning he was sure he would attend the same school his older cousins attended - until he visited. I strongly recommend that you visit - they are all so different. Take advantage of the engineering tour days - most schools have them. You will see the facilities, maybe even meet some of the professors, or the dean of engineering. For smaller programs, don't wait for the summer - we visited one school in the summer and had to peek through the window in the door to see the facilities - yet it was an all engineering school. We did not look too far beyond PA but there are obviously many good choices outside of the NE area. </p>
<p>Another is to view the data sets carefully as opposed to the combined admission rates for gender specific information. The admissions statistics for female applicants are often quite different than for men so averages can be deceiving. There is an interesting website where you can search out some of this information: </p>
<p>Good luck. This is just a Mom's experience with engineering. You should certainly get some input from engineers, some students, and walk on some campuses, definitely do the engineering tours/presentations. I sat through one Dean's presentation and suddenly wanted to become an engineer. It's been an interesting experience!</p>
<p>I wanted to add that there are a lot of international students and professors in most of the engineering programs. Some of the larger schools had entry level classes with hundreds of students - physics, etc, with TAs, for weekly smaller meetings. If this will work for your son, great, if not, you may want to think about a smaller program. Northeastern impressed me with how they have designed their program for kids to be successful in a large environment by assigning mentors, small groups, and living arrangements where groups of engineering students live amid other students but have study groups. They emphasized their desire to keep kids from dropping out of engineering freshman year. I don't know how it works in action - but it sounded good! </p>
<p>Is your son involved in any "engineering" type activities at school or outside of school? If not, consider seeking a summer job or research activity in the field. I spoke to a several admissions officers/deans who told me they look for evidence of outside passion for engineering or evidence that the student knows what engineering really is.</p>
<p>Thanks for the great info, I'm printing it out to pass on to him. He is not the strictly techie school type, so we are dealing with larger universities.</p>
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He is not the strictly techie school type, so we are dealing with larger universities.
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<p>A non-techie school type university? Well, I can't resist an opportunity to recommend Rice, now, can I? ;)</p>
<p>Rice</a> University</p>
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Georgia Tech is a very highly regarded engineering school but certainly not high on USNews ranking.
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<p>What?? Since when is Ga Tech not high on the US News ranking? Its college of engineering is 5th!</p>
<p>One of my son's best friends is going to Rose Hulman. My DH went there for his undergrad degree (mechanical), and he went to Purdue for his master's and Ph.D. One of the things that S's friend likes about Rose Hulman is the phenomenal teaching. It's totally undergraduate focused because there is no graduate program there. He's comparing what he's been learning to some friends of ours who are in state engineering programs here in Florida, and they're constantly telling him, "whoa, we won't be getting to that until ..." Except for the fact it's in Terre Haute, and he's a Floridian (ouch), he loves the school.</p>
<p>zebes</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is what he wants to do after he receives the engineering degree. Also look for a program that is going to help him with job placement as well.</p>
<p>Quote:
Georgia Tech is a very highly regarded engineering school but certainly not high on USNews ranking.
What?? Since when is Ga Tech not high on the US News ranking? Its college of engineering is 5th!
lol.. I noticed that too.. I guess this person doesn't consider a ranking of number 5 as high?</p>
<p>Oh, I am sorry - I meant that in terms of the more common thinking of "top schools" - as in the top 25 USNews in general, not the specific engineering rankings. For me, I had to make the switch from thinking about rankings in general to rankings in engineering- of course. No dis on Georgia Tech at all! My apologies.</p>
<p>Another factor is the difference between schools that only offer undergrade engineering and those that go through Ph'd. </p>
<p>We found that at the larger schools, all the cool stuff and best teacher really were associated with the grad school. Where as the staff at undergrad engineering only schools were much more focused and interested, with a higher retention rate.</p>
<p>Do visit, and don't visit in summer. Engineering schools and Engineering students really do vary.</p>
<p>Do look at retention rate and avoid the "weed out schools." They'll shred your sole.</p>