Leaning toward Syracuse [$17K] over Purdue [$24K] or Mizzou [$17K] for engineering

College Search & Selection
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My son has narrowed his list to 3 schools: Purdue ($24K COA, didn’t want honors), Syracuse ($17K, probably honors), and Mizzou ($17K, honors). He’d be thrilled to attend any of them, and loves all the campuses in general. He’s leaning toward Syracuse. I’m having trouble with him picking Syracuse over Purdue or even Mizzou for engineering, and I’m looking for some opinions/guidance. He’ll enter engineering undeclared everywhere.

His priorities (of the few he’s been able to express), not in order: 1) cost, 2) strength of engineering programs, 3) great internship/co-op opportunities (for money and experience), 4) campus culture (collaborative and not too stressful).

He’d be happy to attend any of his options, and he knows it’s entirely his choice. We’ve been careful to not press our opinions, but instead give him information and help him figure out his own opinions. We know there’s not a true right or wrong choice here.

But for some reason I’m struggling with Syracuse. The admissions team have been wonderful and we had a fantastic visit there last summer. The whole family loved the school. They gave him a full tuition scholarship. But I think the engineering programs are not the strongest. Their outcomes seem pretty good, and their salaries were the only outlier (on the high end) amongst his list. I’m guessing that’s due to their strong alumni network and name recognition.

His reservations about Purdue are the size of the student body, the number of engineering students, the class sizes, and the intensity and stress of the students. He doesn’t like that he might not get his major of choice (even though that’s such an unlikely outcome). A friend’s brother is there and after talking to him, our son is worried about the difficulty of the the calc and other intro courses (even though he’ll get out of nearly his entire 1st year due to AP) and the general stressed-out state of many engineering/CS students. He knows plenty of people there and even has a super close friend who has committed to engineering there.

I think he should attend Purdue because of its resources, rigor, and co-op/job placements, among other advantages. The $7K/year cost savings would make a difference to us, but not enough that it should influence his decision. Also, Purdue has such amazing co-ops that we’re not too worried about the higher price.

We’re going to admitted student day at Syracuse soon and he said “if I like my visit, I think I’ll just go there”. It’s our last college visit, and he has to decide soon (to make Purdue’s housing deadline). Syracuse is showing him the love, so I don’t blame him at all. But is it a good choice? I don’t want to throw down my opinion inappropriately, because he will listen to it and would likely attend Purdue. But when he’s stressed out at Purdue next year, I don’t want him to perceive it as my fault and regret his decision.

We are all about fit and don’t care about ranking. Is this my son finding his “fit” and his parent(s) struggling to let him go with it? Or is this him throwing a dart at the wall because he has trouble picking from several excellent options? I’d think Purdue’s “chaotic nerd” vibe would appeal to him more than Syracuse’s “friendly popular party people” vibe (he’s a studious weird nerd who is fun but won’t party). Is this him knowing himself, or just picking one because he has to? Would he be crazy to turn down Purdue engineering in-state?

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How likely or unlikely depends on which major he wants. Unfortunately, Purdue does not say on its web site which are more or less competitive for FYE students below 3.2 college GPA.

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Some more info…

He had ~10 schools give offers within budget ($30K) so we told him to disregard cost. We are in-state for Purdue, and he decided to rule out anything more expensive than Purdue ($24k). He would use cost as the deciding factor if he could since it’s “easy” and he’s not picky about many things. He wanted to choose “whatever is cheapest”, but we’ve specifically forbidden him from using that to make his decision :person_facepalming:.

He’s firm on engineering, but undecided on exact major. All his schools offer first-year flexibility before deciding (his biggest preference). He expects to choose mech, chem, or civil. He likes biomed, but we’ve encouraged him to not pick that as a major but rather sprinkle bio stuff into a more generic engineering major (due to job prospects and the trend for needing a grad degree for biomed careers). Parents are both science profs, so we have a pretty good understanding of at least some things. All his schools are fully ABET-accredited so no issues there.

He’s a strong, independent, and diligent student, and we’re unconcerned with his ability to handle the curriculum wherever. He knows engineering will be hard anywhere and is prepared for the challenge. He’s good about knowing his limits and taking care of his mental health and his need for down-time. But he is intrinsically driven to get straight A’s and doesn’t want to get stuck in a program that will be a big grind. He only has one A- despite us parents emphatically not caring about his grades and encouraging him to half-ass stuff according to his priorities. His way of controlling his natural obsession with performance/grades is to carefully choose his courses and think hard about titrating his efforts. He doesn’t like competition and wants a collaborative atmosphere. He is uninterested in chasing prestige, and his goal is to have a happy and stable career.

