Most of my college’s decisions have come in and it has come time for me to start weighing my options. I plan to study engineering but unfortunately, I missed out on some of the more prestigious schools such as Georgia Tech, Duke, and Carnegie Mellon. However, I was accepted to a few schools that are a tier lower in engineering including University of Maryland, NC State, and Virginia Tech.
As I look at the schools I have been accepted to and the scholarships they have offered, I notice that they are split into two general groups: highly ranked engineering schools that did not offer much money and not as highly ranked schools that gave substantial scholarships. For example, I missed the deadline for scholarships at NC state and UMD, but I was offered full tuition to attend University of Alabama and in-state tuition at USC.
When I look at my choices for college in this categorization, I can’t help but wonder how important the ranking of their engineering program really is (for example US News Top Undergrad Engineering). Does the discrepancy in ranking compensate for the larger loan I would have to take to attend? How much of an advantage does it give me in finding a job after college? Does it matter for pursuing a higher degree? Hopefully someone can help me answer these questions. I will list the schools I was accepted to and an idea of what I’d have to pay to give you a better idea of my situation.
University of Alabama - Full tuition + small scholarship toward room & board + Honors College
Clemson - $17k a year
Rutgers - $10 a year (also I am a New Jersey resident so tuition is already lower)
University of South Carolina - In-state tuition + small scholarship and waiting on engineering scholarship
University of Maryland - missed scholarship deadline
North Carolina State- missed scholarship deadline
Virginia Tech
All these are ABET accredited schools and will provide rigorous, quality engineerin education. I’m biased towards Alabama because of the low cost to you and the fantastic engineering opportunities and facilities there, plus the Honors College benefits. In the end, it’s all about you, and what YOU do, not what ranking the school has or supposed ‘prestige.’
I think it depends what you want to get out of the degree. No doubt you will get a job. But what will you be exposed to in your 4 years what opportunities would you have. Is there a “tech” culture?
So I’m a researcher in EE. I looked at what Alabama does in EE. Alabama EE has research thrusts in 3 areas: Devices and Materials, Electromechanical Systems, and Embedded Systems. None of these is my area, and frankly I think it’s a bit limiting. I don’t know anybody whose ever gone to this school. Lots of Alabama parents on these boards who claim their kids have gotten a great education. Who am I to argue. It’s free.
Let’s look at what researchers do at Clemson: Applied Electromagnetics, Circuits, Communications Systems and Networks, Computer Systems Architecture, Digital Signal Processing, Electronics, Intelligent Systems, Photonic Devices and Systems, Power and Energy Systems. Can’t think of much that’s missing. I work with several people who went to undergrad here and then went on to top grad schools.
Let’s look at Rutgers: BioElectrical Engineering - BioDevices, BioElectrical Engineering - BioComputation, Computer Systems, Micro- and nano- electronics, Signals, Systems, Information processing, Communications and Networking. Again, looks like a broad set of areas. I know a few people from here who went on to top graduate schools. I know they have a lot of faculty from the old Bell Labs.
I think that exposure to research is an important part of an undergraduate engineering program. I think it’s valuable to have professors from a lot of different areas and they will each give you some perspective.
I don’t know what areas of engineering interest you or what you aspire to but I think that you should look carefully at what each school offers in areas that might interest you. You don’t know enough to know the possibilities, but hopefully some of it will get you excited.
The US News Rankings are not data driven. They are based on a poll of a population who has a vested interest in the outcome of the poll. As a result, they add little information beyond determining the size of the undergrad and Phd programs and the percentage of graduates they feed into academia (i.e. the voting pool).
Size tends to correlate with diversity of offerings, so that can be a good thing.
Size may also correlate to class size and reduced access to support/mentoring resources, so that can be a bad thing.
Engineering is a very broad discipline with hundreds of very narrow sub-disciplines. In geographies with a high concentration of jobs, there is usually a synergistic interplay between industry, academia and state government that results in the formation of “technology clusters”. In these clusters the stronger engineering programs offered within academia tend to track the stronger local industries. You can find out the strong local industries by Googling "top industries in XXXX, where XXX= a particular state. Determining whether or not these industries are interesting to you. is often easier for high school students than trying to decipher the meaning of engineering sub disciplines.
In lower cost geographies there tends to be a higher concentration of manufacturing-centric (as opposed to research/design-centric) jobs because manufacturing tends to be more cost sensitive.
Alabama’s biggest industries are: Defense/Aerospace and Automotive.
South Carolina’s are: Aero, Automotive, Biotech and Transport
New Jersey’s are: Pharma/Biotech and High Tech (Computers) Transport and Financial
New Jersey’s Economy is quite a bit larger than Alabama or South Carolina as well.
If you want to dig further, the ASEE database can provide lots of information on each school: