I was fortunate enough to get into Tulane and Rose-Hulman IT with full rides. I know that both of them will offer me a quality education but I still can’t make up my mind. The only thing that matter the most to me is the engineering academics/opportunities. I can’t attend an Ivy school for undergrad because I can’t justify the cost while having the option of zero debt, but I definitely want to for grad school since there will be more options financially. I want the school that will have the edge for preparation/admission chances.
I don’t know a ton about Rose-Hulman except of course that it is very highly thought of, but I suspect you are still talking about pretty equal undergraduate educations. I mean, the basics are the basics everywhere and both will offer you research opportunities and advanced courses. Both are very well regarded and Tulane in general sends a lot of students to the top grad schools every year. I don’t know specifically about ChemE because I do know that the rate of job placement is very high. But as I said, if you have a high GPA at Tulane and do well on the GREs, you should be able to get into virtually every grad school you want. Because you will also, no doubt, have done high quality research and have close relationships with at least a couple of professors. You’ll also get extra attention from the Honors Program.
But let’s say, with all that from Tulane, that R-H is still tied. To me, at least, New Orleans is an easy tie-breaker compared to Terre Haute. College is about more than academics. Also, you will be around a much more diverse group at Tulane in terms of academic interests. I don’t know if that means anything to you or not.
Just out of curiosity, which scholarship did Tulane offer you?
@fallenchemist I will definitely take NOLA over over Terre Haute. RHIT technical focus is the most appealing aspect of RHIT to me, but like you said, the basic curriculum should be similar. What is ochem course like in Tulane?
I am sure it is similar to most schools, tough for the majority of students. But I firmly believe that is because most students approach it all wrong. They get all caught up in the nomenclature and so it is like reading Greek or Russian without having really learned the language at all. For most students, if they really focused early on making it so it became more like reading English to them, they could then focus on the general principles and patterns being taught, which really are not that hard. You just have to get command of certain fundamentals. So going back to the English analogy, it is like learning the sounds of the letters and knowing them so well you don’t think about it. Then you put those together in patterns and so you can predict what a word sounds like without having seen it before. You also learn there are exceptions (and English sure has its share, more the OChem actually), but the exceptions are easier to absorb because you know the principles so well. But if you are struggling with even what the letters sound like, or have to waste a lot of energy on that, you will never do well with words, much less sentence structure and grammar.
DS graduated from Tulane’s Chem E department a few years ago. They have subsequently finished and opened their new engineering building which looks great. Have heard second hand that there have been some faculty changes in the department, but don’t know the details. A friend’s son went to Rose Hulman. Said the big weekend outing was a trip to Walmart
Can you clarify if you got a “full ride” or was it a “full tuition” scholarship? Many confuse the two, and they are not the same.
@jym626 I actually didn’t know the difference hehe. The scholarships I got were full tuition. Also thank you for your input!
So can we assume you are heading for New Orleans this August, @madpolynomial ?
@fallenchemist yeah I decided that Tulane overall is a better fit for me! I am thinking about minoring in music or theatre and New Orleans sounds like the place to experience the theatre culture.
Congrats and welcome to the Tulane family! And you will have a blast with theater in NOLA. Stay in touch!