Making a decision: CWRU, Pitt, Purdue [materials science and engineering]

College Search & Selection
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Among those schools, all will result in good and equivalent employment options as long as he gets good grades and takes advantage of the opportunities ahead of him. What you are buying with the differential in money is a different experience. That is a nice luxury, because the student starts on the path they feel most comfortable on.

If you can swing it without leaving him leveraged, without compromising your retirement, and without limiting the siblings, it would be a wonderful gift for him.

Where things get murky is when families feel like they have to take more drastic measures, because they feel like their students will have better careers if they do. The leverage is then a huge drag on their financial success.

Engineering is pretty egalitarian out of the gate and then almost exclusively meritocratic after that. The doers rise, and there’s little correlation to where they went to undergrad.

Our son was fortunate to land at an exciting startup of seasoned industry veterans. He was the first new grad hired. From there he was recruited to a FAANG company (would that be MAANA now? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:). At both, he worked with some of the sharpest engineers on the planet. There’s no consistency in where they trained. They got jobs, proved themselves, and moved up the ranks.

So, if you can make it happen, it would be very special for him. It’s what we did for our son. That said, I’m sure he’ll thrive wherever he lands.

Congrats on his options and achievements.

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Nice post and totally agree. It’s what he does on campus to set himself apart not really the school with these three pics. One thing to the OP is often families haven’t put in as much thought/planned as much as you evidently have and have to second mortgage the house or go into their retirement plans. The regular posters here have sorta banned together so the information given takes into account finances.

So in this Case (pun intended), let him go to the school that is the best fit and where he feels the most comfortable. If you haven’t visited and are able to then start making some vacation plans… Lol…

He might want to research clubs /activities/research also on campus that he might enjoy. Talk to current students etc. It’s an exciting time but I emphasize what most of our students in engineering did… Be active on campus in things that speak to you regardless what they are. Internships /employers want students that are active and have decent grades. My son started his own club with a business student and made it one of the most active on campus with national lecturers /conference being held on campus. This helped separate him. Do things you love.

@eyemgh just tagging along on your post which was really good.

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I don’t have much to add except that DS was down to Case and Purdue when a pie in the sky reach came through. We did a lot of due diligence for both schools, including attending the admitted student programs at both schools. We loved them both, for very different reasons. Given that my son was applying as a mechanical engineer but felt he wanted the option to study economics as well, Case felt like it’d help him meet that goal more than Purdue. Case is committed to allowing studying across departments, etc. Everyone we spoke with had at least a major and a minor, or even two minors. And the navigators seemed like an extra layering of advising that would be really helpful. With Purdue, the draw was that he was in the honors program, which seemed to really help the school feel smaller. DS felt like he’d find his people more easily at Purdue, and really liked the FYE program. For us, with merit from Case, the difference was about 10K per year. Ultimately, he didn’t have to make the decision. Interestingly, DS2 is a junior in HS and is very interested in Pitt - so this discussion is helpful to me too. Good luck!

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My kid is deferred at Case and in at Pitt, so obviously not the same decision tree, but he knew that unless a miracle happened, Case wasn’t going to be affordable for us. That said, we let him visit the city overnight, do an official tour and compare the two.

He loved Cleveland, possibly even more than Pittsburgh. The arts scene, the “subway,” the city feel - all seemed more compact to him than Pittsburgh, which seems to sprawl more, over rivers and mountains. It seemed more vibrant because everything was close. He had a great meeting with the head of the department for his major. Came away from that feeling inspired and elated. Still got deferred :slight_smile:

Of course, my kid hasn’t been there in February. Has your son? You’re from Texas: The lake effect snow and frigid temps are no joke. The Cleveland Browns used to play at a stadium right on the shoreline; it was called The Mistake by the Lake. Pittsburgh is a much easier/warmer winter scene.

It sounds like Case might be a better fit academically, and if that’s the case, go for it, since money isn’t an issue.

But if you’ve done just as deep a dive at Pitt and find similarly positive academic nuggets, do not dismiss the lifestyle assessment.

Ohio is flat as a pancake; Pitt has Cardiac Hill up to the honors dorm.

Ohio has Lake Erie, which has a special place in my heart, as we did family camping trips there for years.

