<p>Marie - we have the exact same question at our house. D has gotten a near free ride to UMass Lowell too. She is planning on Civil engineering. Didn’t apply to UMass Amherest as had zero interest. UMass Lowell was a total safety school as she had already been accepted to Penn State when she submitted the application. I only wanted her to submit it because I wanted her to have a fallback position if something prevented her from going away. Then they gave her the money and admitted her to honors and suddenly she actually considering going there. </p>
<p>To her UMass Lowell is very tempting because it would give her absolute financial freedom during school for extras like spring break trips, junior year abroad, new car, andthen grad school and beyond. She has been admitted everywhere she’s applied including RPI and Virginia Tech - two highly ranked schools. But UMass Lowell never seems to fall off the list. We are going to attend the accepted students day and see what she thinkgs then.</p>
<p>My fear is that she will miss out on a “real” college experience that she could have at Penn State or Virginia Tech.</p>
<p>Two of my cousins went to umass lowell. One for undergrad in ee and math, and another for a masters in cs. The one who went for undergrad then went to umass amherst for a phd in ee, but is going to end up leaving with a masters due to his advisor leaving. </p>
<p>Anyway, they both didn’t really have trouble finding jobs and are currently working.</p>
<p>I think the most important thing is how your kid feels about each school. I know that when I toured schools before deciding on my number one choice that the intangibles were a big part of my decision. So when I was visiting Purdue on a school day, I felt at home and like I belonged there. I just suggest visiting all the schools that your kid has been accepted to and see how he feels about them.</p>
<p>I don’t have any experience with these schools, so I’m just offering a general piece of advice.</p>
<p>Looking at the USNEWS 2010 (one year old) undergraduate engineering rankings, UMass-Amherst is ranked 51st, Northeastern 57th, and WPI 64th for general engineering. Even if the latter 2 are more well-known as overall universities, it doesn’t seem like their engineering prestige is that much greater, so I would definitely take UMass-Amherst for less than half the price.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/769210-complete-usnews-2010-undergrad-engineering-rankings-phd-granting-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/769210-complete-usnews-2010-undergrad-engineering-rankings-phd-granting-schools.html</a></p>