He has a hard time with identifying and articulating preferences. For years he’s been saying he wants to attend Purdue (maybe because that’s what Indiana kids do?), so we’ve pressed him to develop some opinions. He liked nearly all the schools he investigated but was able to cross several off the list (which we agreed with). He got into every school he applied to, almost all with merit, but was waitlisted at Case Western.

I asked him “how would you feel if you majored in ChemE and your graduating class was 25 students, like it might be at Syracuse.” He said, honestly, that sounds kind of nice. I said “If you want a rigorous program with small classes, you should go to Rose Hulman”, and he said “oh, I’d just go to Purdue because Rose would cost more”. Which makes it hard to understand his thought process because they’re very different schools. Mizzou would be a nice medium, a bit bigger than Syracuse, but with fewer students and less stress than Purdue. He loved his visit to Mizzou as a whole, but their engineering school is unqiuely bad at conveying info about what I think (?) is a strong program so he’s understandably apprehensive. And Syracuse gives SO much individual attention for the same price as Mizzou.

He wants guidance in this process, but it’s hard to know how much to just make him decide on his own vs giving parent opinions.

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He knows that realistically he’d be fine. The only majors that are competitive are mech, aero and biomed. He’d only choose mech out of the 3. None of us (including him) foresee him having trouble with entry to major. He just struggles to handle even the chance of uncertainty.

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Have you checked whether there is secondary admission to major at Missouri or Syracuse?

Mechanical and biomedical engineering are usually among the more competitive majors at colleges with secondary admission.

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@momofboiler1 would be a great resource to get Purdue info re: engineering.

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I went to graduate school in engineering eons ago at both Syracuse and Purdue. Both my STEM kids have strongly considered Purdue, but not Syracuse, because the former offers far more breadth in engineering and CS. This can be seen from the number of faculty or undergraduate kids at the schools.

Purdue has national name recognition in case he wants to seek employment on the west coast or in Texas. Purdue was a target school of my first employer, and the hiring process was a breeze. So, I’d give a slight edge to Purdue in that regard. That said, I loved my time in Syracuse.

I know nothing about Mizzou.

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Well, it’s sure hard to find out anything about Mizzou engineering but we’re supposed to be meeting with someone this week to ask some questions that we haven’t been able to find answers for so far. I don’t foresee any problems with him getting into whatever major he wants at any of these schools. And he’s not going to do biomed as a major, even if that’s the career he wants.

He’ll also get free or heavily discounted engineering grad school at parent employer if he wants that in the future, so we’re not too concerned if he decides to go that route. Though he doesn’t plan on it at this point.

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I went to Syracuse for grad school. Not ever a consideration for engineering for our D. We didn’t even take her to visit. IMO, it’s just not in the same ball park as Purdue for engineering.

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This is not my area of expertise, but I just wanted to dig into the data a little bit to provide my $0.02 in case it’s useful, since you’ve been so helpful to families around the forum. Data is pulled from College Navigator, apart from the class sizes which came from USNWR.

  • Purdue: Has about 38k undergrads. 37.6% of classes have fewer than 20 students, 42.6% have between 20-49 students, and 19.8% have 50+. 58% male. In the most recent year of data, Purdue’s engineering department produced: 2,258 Bachelors, 777 Master’s, and 361 doctorates.

  • Syracuse: Has about 15k undergrads. 64% of classes have fewer than 20 students, 26.8% have between 20-49 students, and 9.2% have 50+. 45% male. In the most recent year of data, Syracuse’s engineering department produced: 235 Bachelors, 118 Master’s, and 31 doctorates.

  • U. of Missouri: Has about 24k undergrads. 42.6% of classes have fewer than 20 students, 40.9% have between 20-49 students, and 16.5% have 50+. 46% male. In the most recent year of data, Mizzou’s engineering department produced: 366 Bachelors, 45 Master’s, and 35 doctorates.

My observations:

  • If your son cares about the male/female ratio in college, Syracuse and U. of Missouri both have about 45/46% of males, whereas Purdue is 58% male.

