Our son saw CWRU, and surprisingly, really liked it. The attraction was that incoming Freshman there were not locked into majors, and have until Sophomore year to switch majors. They also encouraged students to double major or minor in an area unrelated to their primary major (our tour guide was a MechE major who had a minor in Econ). My son thinks he wants to major in MechE, but he is also interested in BioChem and wants to explore a bit before deciding on a major.
He also saw Purdue, which did not offer the same flexibility. In fact, students apply to the general engineering program, and only if there are available slots in their desired major and they have the required GPA, do their get the engineering major of their choice Sophomore year.
If your son was only interested in STEM majors I would recommend seeing Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. It is ranked #1 in almost all engineering and physical science majors for schools that do not offer PhDs (ahead of better known schools like Olin and Harvey Mudd). Class sizes are capped at 30 students and the faculty are there because they want to teach undergrads, not perform research. Students do not have to select a major until Sophomore year. The downside is that it is in Terre Haute, IN and the campus is fairly isolated. In fact, if not for its location it would be my son’s clear first choice.
Just remember, students who choose this route will be competing against students that don’t. The students who don’t will have more technical depth and breadth. That will be noticed by many recruiters.
As for the rankings, I find them quite funny. Cal Poly ranks 1st or 2nd in most engineering majors, and no worse than 3rd, yet they’re 8th overall right now.
I have come to take rankings with a large dose of salt, because 1. school rankings from different sources like USNWR, Niche and WSJ vary greatly, and 2. some ranking methodologies place relatively low emphasis on the actual quality of undergraduate education - class sizes, access to professors, etc. (I’m looking at you, US News).
Unlike a student who is vacillating between STEM and the humanities, my son is just unsure about which flavor of STEM he wants to pursue. Since students in engineering or physical science programs will take many of the same first and second year core math and science classes, this is less of an issue than for, say, someone who is interested in both MechE and English Literature. If my son decides to major in MechE and he is still interested in another STEM field like robotics, biochem, or comp sci, his electives will build on his prim
One of the attractions of Rose-Hulman is that they do not have separate Engineering and Science colleges, with different application requirements and processes, like a CMU. Students apply to the university, take all the first year classes in science and math, then declare late in their Sophomore year. The professors there are very approachable and students can use their first three semesters to discuss different fields with professors from the various departments.
If RHIT were in a decent city with any culture and amenities at all like Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, or even Cleveland, it would be a slam dunk.
Usually this is an issue only for a couple of specific majors at Purdue; Chem E is one that comes to mind. @momofboiler1 would probably know the others.
I agree, Rose has two major strikes against it, location, and 75% male student body.
As for your son, he’ll ultimately have to choose what is interesting vs what is useful. If courses get scattered everywhere, students can’t develop the depth companies will be looking for.
He could parlay the chemistry and ME interests with something BME related. He could combine ME, CS, EE and Robotics with a Mechatronics concentration. It will be hard to get it all though.
According to Enrollment Management Policy for FYE Students - College of Engineering - Purdue University , Purdue requires FYE students to earn 3.2 technical and overall GPA for automatic admission to their desired engineering majors. Otherwise, admission to majors is competitive, but they do not say on the web site how competitive each major has been historically.
Yes, some engineering majors there are less competitive than others; and not having a 3.2 GPA doesn’t automatically keep one out of the “less competitive” engineering majors. My son had less than a 3.2 GPA after his first year, but he still got into the engineering major that he wanted.
ucbalamnus, It took several phone calls to Purdue to get any data that would shed light on how many students don’t get their first choice of major. They were very cagey and didn’t say much beyond “over 95% of students get their first choice of major”. Last year, during COVID, all students requesting MechE got it. The real amazing stat is that while students who earned over a 3.2 were guaranteed their first choice, the average GPA for first year engineering students at Purdue was… wait for it… 3.4. Since when is a B+ average for an engineering program?
Momofboiler, that is from the Mechanical Engineering Dept. I couldn’t believe it and questioned them at length. They said that the goal of first year was to ease the students into the program, not fail them out. Could it be that they take it easy on the Freshman, then clamp down later and the 2.8 was for students in all four years?
Eyemgh, both problems with RHIT would be solved with a better location, especially if they were near another school. When I attended CMU it was 2.5/1 men/women, but Pitt was a half mile down the street and an all-women school, Chatham, was a five minute drive.
Could be that FYE students who were admitted to ME or other specific engineering majors had an average GPA of 3.4, while many of those with lower GPAs got weeded out, or self weeded out (students scraping by with a 2.3 GPA may lose interest in the major even if the major has space for students with GPA down to 2.0).
They certainly have said that they aren’t a weed out program and gone are the days of “look left/look right, those students won’t be here at graduation” but that’s a really high average GPA.
That’s a good point about online/hybrid classes @gandalf78. All of D’s exams last year were open note/open book and I’ve been hearing lots of hang ringing from parents that their students were worried about the transition to being back in person.
