Mines vs U Mich for Materials Engineering

Hello, I am looking for some advice in deciding between Mines and U Mich for materials engineering. How does the engineering program at Mines compare to U Mich or other big 10 schools? I noticed that Mines always fell a couple of spots below U Mich on the rankings, but I’m not sure how substantial that difference is. As for opportunities after graduation, both Mines and U Mich seem to have a good average starting salary with Mines being a little higher. Any advice is greatly appreciated, thank you!!

Which “mines” school, SD, NM, or CO?

All of them will show high average starting pay over the entire school population due to high concentrations of engineering majors (as opposed to majors associated with lower pay like biology).

Hi, I will assume you mean Colorado School of Mines. I interact with MSE professors from both schools, and both have excellent MSE programs. MSE is a pretty broad field, a lot depends on which speciality you are interested in: metals, ceramics, polymers, electronic materials; structural or functional materials; straight to workforce or grad school. If you are metals focussed, Mines and UM pretty even, might give small edge to Mines; if not metals focussed would give edge to UM; if nuclear related materials would go UM. For undergrad, I really like both schools. (in rankings UM shows up higher, but Mines still has vey good rep.) I would give edge to costs and personal preferences, Mines a relatively small school compared to UM, skewed male:female ratio; great for outdoors activities, UM has Div 1 sports and huge school spirit. Both will have good undergrad research or coop opportunities. Good luck!

ps @colorblind16 I just noticed you asked about other big 10 mse programs as well. Basically the big 10 has many really strong mse programs. At the top are Illinois (highly ranked for decades) and Northwestern, but OSU, UW, Purdue, etc all also very strong. really comes down to what specialty area most interested in and cost, personal preferences for size, location, etc

Thank you, this is very helpful! Is Michigan near the top of the Big 10 MSE programs as well?