I was just accepted EA to Georgia Tech, which consistently ranks in the top 10 in engineering. I have also been accepted into the Honors program at my local state university, the University of Arizona. My parents, who are not engineers, were wondering whether the quality of an engineering education would be drastically different between these two schools. Also, even though finances are not of concern to my family, I could go to the U of A for basically free, while at GT I would not receive any aid. My question, basically, is this: would it be worth going to Georgia Tech for an undergraduate engineering degree over my instate option? And I know rankings aren’t everything, but how palpable of a difference is there between going to a top 10 engineering school vs one ranked significantly lower? Thanks.
Congrats!
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even though finances are not of concern to my family,
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If that is indeed the case, then go for GT. While the degree is the same and many of the courses will be the same (ABET accredited curriculum), the resources, course breadth, research opportunities, contacts, and job opportunities after college will be different, and coming from GT will give you a leg up - especially at the beginning (after 5-10 years as an engineer, your work experience will be much more important than your degree – but getting the initial work experience at the best companies is where the degree is helpful). Having said that, is it worth $X more than Arizona? That’s impossible to answer objectively as it all depends on how much X is worth to you and your family.
What engineering major are you applying for? Have you looked online and compared the specific departments of both schools and their course catalog? Also see what benefits Honors gives you at Arizona specifically for engineering.
PS. If you plan to live and work in Arizona after college, then U of A might be a decent choice since local companies will recruit there. If you want to go to another region, then GT probably gives you more opportunities.
1/2 or more of those starting as engineering majors switch to something else. So would you want to go to GT if you weren’t an engineer?
Engineering programs are acredited by ABET so they are much more alike than most people expect. You’ll take roughly the same classes for a degree anywhere. There are a handful of elites (MIT, Caltech, Stanford, etc) but there is a pretty broad middle. I’d put UofA towards the lower end of reputation with an acceptance rate of 76% overall.
In the end there is no demonstrably right answer. GT has probably a better rep. On the other hand if you got into GT (acceptance rate 25%) then the chances are you can be one of the better students at UoA if you apply yourself but may just be in the middle of the pack at GT. So who will have better job opportunities? To some degree this depends on you. If you just show up to class and get good grades, but do nothing else, probably GT. If you’re willing to get internships and take part in engineering clubs, get to know some profs, being a kid that’s noticed at UofA may have advantages that just being another bright kid at GT doesn’t have.
This all assumes, of course, that you decide engineering is really what you want to do after all (because the dropout rate is pretty high)
So if I was talking to your parents, I’d tell them this: they’re asking the wrong question. The difference in your future is not which school you pick. Kids will do wonderful out of both, and others will flounder. The difference is what’s inside you: how hard you study, how much you take advantage of opportunities. All other things being equal, GT may have an edge, but things are never equal…
An employer isn’t going to pay you a higher salary because of a GT degree. UAz has a fine eng’g program.
Each state has a vested interest in making sure it has very good eng’g programs because each state NEEDS engineers!
At my Ds first job out of school after Northwestern, she worked with engineers from MI, MI State, Carnegie Mellon, UIUC & Michigan Tech. I am sure they all started at the same salary!
I agree with @mom2collegekids ! While there is that handful of "elite"engineering programs, most employers are not going to pay you any more because of where you got you degree. I graduated from a well-recognized California program, but once I started working, I worked with graduates of a variety of programs ranging from the “top-rated” programs to those that were not as well recognized. Once you are out in the work force, nobody really stops to ask where you graduated from and sometimes the graduates of the “best” programs were not so great in the real world. It is a very personal decision and very dependent on your family finances, but I would have a hard time passing up an almost free education.
OP, my D2 attends GTech and she was an OOS (PA) applicant. I think one of the previous posters (@insanedreamer) has put it well. What I wanted to add - there are lots of folks like us (around 30% at GTech) who pay full fare to send students to the best Engineering school (UCB, UMich, UIUC, UT, UCLA, etc) that is affordable to us. If money were to be the main/only factor in this decision making process, none of us would have been doing so. Obviously it is not.
A couple things.
- Did you want to go to graduate school after undergraduate? Perhaps that should be included in a conversation with your parents. Maybe they'd be more likely to pay for graduate school if your undergraduate degree is significantly cheaper/free.
- I don't understand how people can say so definitively that going to a much better school won't get you a better salary. Especially when you're talking about Georgia Tech vs University of Arizona
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/School=University_of_Arizona/Salary
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/School=Georgia_Institute_of_Technology/Salary
Going to a top tier school vs decent school can make you more competitive for jobs. Every state might have a flagship engineering program - but that doesn’t mean they’re all equal across the US.
Factors to take into account when looking at the links in post #7:
Sample size is extremely small
1/3 of GT grads stay in Atlanta, 1/4 of AZ grads stay in Tucson. Average salary and cost of living in Tucson is far lower than Atlanta, thereby making this not an apples to apples comparison.
Even given that, many of these engineering salaries are not that far apart, and some are higher at AZ.
The question the OP needs to consider is whether the cost of GT is worth giving up other things that could be done with that money. That’s a fortunate position to be in - so many students have no choice but to go with the less expensive solution.
I agree @InigoMontoya
I’m not saying payscale data is the be-all end-all factor to consider, I know it’s a self-reported small sample. But I just thinking making blanket statements like “Graduates from different schools must make the same salaries” is perhaps a misleading statement to make, given that the data available contradicts it. It would be better to do as you said, and consider the alternate applications of the $$ saved. Things like graduate school for example, or perhaps taking a gap year to travel. Whatever OP & and their parents have discussed.
