I have been accepted to Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University and Calhoun Honors College at Clemson university. However, I was also accepted into the regular college at Pennsylvania State University, the Ohio State University and the University of Georgia. I intend to major in mechanical engineering, of which Penn State and Ohio State have a much better ranking than the other listed colleges. Would it be worth it for me to attend Calhoun or Barrett over Penn or Ohio State?
Compare the out of pocket totals (cash plus all loans) for each of your options for all 4 years. If you do get an engineering degree, the U won’t matter as much as graduating with as little total debt as possible.
Thanks for the replies!
Cost is not really an issue for me. Penn State would cost me around 40k a year including R+B and all the others would be below 20k including R+B. ASU honors would be cheapest at around $9k since I got the highest merit scholarship.
My parents told me not to worry about the cost but I don’t want to pay a super high tuition if the education isn’t worth it. I’m currently torn between Penn State and Arizona State because of the cost difference. I’m just not sure whether a lower engineering ranking (18 psu vs 37 asu) would be worth giving up a honors college and a huge scholarship or vice versa.
Thanks for the reply and sorry if I came of as pretentious in my last comment.
The perks of being in a honors college vary greatly from college to college. Look carefully at the benefits that you will get in each honors college and consider how valuable they would be to your experience.
I’d worry less about rankings and try to figure out which school provided the best environment and quality of teaching. There are no duds among the schools you listed.
We have evaluated honors a few times and each student has to figure if it is right for them. There have been recent threads on “to do honors or not to do honors” you may want to look for those. What I hear you asking is if you should do the honors programs over the other schools simply because it is an honors program. You should only do honors if it is at the right school with the major/program you like and it provides benefits that are important to you. Honors gets you perks at the school (sometimes, not always) like priority registration, better housing, small classes (which some like or some don’t). At some schools the priority registration means a lot (like at a UC type school, where at others, it is not really that important because classes aren’t that hard to get into. Don’t do an honors program simply for the prestige, there really isn’t any - it is more about the benefits you get while in college, not the benefits you get when done, like in terms of getting a job - it doesn’t mean much if anything (means zero after the first job, that’s for sure). Grad school - ya, it could look good there. So go to the school you like, that fits you and has a good mechanical engineering program. You will find engineering to be like one big honors program anyway. Some do honors to be with people at similar intellectual level and desire, which it certainly can, but in engineering, you will be around a lot of intellectual types anyway. Find/create good projects to work on and do well within engineering, that will get you placed more than being in an honors program. If you pick a school with honors, as other posters said, make sure you understand what it gets you. It could have great benefits or have benefits that don’t apply to you specifically. For example, the added time required for honors GE courses (like writing, history, etc) or other courses outside the major, can make it less attractive for a course heavy engineering major. Look into that as well.
the rankings mean nothing. An undergrad degree from any ABET program outside of places such as MIT or Caltech is pretty much as good as another. The differentiator to employers is what you did: good gpa? Take part in student engineering activities? Have internships?
honors in engineering is basically meaningless. In general honors programs only offer special classes the 1st 2 years, with a token amount of upper division. They simply don’t have the resources or enrollment to offer many upper-division classes in your major. For engineering, those upper-division offerings drop to zero (and they may not have many classes that meet the ABET requirements even for lower-division). Look at https://barretthonors.asu.edu/academics/advising-and-requirements/honors-opportunities-in-majors/aerospace-and-mechanical Sure you can do some extra stuff, but so can any other kid at ASU. What they don’t offer are honors-only classes where you adn your top peers meet in a small class with a great prof; you know, the idea kids think they’re getting when they talk about Honors colleges
you will find engineering programs difficult enough without the need for honors. Trust me, in 2 years if you are still an engineering major you will not be complaining about how easy it all is and how you wish you had more challenge
Clemson has an excellent engineering program. I would seriously consider the honors college at Clemson if it is less than OSU or Penn State. That would be the best of both worlds IMO.
Just PLEASE be sure when your parents say ‘don’t worry about the costs’ that they have run the net price calculators (NPC’s) for all those schools. Really. Tons of kids hear “don’t worry about it” or “we’ll figure it out” and parents don’t realize they could be asked to pay up to $70k year. Parents may not realize what schools do and don’t give merit money. Or how much. Or that even if you got a “full tuition” scholarship room and board etc could add $20k.
Barrett is a good option and nice to have in pocket because you will know exactly how much they will give you from spending 10 minutes with the NPC.
I hope you are right about the money. But please double check.