I am going to study engineering in college and I need help choosing which school to attend. I am choosing between Villanova, Binghamton, and RPI. How do the engineering programs compare at each school? Is it worth attending one of the more expensive schools?
Other factors aside for the moment, RPI clearly stands out in this group for engineering.
Among the other factors to be considered are that all are ABET accredited and you’ll receive the same salary coming out of any of them.
Erin’s Dad, You give the impression you think all engineering schools are the same if they are ABET accredited. Yet, when I ask students at various colleges/universities (all with ABET accredited program) about things like whether the school helps with things like summer internships, there is consistency within schools and big difference between them. Students at some schools say the school does little to help; Students at other schools describe having spent summers at places like Google, Microsoft, Apple from their 1st summer onward (and having benefited from multiple on-campus job fairs and other recruiting opportunities arranged by the school). When I talk to seniors at some schools they already have secured jobs by about November. But when I talk to seniors at other schools they have not. Guess the relationship between having internships and not and getting jobs early and not. But there are other differences. In some schools, students say that what would be covered in, say, AP calc BC is covered in a matter of weeks in their school and when I talk to students in other schools they view CalcBC as comparable to early calc at their school. It is true that this is a comparison of state universities in a state with a very weak university system to some of the best engineering schools in the country. But, it is clear that there are pretty dramatic differences in the quality and the rigor of engineering program (despite being ABET accredited) and, relatedly, in the doors that are opened by the experience they get on their journey to their degree.
RPI is stronger academically than the other two and has an excellent reputation in the industry in terms of engineering. Villanova costs the same, so between those 2 I’d definitely choose RPI. (Full disclosure: my daughter is an engineering student there.)
Now if you’re in state for NY and money is a concern, and you don’t get much aid from RPI, then SUNY Binghamton is probably a better choice. Have you already been accepted to these? Any scholarships?
@lostaccount you make some good points. Certainly some schools do a better job with internships and coops which lead to more opportunities. But as a team lead with hiring authority I know we don’t pay anything more for a Mech E coming out of MIT vs. one coming out of East Carolina U. And hiring can be affected by course selection as much as anything else. It might be a good idea for the OP to check out the course catalogs for each U to see what options are available for engineering emphasis (like Aero within Mech).
RPI hands down. Not even remotely close. It is a way better school than the high acceptance rate implies. I don’t know why it is not flooded with applications. Probably suffers from not being in a great location, IDK. But those of us who were engineering students once hold it in very very high regard.
My first degree was in engineering. I changed over to wall street immediately after the MBA and at least when I would interview quants for roles in my groups, I was most certainly biased in favor of kids who went to Caltech, MIT, UCLA, Berkeley, Stanford, etc. The partner who managed our group was also from MIT. I never got to interview anyone from RPI but I would have held them in the same regard as a Berkeley grad.
Its not just the curriculum. It is also the quality of your peers, the rigorousness of the program, the school’s resources and your own determination to compete with the best and be at the most prestigious of those places that also matter. However, if the price tags are very different then that needs to be weighed as well. How much extra do you have to pay for RPI?
My son applied to 2 of those 3. Toured the two he applied to.
Wife graduated from Bing and steers him away from Bing.
We visited because it was cheap and on way home from dropping my other son
off at another nearby college. I was not impressed with Bing Engineering,
but for a liberal arts college with a small engineering program I am sure it’s fine.
Some might prefer a small engineering program where the profs will know your name.
I prefer a bigger program where they have more profs, more classes to pick from,
more like minded students. Bing is not small but Watson is tiny.
That said, there may be a big cost differential, you need to see how that works out.
Buffalo is another inexpensive option that is good for engineering.
Naturally US News is not the be all and end all in terms of ratings but it is a starting point. Villanova’s engineering is rated at 11 for undergraduate engineering programs that don’t offer a doctoral program. Buffalo is 63rd for undergraduate engineering programs that do offer a doctoral program. RPI is rated at 31 for undergraduate engineering programs in schools that do offer a doctoral program. None of the others mentioned by the OP are even in the top 100. Some people say that the department ratings don’t matter for undergraduate students. I completely disagree. They give an indication about things like resources in the department, success at grantsmanship, success of faculty in terms of being known in their area, etc. Those are important to both graduate and undergraduate students because they reflect opportunities for both. If it were on eof my kids and there were choices, I’d rather one of the programs in the top 100 were selected.