Thanks for all the replies.
@insanedreamer Although I like Arizona, I think I would want to live elsewhere later in life (California, Chicago, and the Mid-atlantic come to mind). I guess GT’s reputation would let me expand my job opportunities more than the U of A would. Oh, and I applied for Industrial Engineering, but it is very possible that that changes during college.
@mikemac I was wondering the same thing. If I decide to not pursue engineering (which is very possible), I don’t know if GT’s reputation still trumps that of the U of A. I do know that even if I don’t do engineering, I will do something STEM related (arts and humanities are not my thing). So the STEM focus at GT would not be an issue. From what you said about personality, I do fit in more with GT (show up to class, do the work, get good grades)
@philbegas If I do decide that engineering is for me, I am still unsure whether I will go to grad school. On one hand, I have heard people say that a bachelor’s in engineering is sufficient and work experience is more important than a graduate degree; however, I have also heard people say that getting a master’s gives you a leg up on an increasingly competitive job market. Med school is something I MIGHT be thinking about if I decide against engineering. But I do know that they would be willing to pay for both undergrad and grad school, if I end up going that path.
Let me rephrase my question then. Let’s say you go to Georgia Tech - and you do well and manage to graduate in 4 years (both UofA and Georgia Tech have 4-year graduation rates of around 40 percent which is a bit poor) - how much leftover money would your parents have for graduate school? They could possibly afford a full-pay 2 year program? Or will you end up being limited to in-state for it?
@philbegas Yes, they would be able to afford it.
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Graduates from different schools must make the same salaries" is perhaps a misleading statement to make, given that the data available contradicts it. It
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Are you comparing grads of all majors? If so, that would obviously not be accurate for a few reasons: GT is a techie school, so more likely their grads are going into techie positions. And, as mentioned, the cost of living in the compared areas would be different.
The fact remains that if Company A is hiring EngineeringStudent1 from GT and EngineeringStudent2 from UAz, they’ll both start at the same salary.
Depends. Are you planning to go to grad school? More specifically, do you know what you want to major in. I only ask because UA might be the better option if you end up not wanting to major in engineering and decide to switch majors; GT makes that hard considering they’re solely based on engineering.
If you are confident that you want to major in some engineering discipline, I’d go for GT. People say undergrad experience doesn’t matter, and they’re kinda right and kinda wrong. If you plan to go to grad school, I’d say go to UA, save the money, get into grad school somewhere decent (some places even pay you to attend because you’ll be TAing lower level classes) and graduate with a good job offer. If you want to get into industry ASAP and don’t really care much for scholarly work, I’d say go to GT for 4 years, try to get an internship/do research, and you’ll probably get a job offer somewhere given the prestige of the university. You kind of save the money you’d have spent on grad school because you’ll be actually working, so it somewhat evens out in the end.
@mom2collegekids Actually this is a pretty good article that I just found
Somewhat defending your point (at least for engineering majors). Perhaps U of A would not lead to a (noticeably) lower salary, especially if OP were to get a good GPA in the honors college at U of A. I would still argue against your last point. I think some companies would extend Student 1 a slightly higher offer given the prestige of the name on the diploma. But neither of us can really prove it either way.
U of A is very well known in California. You’d have the advantage of both name recognition and a huge alumni network. So I think the two schools balance out on that score as far as CA is concerned (GT has the stronger engineering brand but U of A has more local ties).
I do think that key for you is to do well at U of Az, and look early for co-op and internship opportunities. That will help you land a job right after graduating, and you can go from there on where you want to live - keep looking for opportunities to get there. That may depend on what field of engineering you go into. For example, civil engineers need to get professional engineering credentialing. Some other work areas, you may be able to begin taking some grad courses at night, or get into a MBA program.
SKA - skills, knowledge, and abilities. The WSJ article referenced states just that in regard to engineering - the skills students learn in these fields appear to trump prestige.
I do know parents that have paid for GaTech instead of our in-state options (which are very good) - because they could. It was something they were willing to do. Would I do it? No. Did I do it? No.
DD2 - civil and architectural eng double major at our state flagship with very good scholarships, is graduating on time, debt free, has had two paid summer internships including one with a global construction firm (who did on campus engineering interviewing at other area campuses - the internship slots were highly sought after). She also has had some business coursework, but clearly enjoys gaining all the expertise she can get in her eng field.
@Ariz0na Usually, if you go to a TOP notch engineering school like Georgia Tech, you can probably get a nice job right off the bat.
Another point ive heard in another post. State schools may limit a student as they want to keep the entire system in line. If one state school was ahead of another in terms of engineering timelines (core classes and speciality classes), nobody would go to the other schools.
After saying that, Don’t trust my word completely. Do some research for yourself, usually checking the Return on Investment of each college.
Hope it helps
My son had almost exact same situation accepted to GT and UA. Smaller scholarship for GT and pretty much full ride at UA.
He chose UA. Aerospace engineering. He figured he could use his 529 for grad school. And there were smaller reasons he didn’t want GT. He didn’t want to be a little fish in a big pond and the honors college and “pave your own way” opportunities at UA were a huge draw. He never looked back and calls UA home. It’s nice not to be in debt and to earmark that money for other things.