<p>My son has been accepted at Purdue for engineering but not sure we can/want to pay oos tuition...iowa is also oos but more affordable and he likes the fact that the engineering school isn't gigantic. Has anyone had a child graduate from Iowas engineering program? Did they get a good education and a job?</p>
<p>Liddlekiddle, do you mind if I reply even though my son is a current student and not a graduate? I can still perhaps shed a little light.</p>
<p>Iowa’s engineering school IS small and extremely personable. It’s been easy for my son to see his advisors, to meet with faculty and generally navigate around. Although Iowa State is better-known overall for engineering, Iowa has biomedical engineering and is generally considered the “health care” campus of the two. You didn’t mention Iowa State for your son, but I’m still throwing that out there.</p>
<p>70% of Iowa engineers get some kind of experience before graduation - co-op or internship. It’s a very important part of their program. As for post-graduate employment, I’ve seen those figures online somewhere and over 90% of grads get jobs within a year.</p>
<p>Purdue probably has a better rep for engineering but I’m strongly of the opinion that a kid who goes to Iowa - and gets the proper experience in the field! - will have no problem placing. I spent my first year at Purdue (a long time ago) and it was very different from Iowa in terms of vibe. Purdue is a big old ag school, dominated by the Greek scene. I transferred to UW Madison as quick as I could. Your son should visit both to make sure he likes the environment. My vote would be Iowa, hand’s down.</p>
<p>Beastman, thank you for your reply! My son is our oldest so we are feeling overwhelmed with the decision making process…he has visited both schools and likes both. He was also accepted at U of I but doesn’t want to go there. Iowa has already offered him a small scholarship and he has applied for the old gold as well. He has also been accepted into the honors program. I think Iowa State is farther than he wants to travel but I have heard good things…</p>
<p>He’d probably get the Engineering Excellence scholarship as well. Only one year, and only $1500 but better than a poke in the eye.</p>
<p>If it really comes down to the wire, I suggest he do an overnight at each school. This is not standard Iowa procedure but my son’s admissions rep was able to arrange it. S stayed in the dorm with some engineers and attended a couple classes the next day.</p>
<p>Beastman, did your son live on the men in engineering floor? Would he recommend it?</p>
<p>He was admitted to Honors and lived in Daum, one of the honors housing options. He chose this over men in engineering on the theory that he’d meet kids of the same general motivation level, but of broader backgrounds. It worked - Daum has men and women on the same floors, so has girls as friends, math majors as friends, etc. He had MIE as his second choice, however, and probably would be fine with it.</p>
<p>I, like beastman, have a sophomore son in engineering at Iowa and think it’s a great place for my kid, however, I cannot speak to job placement yet, but we’re hoping for the best. He loves it there, in fact he just returned from a visit there for a few days for New Year’s Eve because he just couldn’t stay away for the whole four weeks of his break. He did live in MIE last year which was great for him. He liked having kids around that he could study with. He doesn’t know very many kids that aren’t in engineering but he did manage to meet some girls, also engineering students. </p>
<p>I think as far as recruiting goes, that Purdue will have more employers coming to campus from outside the midwest than Iowa will. My son likes Iowa because he was afraid Purdue’s competitiveness would be more than he could handle. He bases this solely on one kid he knows who didn’t get into mechanical at Purdue because of his grades and is a civil major. I think he was worried about getting weeded out at Purdue. My son went into Iowa as an undeclared engineering major and much to our surprise, declared chemical just this past semester. He likes the flexibility of Iowa. He has also found the advising and academic support to be outstanding.</p>
<p>Thanks Izzie and Beastman! Your info has been very helpful!! Can you still be involved in the honors program but not live in Daum?</p>
<p>Yes, your son can participate in honors and not live in Daum. Honors at Iowa is really awesome - not elitist, not exclusionary. Totally about kids of like mind challenging one another. I love their philosophy. HOWEVER, not many engineering students can maintain the GPA status required, and my son was no exception. But it did its job while it could. He lived in Daum. He did one of the sessions (cripe - can’t remember the name) that began a few days before fall classes started and got him on campus and meeting kids early… These were all great experiences. Take advantage of them!</p>
<p>Yes, you can be in the honors program without living in Daum. My son started out not in the honors program and then they put you in it automatically if you make the grades to be in it. The only thing he’s done with the honors program is get their emails and put it on his resume.</p>
<p>Izzie,your son will have nothing to put on his resume if he doesn’t meet the basic requirements of the program. Being “in Honors” and graduating “with Honors” are not the same. It’s not a huge deal - it’s a matter of taking Honors sections of some classes or of making any class an Honors class by doing an extra project specified by the prof. But please do not assume that having the GPA gains him any special status.</p>
<p>He won’t put that he graduated with honors on his resume if he doesn’t but he is currently a member of the honors program so it’s on his current resume for looking for a job this summer. I don’t know what he will end up doing with it because right now, it’s all he can do to keep his grades where they are. He’s trying to power through his sophomore year as he seems to think sophomore year is the hardest. Then he’ll decide if he will fulfill the requirements to graduate with honors.</p>
<p>Or he could end up not in the honors program at all after next semester when he takes organic chemistry :)</p>
<p>That makes sense, Izzie and I apologize if I came off as scolding. I didn’t mean to - it’s just that there are byzantine rules for getting honors credit in the program, and what notations are made on the transcript. If he’s in engineering and honors, that is really awesome and you and he should be very proud.</p>