  • Syracuse produced nearly twice as many Master’s in engineering as Mizzou and nearly as many PhDs. Thus, the size of those two departments might not be very different, even if Mizzou is more than 1/3 bigger than Syracuse in terms of overall undergrad enrollment.

  • Purdue’s engineering offerings will dwarf either of the other universities’ and he will likely be able to study any aspect of engineering his heart desires (barring not getting his preferred major).

  • How important is it to your son that there’s a breadth of areas of study in terms of the other students’ majors on campus? Does he prefer a school that is more STEM focused, or does he also want the arts, humanities, etc, well-represented?

  • Also, what do the engineering class sizes look like? Purdue & Mizzou have similar class size distributions, but Syracuse’s are much smaller. The question is, do the general class sizes apply equally to the engineering classes? If so, does your son have a preference with respect to class sizes?

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Wow, thanks. That is helpful info. You always manage to find useful data :smiley:

He says he doesn’t care about M:F ratio.

I think you’re right about Syracuse and Mizzou being more similar than they are different for engineering. He likes the idea of smaller classes across the board. This is more important to him than we (and perhaps he) realized until just recently.

I think he also likes the idea of not having to work himself beyond a healthy limit to excel in his classes. This may be a case of him knowing his natural obsession for A’s well, and trying to protect himself against burnout or unhappiness. He has never had pressure from home to get good grades. None of his aid offers require a high GPA.

He wants good engineering resources (Purdue obviously dominates), but may see it as a trade-off with other factors. He will almost certainly choose a bread-and-butter engineering major. His other interests are all offered everywhere.

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Interesting to me you mention Mizzou. You never hear it for engineering. We met the Mizzou recruiter in Nashville and she said to go to S&T :). Odd for a Mizzou recruiter.

I think you should let your son go to SU.

It’s not known for engineering. But it’s where he wants to go and has valid reasons.

The outcomes seem solid with an average $77k salary. You can ask them to expand upon that geographically and in how they calculate it. Is it salary ? Or bonus etc.

Purdue is elite or near elite in engineering. SU and Mizzou aren’t.

All that said, they are ABET and have solid outcomes. Lots of times perception does not equal reality.

SU is a fine school. You son had reasons for choosing it. And it’s affordable to you.

My son did the same. Had Purdue with merit, wouldn’t apply to their honors and chose a far less reputed school.

He had more interviews than he could handle and 5 offers in the Fall.

I didn’t love his decision at the time but it was his. He owned it and the finish was strong.

As long as you can afford it or it’s not more expensive, I think you need to let the kids decide.

Engineering is hard. Period. He’ll be with smart kids and kids who will see and have success, as will he.

Best of luck to him.

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I was trying to edit but the button is gone. I see where you made the comment that maybe if not at Purdue he won’t have to work as hard….

Hmmmm. This is engineering. He can go to W Michigan.

He should be prepared to have his a$$ kicked.

It’s why 40-60% nationally, deoending on the study, don’t finish. Many drop during the first semester.

He has solid reasons for choosing SU. But workload will not be one of them. No matter which school he attends.

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I appreciate your thoughts on Syracuse. I want to walk the talk when it comes to my kid picking an affordable school that fits him, but this decision is not what we were expecting.

He does knows he will get his butt kicked anywhere. And he’s worried about it. I did hear from an engineering graduate from Syracuse that the classes are not as hard as they are at schools like Purdue. This student called them “easy”. There’s a reason that Purdue’s graduates are well-prepared and it’s not just about networking and name recognition. Rigor has got to be part of it. Of course, ABET assures that the programs are all sufficiently rigorous for adequate training.

However, I don’t think he’s afraid of hard classes. Both his parents could help with any class he’s taken and he has never asked or even needed help. It’s more that he doesn’t want classes to be unnecessarily hard or weed-out. Purdue students have told him that’s what some classes are like there. He hates grind culture, which is one reason he didn’t apply to certain schools. He is worried about his classmates being stressed and having any competitive vibe. Think bio at a place with few vs a lot of premeds. It’s just a different culture, even if the classes are of similar difficulty. He’s also expressed that he doesn’t want to be “one person in a sea of hundreds”.

