I’m very impressed with how knowledgeable and helpful people on this site are. I’d love to have your opinion on a topic.
My son plans to major in engineering (preference for mechanical or chemical).
Among the following choices, what are the pros/cons of one versus another.
Texas A&M / UT Austin / Purdue
Status: Accepted into TAMU (Engineering review pending) and Purdue (Engineering). Waiting on UT Austin.
One clear pro for the Texas Us would be that we would pay in-state tuition. I estimate the additional cost of Purdue to be approx. $20,000 (per year)
But any thoughts on TAMU vs. UT Austin and TAMU vs. Purdue and UT Austin vs. Purdue
@Axonta - My son is an A&M junior studying Aerospace Engineering. We are OOS. He was accepted to Purdue, Michigan, Texas, and Texas A&M. All are great engineering schools. All were OOS for us. Ignoring cost, my son liked Purdue best, then A&M, then Michigan, and then Texas.
Michigan and Purdue offered $10K scholarships, Texas nothing. A&M offered the National Merit package, so the net cost was less than staying in-state, so it was a no-brainer. My son is very happy with the education he has received at A&M.
Purdue is most like A&M in that both are in small cities with park-like campuses. We liked Purdue’s campus a bit more and also liked their approach to undergraduate engineering education. A&M Engineering Dean Banks came from Purdue and has implemented a lot of Purdue’s practices. Purdue is a big school, but still much smaller than A&M.
My son liked Austin, but did not much care for the campus or his visit to the department. They pretty much just went through the motions. As I’m sure you know, Austin is a big city and the campus is much more urban. This was in contrast to our visit to A&M the day before where they really pulled out the welcome wagon and gave us customized all-day visit, with students to walk us from appointment.
FWIW, Michigan has incredible facilities and it’s a great school. However, the engineering college is on North Campus, a bus ride from main campus and most off-campus activities.
My son does not care about athletics, so football success and stadiums meant nothing to him.
@Beaudreau and @ACT2017 , Thank you very much for the feedback. These are very good data points - with different perspectives. It seems like the college campus experience is probably best in university towns like TAMU and Purdue, even if the overall reputation may be a bit better at UT or UM. The other factor may be weather - Purdue and UM would tend to be fairly bleak in the winter months…
Academically similar schools, but you probably already know that. TAMU has the largest career fair in the country, if you’re looking for job placement after completing school. It is consistently ranked as a preferred school for recruiters(normally #2 in the country), I believe that is due to the type of students who attend here. Have your son look beyond the academic rankings and decide what type of atmosphere he prefers. The Aggie network is very strong & loyal. We have experienced many times over the years, to include a closed door interview starting off with " I have a ring, you have a ring so we both know you got the job…" I haven’t researched the other schools to be fair - but my kids have never regretted their decision.
Daughters are Aggies – one Mechanical and the other Civil. Having lived in Northern Indiana and Texas, girls looked at and were accepted at these schools as they were schools with a definite concentration in engineering and great schools. Weather aside, Purdue, in West LayFayette, is similar to A&M as it is also a more rural school with the town being centered around the university and a little over an hour to a major airport. You can fly in and out of the smaller towns but limited (expensive) flights that need connections. Austin is, obviously, in the heart of a large city and neither of my girls found that appealing. Girls also got more merit aid at A&M, it was closer to home and, ultimately, found what AGmomx2 said, fantastic career fairs and the famous Aggie network. All good choices, however, so I don’t think there is a bad decision there!
@AGmomx2 and @NETarrantMom , thanks for the inputs. I’ve heard many cases of students preferring A&M over Austin for the reasons you mentioned. This is quite impressive.
Interesting to see this post! Facing the same situation here except also considering Alabama and Pitt! She is accepted to engineering at Purdue, auto admit to UT and A&M but of course awaiting engineering decision.
She’s just not all in for that Aggie spirit thing and honestly they didn’t pull out all the stops for our engineering admission tour. I guess they do if you are NMF, but ours was just eh. She got the “The Clock is ticking” card you receive with acceptance to encourage you to do the dorm deposit and she has let that slide. She said she liked Alabama better and would rather attend there than A&M. I would be thankful for the year of general engineering but then the applying to your specific major and competing with everyone on the CS campus plus the Blinn and Galveston campuses seems a little daunting.
University of Texas–to be fair, we need to go back and do an engineering admissions session. We did just a general tour of the campus so any opinion would just be on aesthetics of the campus and reputation which is solid. Wouldn’t expect any merit aid there and the stories of kids changing their mind on their specific engineering major at UT and then not having any options do tend to replay in my mind. Also–I don’t like that they don’t get a broader exposure to engineering in general. The direct admission to your major seems to seal you into that specific major.