<p>@beastman: i noticed on another post you mentioned your son also considered Marquette. My son is waiting to hear from Marquette and is another school he liked. Why did your son ultimately choose Iowa over Marquette?</p>
<p>He actually preferred Marquette and we had the classic 11th hour crisis. Ultimately MU was $5k/yr more. The merit aid they offered was pretty meager and I challenged my son to explain what he’d get for that. Even if it was intangible such as “I don’t know I just feel more comfortable there” I might’ve gone for it. But he never made the argument and several days later chose Iowa instead.</p>
<p>I like Marquette’s size and high emphasis on co-op’ing. They virtually wrote the book on it. Iowa emphasizes co-op/internships heavily also although I don’t believe they have the “machine” that MU has. I give MU a slight edge on this point.</p>
<p>But Iowa is Big Ten and a much larger school with a lot of health care programs. I thought there were more alternatives available if biomedical engineering didn’t pan out. At MU there would be nowhere else for him to go.</p>
<p>Additionally, I thought MU to be more of a bubble than Iowa. My kids went to a large Catholic high school, many of whom go to MU, Creighton etc. MU feels like the same socioeconomic environment on a larger scale. Iowa is more diverse (although still pretty white and midwestern, of course). MU is largely a school of reasonably affluent suburban kids.</p>
<p>Research opportunities with profs, which I see as a steppingstone to a co-op job, are presumably common at Iowa but unheard of at MU for undergrads. Essentially I feel Iowa has the edge in providing a broader base of undergrad opportunities. I also like Iowa’s Honors program, although son didn’t stay in it long. It’s very exclusive at Marquette.</p>
<p>And MU has basketball, true, but it doesn’t compare to Hawkeye football. I felt he’d have more social opportunites at Iowa than MU as MU is somewhat isolated in a so-so part of Milwaukee. I’m not sure the typical freshman/soph ventures far off-campus.</p>
<p>I believe he’d have been well-served and happy at Marquette, no question. I believe both are great choices but I am happy he chose Iowa, he loves it there, is becoming active in engineering clubs and is speaking to profs about research work. I’m not sure he’d have broadened as much at Marquette.</p>
<p>Not at all, beastman, didn’t want you to think he was trying to get away with anything. I’m guessing he won’t end up doing any of the requirements because he thinks just graduating is enough and he didn’t start out with it as a freshman.</p>
<p>I know a couple kids that have gone to Marquette and have heard really good things about it. No one in my family considered it because I told my kids that they weren’t going to school anywhere that we had to drive through Chicago to get to.</p>
<p>I am a 1984 grad from Purdue in Mechanical Engineering. I also have an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering (1998) from Iowa. Iowa is currently my daughter’s first choice for Electrical Engineering so I have some perspective on the differences in the two schools.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Purdue is huge and engineering dominates most aspects of campus life. When I have been back on recruiting I don’t see that changing much.</p></li>
<li><p>Iowa, while still a fairly large school, is no where as big as Purdue. Your classes will be closer together and you definitely have more liberal arts types around. Also far more women than at Purdue.</p></li>
<li><p>I have taken a bunch of classes from Iowa State via distance education and have been on its campus several times. It is like a mini-Purdue as you would expect.</p></li>
<li><p>We are one of the largest employers in the state, and we hire engineers from both schools, but we probably recruit more to Iowa State. The key is to have at least a 3.0 in engineering to get to the interview.</p></li>
<li><p>Try to do something more than just engineering if you can. That will be my daughter’s route as she does at least a minor in Film Studies to go along with the E.E.</p></li>
<li><p>AP classes don’t help you much at Iowa. My daughter is going the community college route instead. Our community colleges have an online consortium available which teaches a bunch of the Freshman classes (most in fact). It might be in your financial interest to pick some of them off.</p></li>
<li><p>A Purdue engineering degree is like gold. It has opened many doors for me. I do not think Iowa’s degree will help my daughter as much, but since it is in state tuition it makes more sense to attend that school. My daughter has not taken her ACT yet, but she is projected in the mid to high 20s - nowhere near high enough for financial aid. We will see what prep does for her.</p></li>
<li><p>Even if Purdue and Iowa cost my daughter the same amount, I would still want her to go to Iowa. I think it is a friendlier school than Purdue. I also like the idea of 1 1/2 hours away versus 6 1/2 hours. Purdue would have to be about $5K/yr cheaper for me to change that decision</p></li>
</ol>
<p>dad22girls, thanks for your post. As a recruiter can you shed a little light on how my son can best prepare for gainful employment!</p>
<p>He is sadly a C student. Don’t know his GPA but it is under 3.0. He’s a sophomore who had typical freshman struggles but I don’t see him doing much better than B/C work going forward. He is a bright kid, with a 31 ACT but is much better at hands-on (labs, small classes) than the typical lecture/discussion/exam format of these early classes.</p>
<p>We really want him to co-op. He made a couple stops at the fall engineering job fair in the IMU and was told that he’d need experience doing research with a prof first. So he’s made some inquiries there and one bio prof does want to speak to him. A very helpful ME prof suggested he get involved with one of the engineering clubs, on the theory that it would do the same job as the research gig, ie, show SOMETHING on the resume besides classwork.</p>
<p>Our thinking is that job experience somewhere in this general hodge-podge of possibilities will really help with senior year interviewing, and hopefully will compensate for so-so grades. Your thoughts?</p>
<p>dad22girls, your daughter has an excellent chance of getting merit aid with an ACT score in the mid- to high-20’s. My son got the Scholars Award and the Engineering Excellence award with a very mediocre ACT score, another reason we liked Iowa. He is that elusive breed that no one on CC believes exists, a bright kid who doesn’t test well. He’s a slow reader and can’t sit still for 4.5 hours. We like that RAI because it puts more emphasis on grades and rigor of high school curriculum.</p>