But I think he’d succeed at Purdue and would enjoy it. I’ve got to think carefully about what we’ll talk about on the train ride to Syracuse :slight_smile:

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If he hates grind culture, and he’s found a more “mainstream” U with a solid engineering program that’s affordable, I think you say “Thank you, Karma” or whomever/whatever you believe in and move on.

Purdue is a fine school and a great program but it’s not for everyone. And yes, the “grind” and competitive vibe are part of the culture. If he wants to explore other interests and have friends who are majoring in lots of different things, and doesn’t want his entire college experience dominated by the curve/the next exam/getting his butt kicked- Syracuse seems to me to be a perfectly acceptable choice.

I think Purdue can aptly be described as “you’re ecstatic when you’re done, but not always happy when you are there”. And I commend your son for having identified a school with a solid program where he might be happy AND ecstatic (at times) for four years!

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To some kids all classes come easy. Maybe it was that kid

I’m an SU alum. The hardest thing I had to do was to walk up 143 stairs to Flint Hall 5x a day. Wasn’t a hard school but I had a joke major (journalism) and it was 30+ years ago.

I’m sure all 3 will sufficiently prep him. They all have successes in the workplace. And all three have many other majors should he want to pivot.

You are making this about you. You don’t want to but read your words. You are ok with whoever he chooses of the three as long as it is Purdue.

I wish my kid chose Purdue. Wish he applied to Honors there. But it was his life, his choices, they didn’t cost me more (in fact cost me less) and I had to run with it.

SU campus wise is much more compact.

It’s a good choice. More importantly it’s his choice.

Send him to Purdue and if it doesn’t work out, you have to deal with the consequences. At Syracuse he has to. He chose it.

One might ask why we’re SU and Mizzou on the initial list but they were. And he likes one of his three finalists best.

Let me ask you this ? Was Purdue a finalist ? Or mom/dad forced it to be a finalist ?

SU has very good stats. Compare them to Purdue. By shear $ they are comparable.

Best of luck on your journey.

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FWIW, my D choose Purdue specifically because it DIDN’T have a grind culture. She has found it very, very collaborative and not at all competitive. Maybe it’s her friend group but she has found it very low pressure.

Yes, she works her tail off but has found her project and study groups to be fun and for the most part, an extension of her friend group.

But, each kid is different and if yours feels like Syracuse is the right place, then you have your answer. At the end of the 4 years, he’ll have his degree and in the end that’s what matters most!

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I can see why it would seem that we want him to attend Purdue. For 8 years, he said he wanted Purdue and Purdue only. He was planning on applying to only Purdue, and to parent employers. We forced him to consider other schools so that he had several choices within budget. When we visited everywhere, he was still all about Purdue even though he liked the other schools. We were fine with him choosing any of them – they’re all good schools. He did an about face regarding Purdue in September.

It’s just in the last couple weeks that I have come around to preferring Purdue, but haven’t said a word to him about it. It is entirely up to him (within budget), as he’s known through this whole process.

He’s at the point where he’s asking our opinions and I’m trying to decide 1) what my opinion even is, and 2) whether or not to keep my mouth shut.

I am confident he’ll succeed at whichever school he chooses. It’s nice to hear validation from folks to that effect, if that’s what they really think. So I do appreciate reassurances.

Also, Mizzou is in the mix because it’s one of the cheapest ones and he liked the school. He got into S&T as well but didn’t like the environment there (middle of nowhere etc).

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I was wondering about that because you always speak opposite of that.

@ColdWombat here is Purdue engineering info - you can use to compare to the SU info I posted earlier. This is for MechE.

Industry Placement - Mechanical Engineering - Purdue University

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What type of engineering does he want to study (EE, MechE, Aerospace, etc.)? I ask because the path at Purdue is admissions to general engineering, and then at the end of freshman year, students request their desired major. Some majors, like Aerospace, are in high demand and not all students who want it will be placed in that major. According to the school’s published policy, if a freshman earns a 3.2GPA they are guaranteed their desired major. When my son went to an admitted students event last year, however, the Purdue rep let slip that even students who earned a 3.2 may still not get their desired major. So, a freshman could work their tail off and earn a 3.5 and still not get placed in their desired major This took Purdue out of the running for our son.

Now, this was at the end of COVID madness, and the prior year the yield rate for Purdue engineering was higher than recent classes putting the school in a scramble to house and educate the large incoming class. Maybe things have settled down, and Purdue is back to honoring their 3.2GPA policy.