<p>Plus, these are 3 very, very different schools. It is unlikely that after he visits, that all will appeal equally. 1 or 2 may be obvious standouts, others he might strongly dislike.</p>
<p>My sons did not like Cornell. A few hours visits and that was it. Cornell off the plate. So it can depend greatly on the kids. My feeling is that CalTech has the strongest rep and the biggest name cache in terms of schools, but my experience has been that engineering majors do not have a lot of different opportunities due to the schools where they attended. One very prestigious firm that our close friend partnered, had engineers from every school in the country and out with many names of schools, I did not recognize. It’s not like a white shoe law firm or NYC investment banking firm.</p>
<p>^^ Does your friend’s firm do aerospace engineering? Do they offer a starting entry level salary of $90K? Did they give all of their employees a 10% raise last year?</p>
<p>If your answer is no, then I have to say there are also some “white shoe” engineering firms.</p>
<p>Cbreeze, the answer is yes. My friend has a master’s from MIT. His partner is an IIT grad and many of the employees came from state schools. Doesn’t make a difference. He is the first to say so when it comes to an engineer major. Most other majors, he is very much a college name brand snob. He also has a Harvard MBA and will be the first to tell you that it was worth every penny. He does not feel the same about his MIT engineering degrees.</p>
<p>I am with sevmom - social fit is very important for his overall well being. Kids that are happy tend to do well, kids that are unhappy tend to not do well - at that point the school really doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>Heis very fortuante tohave great choices - good luck!!</p>
<p>Hard to say. A friend of mine went to Gtech and works in Atlanta. When his company laid off people, they kept all Gtech. He suspect reason is that all engineering goes in cycles and when they come back, they want to keep their good repuation at Gtech.</p>
<p>He also said back when he was CTO at a company going public it made a difference. They wanted good school names in prospectus.</p>
<p>Does he think he got a good education? Yes. Does he think the name matters? Yes.</p>
<p>Here is what I see, going to try and summarize it:</p>
<p>-Cal Tech is the more intense program, there is no doubt about it, it is a top ranked research university where they do cutting edge research, and they tend to attract the kind of kids who won Intel talent search awards and such, ones who are driven to the bleeding edge of things.</p>
<p>-Cal Tech on a resume will open doors more then Auburn, and especially in the kind of high flying, cutting edge type of engineering and generally those pay better. </p>
<p>If your son is very intense, if he really wants to be on the cutting edge, to be learning at a rapid pace, Cal Tech might be the better place. Though there are no guarantees, if you S comes out with 40k of debt from Calttech I suspect he would be okay handling that, given that job prospects would probably be pretty good.</p>
<p>-If on the other hand your son isn’t entirely certain he wants to do engineering, or isn’t sure that kind of environment would work for him, the full ride at auburn might be a better deal. First of all, coming out without debt in case he decides he doesn’t want to do engineering might be a blessing, if he went through 4 years at Cal Tech and decided it wasn’t for him, might be a rough transition to what he does want to do, with debt on top of that. He also could potentially switch to something at Auburn if he decides engineering isn’t it, and still have the scholarship I would assume.</p>
<p>And keep this in mind, he could go to Auburn, get his undergrad engineering degree there, and then go on to grad school at a top program. People go to places like MIT and Cal Tech having done UG other places, so if he goes to Auburn, does well and thrives, he could very well get into a top level grad program. Plus grad school often involves teaching fellowships and such, so may not cost him. </p>
<p>If I was advising my son, I would have him visit the school, talk to the kids there and decide if he wanted that kind of environment, and if he absolutely thought he wanted to go into engineering or science and loved the idea of it, I would tell him to go to Cal Tech. But he would need to be absolutely certain, because I also wouldn’t want him doing something he would be miserable in, doing a program because it offers the potential for more money for that sake alone could end up backfiring…if he had significant doubts, I would tell him to go to Auburn, and then he had the power to find what he wanted to do, and could if he wanted to enter the world of elite graduates, go to Cal Tech or MIT as a grad student…and if he didn’t, he has an education all paid for, with a lot more freedom to find himself without debt.</p>
