My DD has been accepted to all of these institutions (and a few others, smh). How do you figure out which one to attend? Assume there is no scholarship $$ to be had at any of these except RPI with covered about 40% of tuition costs. 1 year attendance costs with room and board as follows:
MIT $67342
Cornell $69584
GT $45970
UMich $58952
VaTech $41110
RPI $67265—> $38265 with scholarship
So the difference here between the least expensive, RPI and the most expensive, MIT is 29k/yr…so approx. $120k for the 4 years ($150k if it takes 5 years to complete).
But more than just the cost of the various schools, which one would you choose and why?
MIT is the no-brainer if cost and location are not factors. I would probably eliminate the last two (VT and RPI) though. . GT would be my choice if cost and location are considered. But it’s just me :)>-
I think you need to look beyond the simple things (i.e. MIT is ranked highest, Cornell is Ivy, RPI is cheapest etc…).
What type of school does she want? Big vs little – there is a huge spread between Michigan and RPI in size…
Rural vs big city (there is a HUGE difference between Blacksburg and Cambridge).
What are her end goals – grad school (MS/PHD), industry, etc… and what is her major and how does that major and end goal align with the school’s curriculum and direction. MIT is catering to a somewhat different mission than VaTech.
One piece of advice I NEVER see on CC is to actually look at the curriculum for the intended major. Most of the schools will have a lot of similarities but there will be differences. Chart out in excel how the courses are layed out for your intended major and what options you might want to be able to explore. What advanced level electives are there in likely areas of interest? Does the program have the breadth and depth in interest areas, etc… If you don’t have a clue about some of this, then how easy will it be to alter plans (change major, etc) later.
And can you manage to visit some or all of these (if you haven’t already). I think a folks (not saying that’s the case here) apply blindly to a lot of schools based solely upon things like ranking without really considering the pros/cons of that school or even getting basic info. Every school my DD has applied to this year is reporting double digit increases in applications so this seems rampant as there aren’t 20% more seniors this year than least year.
She did apply to a whole string of highly ranked schools in succession (i.e. #3-#8 inclusive in her area of interest) but for all but one of them we had either visited or at least had done basic research about the + and -s of the school and have it in a spreadsheet. We did that last one pretty much blind at the deadline just because we saw we had hole in the list… With this in hand, we knew our rough order of preference prior to any of the acceptances coming in.
two more of the checkoff items from the spreadsheet…
climate – Ann Arbor and Atlanta have wildly different weather
easy of access – ATL vs a 4 hour drive to the nearest hub airport…
We used the climate/access/size/metro area as initial grading to understand pros/cons and then looked at the programs in detail. Program is our #1 factor (i.e. our first choice is based on the program it offers – but we know the cons that go with that college).
yup…we’ve got at least 6 different spreadsheets. The more investigation we do, the more mindboggling it becomes. DD wants to major in aerospace engineering (not opposed to mechanical with aero minor, like at Cornell) and is also interested in NAME which is double major of Naval architecture and marine engineering. VaTech had a very cool double major of aerospace and ocean engineering with encompasses NAME. DD is also waiting to hear from the US Naval Academy.
I’ll look at our spreadsheets and see if I need to add any more data columns as you suggested @atxfather
I find a 2d weighted decision matrix to be helpful. list each school in the rows, create a bunch of criteria in the columns. Assign a grade for each school/criteria. Do this without weighting the criteria at all. If you don’t like being cold then Ann Arbor, Ithaca, Troy all get low scores… If you want to be a school with big time Athletics, give Mich the highest score. If you don’t like following orders from upperclassmen than Annapolis gets a negative score.
Then you start doing analysis by assigning overall weights to the criteria (columns) and sum up the score for each row.
What I find normally happens is don’t get the answer you initially expected. It then causes you to think about the criteria in detail. What haven’t you explicitly listed. Can you buy a heavier coat for example and lower the penalty for the cold climate. How important is straight aero vs the aero minor vs a double major? Adjust the weights in a different what-if. rinse-repeat until what comes out feels right.
google weighted decision matrix – you should find better instructions and likely a blank excel or some tools to get you started.
The key point is that I find that you end up driving the answer by adjusting the criteria (adding/deleting or changing the weights) until the answers feel like the right thing. What that really tells you in the end is “what you wanted to hear” but then you can read the weights and criteria scores and have some idea of “why” you got there beyond just it’s what you wanted to hear
First of all, congrats!
I would personally pick Georgia Tech > MIT > University of Michigan > Cornell > RPI > VaTech. GT because I like the location and it is not as expensive. I’m thinking about going into biomedical engineering… so yeah.
This is one of the few cases where its difficult for me not to pick MIT over everyone else, but I have to agree that if your full pay, GT is an awfully tempting university. If money isn’t an issue, MIT is generally recognized as the best engineering school in the world…
Serious props to your DD for all the hard work that went into such amazing options! I’m a big believer in fit and feel. Students who feel their school is a “fit” and feel at home perform better.
OP Just so you know, your violating the rules here by posting the same question in multiple forums. Should be posted just in the college selection forum.
@CU123 oh I’m so sorry I didn’t know there was such a rule! I was just trying to get different perspectives of the different schools. if it must be moved, that’s fine. my apologies
You can eliminate a few first. For example, when I look at the list, MIT beats Cornell in every way, so Cornel eliminated. GT beats Michigan and VaTech in most ways, so those two eliminated. Now only 3 remaining: MIT, GT, or RPI.
MIT – most prestigious, urban, cold, competitive students, no big time sports, most expensive
GT – prestigious, urban, warm, less competitive students, big time sports, medium expensive
RPI – less prestigious, rural/small town, cold, cooperative students, small classes, no big time sports, least expensive
Based on the schools your daughter applied to, I think she’ll value the prestige and probably don’t care too much about sports and weather, so she will probably end up at MIT. Prepare the extra $22,000 / yr.
MIT and RPI are the most flexible for changing majors. GaTech has very specific rules about changing majors,
and limits the number of times one can change. At GaTech, both Mechanical engineering and Industrial engineering
require higher GPAs to transfer into those two departments … MIT’s programs across all majors are designed to be completed in 4 years, unless a student has failed a number of classes or taking very light loads. MIT has the most rigorous core science program, and she must take chemistry, biology, a year of physics and math or place out of those, in freshman year. Urban planning majors at MIT must take biology. MIT used to have very light labs for
all the freshman sciences, I don’t know if thats still the case, but they are classes to focus on the knowledge and labs come later in your major at MIT. All other colleges, if you take intro chemistry, you do hard labs. Intro biology? Its a lab class!
At a Georgia native, I am very familiar with GT. I also have a son who will be applying to a number of the same schools next fall. I am unfamiliar with RPI so I cannot comment on that. If it were me, I would narrow it down to GT and MIT, revisit if necessary and let your daughter choose her favorite. Both are amazing top 5 or less engineering schools. Both are urban with amazing alumni networks. Both are highly regarded and have awesome internship opportunities. MIT of course has more name recognition outside of the industry but inside I think they are very comparable. GT has a strong abroad program if you are interested - we haven’t visited MIT yet . I do not think you could go wrong with either. Unless she loves the feel of one of the others or money is a priority I would cross the others off the list.