Pitt is close to Fallingwater, maybe not a student draw, but also a gorgeous area. Pennsylvania in general has the most amazing state park system (all free admission) and gorgeous mountains & scenery and waterfalls.

So scenery and outdoors - I’d pick Pitt. Lake Erie is only a couple hours north - Presque Isle is a PA state park that is my favorite park in the state; highly recommend Googling it. (Of course, Presque Isle is also only a couple hours east of Cleveland.)

Both have the requisite major league teams, but hey, Pitt has a decent college football team, depending on the year, and Case … doesn’t. I’d think the school spirit angle of the equation would favor Pitt.

Cleveland has the Flats, a great nightlife area. Pittsburgh has a quite decent foodie scene. The university is right next to Carnegie Mellon, and also a huge park; the whole neighborhood reminds me slightly of the Upper West Side near the natural history museum - very walkable, urban, but open wide boulevards.

OK, that’s my admittedly limited perspective. Hope it’s of some help!

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Thanks to everyone for the comments. We have been doing a lot of thinking and we’ll be re-reading these comments over the next several weeks.

He was accepted to VA Tech last week but with $3K in merit, the cost isn’t worth considering. He declined the offer. He also got a generous scholarship from OSU in the mail, but he had already declined their offer. Kinda wish we had that in hand before he declined, but it’s doubtful he would have chosen them over Purdue anyway.

He was also just accepted to Pitt Honors College so now trying to figure out what opportunities that provides. Might need to add another trip to Pittsburgh to refresh his memory and spend time visiting with Honors. He’s still leaning towards CWRU and that will be our last visit, in early April, so I’m anticipating a mid-April final decision.

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He can wait until right near the end. Our son did. It might impact housing. Our son was in a triple, but that’s no biggie. He’s still friends with one of his first year roommates almost 9 years later. That’s a long way to say…it’ll work out.

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Priority deadline for housing at Purdue is April 15 so that’s my internal deadline for him to decide if he’s going to Purdue.

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  • everyone is different - and that’s a good thing :wink:
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Please start your own thread for this question, rather than hijack someone else’s thread. Thank you for your understanding.

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Apologies, reason I posted here is I am similar boat as others above and I have posted earlier on this thread on this topic above and wanted to follow up. do you still suggest me to start new thread?

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That’s the best thing, since you want responses that are more specific to your situation, and keeping it here makes it confusing for all involved.

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@Culbreath’s son is planning to study Materials Science and Engineering and is considering CWRU, Pitt, Purdue. Bioengineering is a completely different major, and you are also considering UW in state.

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Heads up (because we are in the same situation in our household): Purdue recommends accepting your offer by April 13. That allows time for all the necessary portal percolation, so that things are ready to go for your student to access the housing portal by April 15. So our internal deadline for the Purdue decision is April 13. Only a month away – yikes!

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Same here, we visit Purdue on March 20th, awaiting a couple reach deferred decisions by end of March, then time to decide by 4/13 for this reason!

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Yes! We figured this out during our Purdue visit this week. I’m backing it up to 4/10 to be safe. After spending 2 days at Purdue, I think he’s leaning pretty strongly toward being a Boilermaker. He’s starting to see some of the benefits of a bigger school, and in terms of engineering, Purdue isn’t lacking anything. Since MSE departments tend to be small, he’ll still have a small community and lots of individual attention but the benefits of a large community at the same time.

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does your son have a preference city/suburb? East coast-ish versus the midwest? warm versus cold? Those could be helpful considerations. I’m glad to hear Case turned on the charm for his visit - and according to a PP, that helpful/friendly vibe persists even once you’re there. There is something to be said for that… if you’re floating at a large school like VT or Purdue, life can get harder. Congrats to your son on good choices!

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My son’s classmate has a sister that goes to Case now - not exactly a safe area around campus from what I’m told from her direct experience.

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He did seem to like the city/urban environments in Cleveland and Pittsburgh (we live in the suburbs of a major metro area but are pretty far removed from the city bustle). However, the strength of the engineering program trumps that, and he’s feeling like Purdue offers a top tier engineering experience, and the materials program and facilities are impressive. MSE specifically has under 200 undergrads with 33 full time faculty, so he really won’t get lost. Right now he’s waiting to hear about a music scholarship at CWRU, and if he doesn’t get that, I think he’ll be committing to Purdue.

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Do let us know what he chose and how he made this decision

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