<p>Excellent advise from musicprnt and other posters!</p>
<p>A lot would depend on how much challenge your son is wanting and capable of handling. Cornell engineering is intense, Caltech probably even more so. There are other CC families who have written about the Auburn scholarship deal - look for their posts.</p>
<p>I’m biased, but if your son likes Caltech, then it is definitly worth the extra cost. My son earned average of $11,000 each summer, and was paid for work during the year at Caltech. He never took engineering courses, and shifted his interests while in senior year. The House system was terrific for a shy child. He got very involved in several ECs, and enjoyed hiking in nearby hills. He had no rejections from grad schools, and his friends seemed to all do well. </p>
<p>Taking classes P/F for first 2 semesters helped him catch up (he’s from a no name Southern school, first to go to Caltech). He could shift to P/F late in a term, or withdraw from a class. Majors don’t have to be declared during first year, so no one gets “stuck” in a specific department. </p>
<p>I cannot compare to Auburn or Cornell. By the way, Intel winners and prior research experience were less the norm than an interest in STEM.</p>
<p>I would investigate Auburn. It’s a good engineering school. I’d ask about undergrad research opportunities for aeros, and I’d ask about internships for eng. school students too. If you find that your son could participate in a research project while doing his undergrad, that would be great IMO.</p>
<p>Let us know what he thinks about all three schools after he visits. They are soooo different.</p>
<p>When we visited Caltech, I was not sure that I liked the “house” dorm setup (sort of Hogwarts like). But my son thought it seemed neat, and I later decide that it could be a good thing. He opted not to apply due to it’s heavy emphasis on the grad school, but a small part of me had liked the idea of having an excuse to visit CA 
The campus and was beautiful and compact.</p>
<p>Cornell has a sprawling campus. Beautiful in the nice weather, but it can be brutal in the winter. Many students live off campus, so there’s a lot or walking. But exercise can be a good thing I guess when you are working your brain a lot.</p>
<p>Good advice from all above or below, depending on how you display the posts 
its all about perspective. </p>
<p>Sometimes you can extrapolate the desire of a college by how much you would be willing to pay. The opposite is perhaps can be also be said, the desire a college has for you is determined by how much they are willing to discount their standard rates.</p>
<p>Another comparison is done against your state’s engineering college. Your EFC probably indicates that your family would be fullpay, instate school, ~20,000/yr. The opportunity costs of Caltech ~ additional $34,000. Cornell ~$34,000. Auburn a gain ($30,000).</p>
<p>Another comparison is future wages of the prospect. If the student has to pay for loans, of ~500/mn ($6000/yr) this translates to a gross salary of ~$9000/yr. x N years to amortization. A beginning engineer who makes $60000/yr, would be far better off with no debt repayments vs an engineer making $66,000/yr with debt.</p>
<p>I’ve said before that our DS, whose $$$$ college was funded by our contribution to his UTMA. He has some great opportunities and mentioned that he could have saved his UTMA in favor of a ‘less’ expensive school. He has met people who are very bright and accomplished but graduated from state and less well known engineering schools. However he did not make the comparison in that he would be also full pay at our state university, thus his expected savings would be considerable less. </p>
<p>Brand recognition is valuable but hard to quantify. Also how does one value in recognition and $ for graduating near the top of your college class at Auburn, vs average at Caltech, Cornell?</p>
<p>Auburn, div 1 sports, is #1 in football, 2010, having beaten, Oregon, my state. </p>
<p>Tough choice. Congradulations.</p>
<p>Congratulations on your choices!</p>
<p>In my opinion, you should consider the 4-year and 6-year graduation rate of each college when making the decision. You can find these in Section B of the Common Data Sets for each college. Auburn’s is here: <a href=“https://oira.auburn.edu/cds/2010/sectionb.aspx[/url]”>https://oira.auburn.edu/cds/2010/sectionb.aspx</a></p>
<p>Auburn’s 4-year graduation rate was only 35.7%. As my brother earned his engineering degree there and cooped, I certainly understand that engineering graduates may take longer to graduate. However, Auburn’s 6-year graduation rate was only 66%. I knew about Auburn because I recently looked up this information for someone else; I suggest that you compare CalTech’s and Cornell’s graduation rates as well.</p>
