<p>Hi everybody!!</p>
<p>I am currently a senior who is interested in ChemE. Resident of Texas. I have pretty competitive scores and gpa. I've taken loads of ap classes and I'm involved in many extracurriculars with some leadership. My ideal choice is ut Austin but my dream school is Stanford. Any advice or suggestions??</p>
<p>Thank youuuu</p>
<p>Read <a href=“Before you ask which colleges to apply to, please consider - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1621234-before-you-ask-which-colleges-to-apply-to-please-consider-p1.html</a> .</p>
<p>You want to set up reach, match and safety schools. Obviously Stanford is hardly ever considered a match. Perhaps Texas is a match/reach. Set up your parameters. Where would you consider travelling for school? Is cost an issue? Do you want competitive sports programs? The from there, you can select from rankings. So you might see something like Stanford, Texas, Delaware for top 10 schools. The you can move into top 10-20s for matches, places like Georgia Tech, NC State, Florida (I had classmates who went to Stanford and Minnesota for PhDs), Ohio State. And then Texas A & M and Houston since you are I instate and solid programs. And you want to visit as many campuses as you can.</p>
<p>UW-Madison is #8 in ChemE and is top-20 overall in Engineering, according to US News. Out of State tuition isn’t too bad compared to some other flagships. </p>
<p>Texas is likely either a safety (top 7% rank for automatic admission + meeting any additional engineering requirements) or a reach (not an automatic admit) for admission (of course, affordability needs to be checked).</p>
<p>Minnesota is also highly regard for chemical engineering, while having a low out-of-state price.</p>
<p>I think if I apply to UT Austin, I’ll have seat with my name on it (God willing). I am auto admit. Cost is sorta an issue (no money for >40k fees) but my parents said that if I get to ut engineering they’d pay no problemo. My sat is 2210 (800 M, 720 CR, 690 WR). Took two subject tests (math 2 and bio m) and got perfect scores. The only problem is ut giving me my first choice major since ChemE is highly competitive there</p>
<p>Texas A&M
U Minnesota-Twin Cities
U Wisconsin
Rice U
U Michigan</p>
<p>Another concern is hire-ability after graduation. I heard that companies prefer grads out of Big Ten(UT, GA Tech) schools rather than private institutions (Rice)</p>
<p>Neither UT Austin nor Georgia Tech is in the Big Ten, although they are large state universities which may be attractive to employers looking for volume that they won’t find at very small schools.</p>
<p>UT Austin is about $27,000 per year for Texas residents and about $52,000 per year for others. Assuming that you are a Texas resident in the top 7% of your high school class, and your parents can afford $40,000 per year, then it should be a safety if you are admitted to your desired engineering major. However, <a href=“Undergraduate Admissions”>Undergraduate Admissions; suggests that admission to an engineering major not be automatic:</p>
<p><a href=“Undergraduate Admissions”>Undergraduate Admissions;
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<p>You may want to ask directly for clarification about whether additional criteria are needed beyond a top 7% rank.</p>
<p>If you are an automatic admit for UT Austin, then you are also an automatic admit for Texas A&M, which has both chemical engineering and petroleum engineering and is less expensive than UT Austin.</p>
<p>Big Ten:
Northwestern
Michigan
Wisconsin
Illinois
Minnesota
Penn State
Purdue
Indiana
Ohio State
Iowa
Michigan State
Nebraska</p>
<p>Maryland and Rutgers are also joining the conference soon… but it might be a while before most people think of them as Big Ten schools.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus I know it isn’t auto admit but I was wondering if I’d have a good chance of getting in there versus other schools. Like what schools would be within reach for me?</p>
<p>I got into Minnesota, you will have no problem.</p>
<p>UT and A&M are very highly regarded ChemE programs. Either is better than many of the other choices above. TAMU is better with the money, though.</p>
<p>Which is better though, UT or A&M?</p>
<p>Which is better, chocolate or vanilla? It all depends upon who you ask and their personal opinions. S1 eventually chose OU for the free ride, but we looked closely at both in-state schools. He liked UT’s campus better. I sat through A&M’s presentation for potential Engineering kids and they are really pumping a lot into growing the program even bigger. UT may be a couple of spots rated higher on a few ratings, but they are so close that it is meaningless. If your play is to go to grad school no matter what, then go wherever the best money is for an ABET school. If you just want the BS and a job in the oil business, then you cannot go wrong with either Texas big school. Better to stay in an oil producing region if you really want to do oil as your name suggests.</p>
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<p>Who did you hear that from? (addressing Big Ten portion mainly). Have you investigated university websites to see what corporations recruit from specific campuses? </p>
