<p>Wondering if anyone with direct knowledge of both universities' engineering schools had an opinion about which is the better value for a Pennsylvania resident. The Alabama scholarship covers four years of tuition and admission to their honors college. There's also an additional $2500 a year for being admitted to engineering. This is for a strong math student (770 on the math portion of the SAT with no prep; 4.0 in all high school math classes through advanced Calc 2). He just recently got interested in engineering (due to some parental prodding and the desire to be able to enter the workforce with just a bachelor's degree), so he could change his mind and switch majors. Right now he's admitted to both universities as an undeclared engineering major. He's also applied to several selective LACs with strong math and computer science departments, a few of which also offer ABET engineering. Thanks!</p>
<p>As an engineer, I’d go with full ride at Bama. Penn State is a good school but not great enough to justify the cost. Both schools have similar college game day type environments so I don’t think he’d sacrifice anything socially. Both are well known in the US. Though he’s not stuck on engineering, he seems to really enjoy math which leads me to believe he’ll have a STEM job and he can get a job almost anywhere.</p>
<p>Thanks, nova. Bama is not a full ride for him, however. We’d still be paying for room and board, and the travel costs would be higher, obviously. The college game day environment doesn’t hold much sway for him either; he likes sports, but it’s not a big deal to him one way or the other. He’s really more of an arts guy and has no interest in joining a fraternity, thus his interest in LACs and why he didn’t apply to any of the smaller engineering or tech schools.</p>
<p>Is one school better than the other in terms of arts and culture? If money weren’t an issue for us, he would have applied to Berkeley, UCLA and Wisconsin, which have more of the vibe I think he’s looking for. Thanks, again!</p>
<p>Well, what is he looking for, really? He needs to determine which aspects of either school appeal to him. I’d start with a close examination of the Department he wants to join. Chemical Engineering is reputedly good at Penn State. The Alabama Mechanical Engineering Department has relationships with Daimler Benz USA. Each school has its strengths. Also, don’t underestimate the advantage of graduating with relatively little debt. Finally, you should send a private message to Momof2collegekids. She is an expert on all things U of Alabama (Tuscaloosa).</p>
<p>Lake, believe me, I am well versed in All Things Alabama. The posters over in their forum are enormously helpful. The Penn State forum is helpful, too, but both schools have their ardent boosters and I’m trying to get some objective input from folks familiar with both schools. They are my son’s safety schools, but may be his best options at the end of the day, and we’ll be visiting each for the first time in the next few weeks. Both are great schools, but neither was what my son was looking for originally. As I said, he’s not even positive about engineering, let alone settled on a specific discipline. Penn State is higher ranked in general, but is it worth the price difference?</p>
<p>If not sure about engineering, he and you may want to ask:</p>
<p>a. If he switches out of engineering, how will the scholarship amount change?
b. What other potential majors would he consider, and how are those majors at Alabama vs. Penn State?</p>
<p>Thanks, ucb. He’d lose the engineering scholarship, but that’s it. If he switched out, I’m guessing he’d major in math or maybe information systems, but who knows for sure? Penn State has some really cool majors in their College of Information Systems that might be a good fit, so that’s something we need to see if Bama offers as well, but I’m gathering, based on the lack of responses here, that there’s nothing inherently superior about PSU that justifies paying an extra $50,000 for. </p>