<p>I think Caltech is worth it *if *you like it. But you have to visit and spend some time there. It’s very quirky, extremely intense. My son walked on campus and felt right at home. (However they didn’t accept him!) My husband went to grad school there, and thought that the undergrads were a little too weird. (The grad students were definitely more laid back - at least in biology.) I loved the campus and for a while I worked in one of their libraries and really enjoyed the students. </p>
<p>I don’t know Cornell except for one happy grad student there - not in engineering, but I’ve also always assumed it was worth it too.</p>
<p>I think Auburn is very highly regarded in Alabama, so if you intend to stay in that area it’s fine, but Caltech and Cornell have a much more national reputation. I think they have the edge especially if you are getting aid at them, even if it’s not a full ride. I do know the mom of a kid at Auburn in engineering. She was very upset by one of his engineering profs who is in full weeder course mode, but also extremely unhelpful and confusing. Many kids in the class are flunking and having to repeat. Our tour guide at Caltech took an extra semester to graduated, but it was because she broke her leg and had to drop a geology fieldwork course. My friend thinks Auburn is overrated and overpriced, but she did let her so go there. She thinks he’d get a better deal at U. of Al, Birmingham. Auburn is extremely rah, rah about its football.</p>
<p>The four-year graduation rate is 80.6% and the six-year rate is 88% at Caltech. Cornell’s website says their five year grad rate is 90% - it may be different by schools though.</p>
<p>If the goal is grad school, you can probably ask the grad school where their recruits come from. If the goal is a job, then you would want to find out which corporations recruit at each campus.</p>
<p>Perhaps visit the placement office and/or the Aero Eng. Dept. Ask what corporations attend their career fairs. Do they keep track of the internships that the students participate in? Even if a school is somewhat lacking in their marketing, it can be overcome. SHPE has an annual career fair that has a huge corporate presence.<br>
I also know that Auburn has an active Engineers Without Borders chapter.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the replies. They have all been helpful and we are in the process of planning visits to both Cornell and CalTech. I agree that S needs to visit to see if he likes the school culture. I think he would do well in either program… maybe not top of his class but fine nonetheless. Without the visit, he says he likes the CalTech intensity but likes the fact that Cornell is tops in many different programs. He is pretty focused on engineering right now but I know that things change and Cornell would give him different fields of study should he choose to change. We live in South Texas so I know that cold weather would be a big change for him. I’ll let everyone know what he decides. I had another talk with him tonight and told him I didn’t want him to have any regrets about his choice so he is thinking long and hard before he decides… also need to visit. </p>
<p>I know that I’ve had regrets about opportunities that I let slip by and I want him to make the right choice. I graduated high school in 1984 and had a scholarship offer from Yale… tuition and books but I would have to pay room and board. I grew up in a single parent hispanic household and Mom didn’t want me to go so I honored her wishes as I was taught. I pondered the “what ifs” for years and don’t want him to suffer the same. Thanks again for the thoughtful responses and the time you take.</p>
<p>You can teach him to weigh carefully and make the best decision he can with the info he has when it’s time to make his final choice and NOT have regrets. We all make choices and can only move forward if we learn to stop looking back and second-guessing ourselves with “what ifs” and “the road not taken.” </p>
<p>He has great options on the table and is lucky that you will support whatever choice he makes. Each of the schools is quite distinctive and remind him that if it’s hard to choose, he will have the opportunity to go to at least one more fine U for grad school. It’s also possible to do research at a U different from the one you attend. My S’s friend went to flagship U but did a summer research internship at MIT. He’s currently doing a year of research in Bangkok!</p>
<p>I’m sure he’ll do great whatever he decides!</p>
<p>Update… S was accepted to Stanford today. He will be attending Stanford if financial aid package is comparable to other schools. Can’t pass up Stanford.</p>
<p>Congrats on Stanford. D is a sophomore engineering student there and loves it. When we toured Caltech, she hated it. Couldn’t get back to the car fast enough. Didn’t even want a t-shirt. Check Stanford’s financial aid on the website. It’s very straight forward. </p>
<p>We never made it to the other schools after our trip to Stanford. She knew it was the place for her. Hopefully, your S will know where he belongs right away too. Best wishes.</p>