<p>My dh and our oldest ds are both chemEs. Both are significantly beyond the “avg” level for their respective places in their careers. Both deal with new hires (our ds is a 2011 grad and he actually goes to campuses and recruits co-ops a few days every yr since he was a co-op student.) </p>
<p>I can tell you that both of them say that recruiting is active regionally and nationally and at schools a lot of people have never even heard of before. When corporations recruit regionally and have good experiences with those grads, they start recruiting from there nationally. Being a highly successful, recruited engineer does not require massive debt or top ranked school. It takes going to an ABET school where you can co-op (if you want a job at graduation, co-op. It is a no brainier decision.) Have a high GPA. Ds was actively recruited his last semester and had 4 excellent offers to choose from. He and his fellow grads who were able to choose amg multiple offers shared 2 common factors: 12 months of co-op experience(where he earned something like 2/3 of his post degree salary, plus full benefits, plus scholarship $$ each semester until graduation. They offered him a job at grad but he took a different one. It is win-win) and a 3.5+ GPA (that seemed to be the threshold for interviewing.)</p>
<p>If you know a company you want to work for, go to their website and see what info they have posted about co-ops and new hires. If you have a school you like and can afford, go to their website and see who recruits there. If you want to work for local company, call their HR dept and ask what schools they recruit from. But whatever you do, don’t choose a school bc someone not related to industry and hiring told you something. Do your homework. It is your future. </p>
<p>@Torveaux I am aiming for a job in the oil business but a BS isn’t enough for me. I want to move up the corporate ladder so continuing my education is necessary. </p>
<p>@Mom2aphysicsgeek How long would co-ops typically last and when would the optimal time be to apply for them?</p>
<p>That’s some on the mark advice from Mom2aphysics and you should take heed. And get rid of the notion that you should base your college decision on what school is a member of what ATHLETIC CONFERENCE. Would you turn down an offer from Cal Tech or Carnegie Mellon because they aren’t in the Big Ten Conference? I don’t think so. And by the way, if admission to UT-Austin and TAMU are iffy, then consider Texas Tech for ChE as well, unless you find Lubbock unappealing. Fairly strong ChE faculty at TTU, from what I see.</p>
<p>Getting on to co-ops…
Co-ops vary depending on the company. Many, maybe most, have a 6-month minimum duration, meaning you’ll be working during the school year. Some companies have school-year co-ops specifically for locally based engineering students. But schools with national reputations are able to get their kids jobs pretty much anywhere. Another option is the company internship, which typically is limited to the summer months. At some companies internships and co-ops are the same thing and indistinguishable. </p>
<p>I know nothing about the petroleum industry. I would suspect the best schools for recruiting would be the ones which offer petroleum engineering and chemical engineering degrees. </p>
<p>As far as cooping, it really depends on the school. My ds’s school offered 12 straight months of cooping. Some do it alternating semesters, so you would coop fall, attend spring, coop summer, attend fall, coop spring. The issue with the alternating semester system is you have to make sure you stay on the correct sequence for fall or spring only classes.</p>
<p>Engineers should definitely expect pay for their cooping. </p>
<p>As far as when, again, I would look at the coop/career office of specific universities. They form agreements with industry. Our ds graduated in 7 academic semesters and cooped before his last 3. His third semester was a summer session where he took humanities courses he had postponed taking. He had his job offers secured before May.</p>
<p>ChemE coop students should expect over $3000/mo and often much more–up to over $6000/mo</p>
<p>If you are interested in co-ops, take a look at Drexel’s website. You may or may not want to go there, but I found a lot of info on how they worked using Drexel’s site.</p>
<p>If you are thinking management I would check with people currently in that business, but you may want to consider adding an MBA on top of the BS rather than (or in addition to) an MS or PhD. </p>
<p>My kid wants to do research, so he is thinking PhD from the get-go. He will likely get an MS at OU and then go to more of a ‘name’ school for his PhD.</p>
<p>Another thing he found doing campus visits was the sub-sections of ChemE that were emphasized at different schools. Auburn, for example, seemed to focus a lot on ChemE as it applied to the wood/wood pulp business. OU and the Texas schools seemed to focus more on the oil business.</p>
<p>Most Big-10 schools are not in oil producing areas, so you may not get as many internship and other direct interactions with future employers at those schools. But, at the end of the day, the big employers are going to recruit at top schools and the Big 10 schools are all fairly high on the academic reputation scale.</p>