<p>Have heard and read much about U Minn's reputation for ChemE, but how do they fare in Mech E compared to Iowa State's program?</p>
<p>Due to merit aid these two schools would be similar in cost. Iowa State has a good reputation for Mech E, but concerned that, based on lower reported SAT scores, our son would not be appropriately challenged. </p>
<p>Any thoughts or insights to either program or reputation would be appreciated, as we are down to the wire in our selection process. </p>
<p>Where would he be happiest? Go there.</p>
<p>I go to Iowa State and there are tons of Minnesota kids here.I lived in Dinkytown for many years and I prefer Ames because you get more of a real college town experience.</p>
<p>I personally don’t like how the U of M campus is laid out- West Bank and East Bank, it can be a very impersonal campus being in the middle of the city of Minneapolis and I am not a fan of the Wilson Library either. </p>
<p>Honestly, I never heard of any Engineering school where students are not “appropriately challenged”- the quality of the education may vary from school to school but there are standards set by the ABET.</p>
<p>Iowa State is not MIT but it is a very solid choice for an “average Engineering school”. Most of our programs rank top 30 in the nation and out of state tuition is reasonable.</p>
<p>Ames can be a boring town sometimes but it is a very good place for people who want to study Engineering and focus on academics.</p>
<p>I think you’re selling your school short, bschoolwiz. I’d argue that Iowa State’s engineering programs on the whole are substantially above average.</p>
<p>I’d consider Minnesota to be of the same general level of quality, though, this my position of having the OP visit both and choose the one that feels the best to the student.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses. Problem is that son is easy-going and feels he’d be happy at either!</p>
<p>Femailer: Have you guys visited the Iowa State campus yet? I am not trying to be a cheerleader for Iowa State. In fact, I am very cynical of some of the things they do here but our campus is very beautiful and definitely a selling point.</p>
<p>School spirit is very strong here and everybody in this community is very supportive of our football and basketball teams. Maybe because there is not much to do here but I enjoy going to the basketball and football games here, it is always a fun experience.</p>
<p>Going to the U of M would be a totally different experience because it is more of a “commuter school”. It is bigger, more impersonal and it does not have the same school spirit. </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, I love Dinkytown but it is never going to be a college town, it is a neighborhood of Minneapolis and very much part of it, essentially we are looking at two very different college experiences.</p>
<p>Both schools are good. He wouldn’t go wrong with either. I’d follow boneh3ad’s advice, but I’ll add an anecdote to ease your mind about Iowa State.</p>
<p>My uncle earned his PhD from Stanford, has been an academic department chair at a large university and owned a very successful business. He was discussing Stanford with my son who also wants to be an ME. Paraphrasing what he said: Don’t get me wrong. Stanford is a great school, but if you go to undergraduate there you’ll mainly be taught by graduate students. If you want to practice engineering, you’d be better off going to a school that’s very good at educating undergraduates, like IOWA STATE.</p>
<p>My son didn’t apply, but did heed his advice and narrowed his list to schools with reputations for being UGcentric. He’ll most likely attend Cal Poly.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Definitely Iowa State. Great funding and the career fair draws in crazy amounts of people looking for mechanical engineers 
It is Iowa however and there’s not much to do outside of going to the bars so more time to study I guess !</p>
<p>Appreciation and thanks to all who responded, but still looking for specifics on how both MechE programs compare. All the U-Minn buzz seems to be about ChemE, and am very interested in hearing “insider opinions” as to how their program compares to Iowa State - and not so much about the social stuff and how pretty the campus is.</p>
<p>The problem is that their mechanical engineering programs are going to be pretty comparable, so you will likely need to use other criteria to decide.</p>
<p>The social stuff and campus vibe are often what resonates most with student. They are especially germane if you’re splitting hairs between two similar, ABET accredited programs.</p>
<p>For my son, being a direct admit to engineering was important. Starting engineering in an experiential way was important. He didn’t want two years of just book work to only then be entering into “engineering.” It’s a tried and true formula, but not one he was interested in.</p>
<p>Ask your son what his ideal program would look like. Then look at the curriculum maps for each program and see if there are differences. I can tell you Cal Berkeley and Cal Poly are VERY different. Poly has ME classes as freshmen. UCB, not until junior year. Yet, they both have outstanding reputations.</p>
<p>Update: We visited both campuses, and DS prefers the more progressive, city vibe of UMN. BUT - from a practical sense, ISU has more to offer him:
<p>UMN? pretty much nothing. Full boat cost - total about $10K/year more than ISU</p>
<p>So, now is the time when family politics + parental influence come into play. 
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<p>Iowa State has one advantage over UMN-TC with respect to majors. At Iowa State, completing the basic prerequisites to the major with a 2.0 GPA and 2.0 GPA overall allows admission to the mechanical engineering major: <a href=“Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering – Department of Mechanical Engineering”>http://www.me.iastate.edu/students/degrees-and-programs/bs-degree/</a></p>
<p>But UMN-TC requires a 3.2 GPA for automatic admission into an engineering major; those with GPA between 2.0 and 3.2 are admitted to their desired majors on a space available (competitive) basis: <a href=“http://cse.umn.edu/services/advising/CSE_CONTENT_188758.php”>http://cse.umn.edu/services/advising/CSE_CONTENT_188758.php</a></p>
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<p><a href=“http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/guide/departments/me.html”>http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/guide/departments/me.html</a> indicates that Berkeley mechanical engineering students take Engineering 7 (computing for engineers) and Engineering 10 (engineering design and analysis) in frosh year, and take Engineering 28 (graphic communication in engineering), ME C85 (solid mechanics), and ME 40 (thermodynamics) in sophomore year.</p>
<p>Berkeley and CPSLO ME curricula are organized differently, though. Here is CPSLO’s ME curriculum: <a href=“http://dots-util.calpoly.edu/downloads/mymap/13-15.52MEBSU.GENMEU.pdf”>http://dots-util.calpoly.edu/downloads/mymap/13-15.52MEBSU.GENMEU.pdf</a></p>
<p>ucbalumnus brings a good point. Iowa State is very lenient when it comes to GPA’s and admissions, they give almost everybody a chance. </p>
<p>I know people who came into the College of Engineering as transfers having only Trig.</p>
<p>It took them longer to graduate but they took all the required Math courses all the way to Diff Eq and most end up being successful engineers.</p>
<p>It is easy to get into the College of Engineering, only a 2.0 GPA to get into a desired major but we have a dropout rate higher than average. </p>
<p>Still, I think they do a good job at “weeding out” people that have no business studying Engineering regardless of the lax admission policies- many people that I started with were done after the first semester.</p>