This is indeed a creative and unobtrusive way to tell what class-sizes actually are, albeit a touch tedious. 
Thanks!
My husband is a Chem Eng grad from Auburn. He has hired dozens of engineers. As long as the school is well known for engineering, it doesnât really matter where you get your degree from as long as you arenât going to grad school. Have a great gpa and an outgoing personality with people skills (which isnât common for most engineer grads) and he wonât have a problem finding a job. Chem and Mechanical engineers are coming out of school making $80-90k/yr. Maybe a little more with oil companies but there isnât much room for advancement so salary doesnât increase as fast as other industries.
While recruiting may be regional, in this day and age itâs not a big factor anymore. All job applications are done on the employerâs website, even with on campus recruiting, so searching and applying anywhere is easy. Interviews are by phone and video, with some larger companies flying you in for final interviews. An impressive candidate from anywhere will get hired anywhere. My Alabama son from NY interned in NY and MD, and had job offers in AZ, MA, TX, FL, and MO. His roommates now work in MD, AZ, and CA. OP can choose an out of state school, if desired, with no effect on Virginia job opportunities.
âOP can choose an out of state school, if desired, with no effect on Virginia job opportunities.â
And if OPâs son does choose one of the Virginia schools, he would have options on the east coast as well as other parts of the US. Lots if kids do end up in the DC/Virginia/MD area but kids also end up lots of other places. Virginia Tech has detailed info available (from grads who responded) of where their graduates got jobs. If OP hasnât done so already, they can go to Career Services http://www.career.vt.edu and look at the Post Graduation Survey for aerospace, mechanical, etc.
^ of course. I should have added vice versa. Engineering grads from Virginia schools get hired all over the country.
We are from Massachusetts and our D attends Purdue for chemical engineering. Has internships in Kingsport, Tennessee and Dallas, TX but also had opportunities to co-op/intern for companies in Atlanta, GA, Baltimore, MD and Cleveland, OH. A friend who graduated in in aerospace last year is working for NASA. Cannot say enough good things about the Purdue education. That said, Iâm not familiar with the Virginia universities although I am aware of their fine reputations. Great choices. Best of luck to your son!
My wife and I cannot thank you all enough for your generous suggestions, recommendations, advice and insights. Neither of us grew up in the US and so didnât receive our undergraduate degrees here, though I got my PhD at Penn State in Business. My Mech-E degree from 35 years ago doesnât count anymore! Having taught mostly in graduate Business programs and, typical of faculty, being (rightly) removed from Admissions Offices, I was not as versed in things Admissions. Our D is a sophomore in college, but she wanted to do it all herself, which we are, of course, proud of, but didnât immerse us in the process. So, all of your perspectives were immensely informative and helped us, as a family, arrive at a final decision. Even when comments seemed diametrically opposed to one another, the underlying reasoning was instructive. My wife and I had individually made our minds up earlier this week, as did our son, but we insisted on his being thorough with his research and deliberate about his decision. In the end, each of us arrived at the University of Virginia as the top choice, which is where he tendered his deposit last evening. While cost was a consideration for us, academic and other merits weighed more heavily in our thoughts. Since he is likely to attend graduate school, overall reputation loomed large. Besides, if the educational journey is viewed as a pyramid, a broader base serves as a strong and durable foundation for whatever lies ahead; UVaâs liberal-arts orientation fit that bill rather well. Another important factor was the selectivity of the schools in play: 30% for UVa versus 66% for UIUC and 59% for Purdue. Of course, some of this results from the fact that Virginia is âendowedâ with other fine institutions, such as College of William & Mary, Virginia Tech, GMU and VCU, to name just the nationally-ranked ones, which, in turn, âallowsâ UVa to be âmost selective,â a situation not mirrored in too many states (California and Texas being the rare exceptions).
We are humbled by the sheer volume of posts in this threadâand, more generally, on CC. Once again, thank you all.
Congratulations on the decision! My son certainly enjoyed his four years at UVa in engineering. All the best to you and your son. Wahoowa!
Good for you. I still remember helping my D to make decision a few years ago (also among some of the schools on your list). She was pretty much decided on the one with the lowest cost but ranked around the middle of all admitted schools in terms of school rank and selectivity. They are all great engineering schools anyway. At the end, she has been able to get additional departmental scholarships for sophomore to senior year (next year but got the award notice letter last week). So there may be an advantage to pick not the top school.
âSince he is likely to attend graduate schoolâ
Maybe he will but many engineers and CS people do not. Since you seem to be in academia yourself, I can understand that thought. My husband (and his dad) and both sons have/had engineering degrees, no graduate degrees so far. My nephew got a CS degree from an HYP school and his PhD humanities professor parents were already talking at the holiday table about him getting a PhD when he was still a freshman. He has a good job and still no graduate degree! 
âsevmomâ It was clearly my Freudian slip. You are right! Engineers seldom need to go to graduate school. That said, a friend, a partner in a reputed management-consulting firm, said to us the other day âThirty years ago, many people thought they didnât need a college degree, but most of them are regretting that logic today. Likewise, thirty years from now [perhaps sooner?] people might come to regret not getting a graduate degree.â Income and employment data certainly attest to that.
Meanwhile, our son is, of course, free to do whatever he wishes.
@cr @sevmom as I understand it, a PhD will make you more likely to be able to lead your own team and develop something new, given that youâll have expert knowledge in a particular area that your fellow engineers wonât have. Not that one is better than the other, it depends on what appeals to people the most.
Of course, , and certainly there are engineers that do get PhDâs, and use that to become professors or to advance in industry. I was just pointing out that many engineers do not get graduate degrees.
It depends on what the student wants to do after finishing school. If itâs hands on engineering work, then a bachelors is the natural starting point. More specialized work that still allows working on designing and manufacturing will be good with a masters degree. A PhD will pretty much put one in a research or academic track.
Really, any of the last four schools under consideration would have been fine for pursuing graduate study, if that is what he wants or needs to do down the line. Virginia Tech, Illinois, and Purdue are all great, well respected schools for engineering. Hope he enjoys UVa!