We both really liked the Community and engineering program going on at Purdue and liked the campus well enough. We liked that you get a year of general engineering but then there’s the whole sticky situation of having to apply to your major thing again. The additional cost (if not merit offered) would be something to consider also.
More mobility seemed possible at Alabama and then of course the free tuition does make it more attractive.
@carachel2 - We visited Alabama last winter for my youngest son. It’s a great option. The financial aid is amazing and the Engineering complex is incredible. Alabama does not yet have the reputation that the other other schools on your list enjoy, but they are rising fast. BTW, my youngest son ultimately selected Iowa State. He did not want to go to the same school (TAMU) as his oldest brother and because he just missed the NM cutoff, TAMU would not have offered much. Alabama had a great merit package. Iowa State’s was not quite as good, but it was good enough that it came close to Arizona State’s merit aid for a in-state student. So far, he loves Iowa State.
Full disclosure, I have another engineering son in the middle, a sophomore at Miami of Ohio. In total, we visited 21 colleges over four years.
I have a son who graduated from UT engineering and another at A&M engineering.
If you are looking at mechanical engineering, both UT and A&M have very strong programs. The $20-$30K extra per year at Purdue or Michigan could probably be used for graduate school or is just a nice savings.
Regarding chemical engineering, the program at UT is highly ranked, small and extremely difficult to get into. In addition, they seem to admit just one or two from each high school which makes it even more difficult if one is applying from a competitive high school. The ChemE program at A&M is comparatively easier to get into. It is a larger but excellent program. Job prospects (starting salary) are just as good as UT - probably better because of the loyal Aggie Network and A&M’s connections in this field.
If you know you definitely want MechE and won’t want to change then UT is an option. You are directly admitted into your major and need a low GPA to stay in. You will have to compete at A&M after the first year. But 90% got their first choice major last cycle, so it’s possible if you keep a GPA > 3.0. The advantage at A&M is that you can select a different engineering major after first year of general classes. You also have a choice to add in minors - Computer Science or other engineering minors, other classes etc. At UT they just don’t have space- they want you out in 4 years. UT will also be the more competitive program to stay in because the whole class will be above average as they select carefully.
Both schools have excellent engineering fairs with top recruiters. My older son had multiple internship offers each year and a job offer before he graduated. At A&M the focus is more on GPA when applying for an internship. A&M has many more engineers and internships go to the top students based on GPA. They also usually don’t offer freshman engineers because first year is general engineering.
After visiting each campus you will probably know which school is a better fit. My older son was admitted to engineering at Purdue, Georgia Tech, A&M etc . But as soon as he was admitted to UT engineering he did not consider any other school. He loved the urban campus, Austin city, top ranked engineering department and the liberal vibe at UT. He excelled there because it was a fit for him. My younger son applied to all the big merit NMF schools - Alabama, Oklahoma and some top ranked schools (including UT). But in the end he choose A&M. He liked the friendly Aggie spirit, the relaxed campus, the ability to change engineering majors if he wanted to, the schools strong engineering reputation and the loyal Aggie Network. In addition A&M has been very generous with merit aid. You are not just a number in their program, you are like family and they consider any special situations that arise.
I wanted to reply because my son was in this same situation two years ago, and he ended up at Purdue University. He is currently a sophomore Mechanical Engineering major.
His first choice was UT, because my husband and I are both UT alumnus. He was an auto admit into UT, as he was in the top 6% of his class, but at the time he thought he wanted to do Chemical Engineering and that is a highly competitive major at UT. He was not accepted into Chemical Engineering, and his only choices in majors were more pure science. He was not interested in that, so his next choices were to attend A&M or Purdue. We knew he would get a great education at either Purdue or A&M, but ultimately he felt like he fit in more at Purdue. He was very impressed with Career Center there, and their focus on getting internships and Coops for the students. At the time A&M was also just implementing the new Freshman Engineering program, and they really could not give him an idea what kind of GPA he would need to get into the major of his choice Purdue had much more concrete criteria, so he felt like going in he knew what he had to do to get into the Engineering school. He also fell in love with the Purdue campus.
Obviously it costs us about $20K more per year to send him there, but he is applying for a Coop this year and hopes to cover some of the extra cost with his earnings from that. Ultimately I think his Dad and I had brainwashed him in burnt orange for too long and he just couldn’t go to A&M and feel like he was a part of it. I also feel like he was able to reinvent himself by going to Purdue, and he was anxious to be able to do that. They are all excellent engineering schools, so you can’t go wrong with any of them. I will say that Purdue has been a very positive experience for him. He loves it there and he actually loves the weather. It’s also a very rigorous curriculum. He has friends in engineering at UT and A&M and he says he has by far more work than they do. Not saying that is good or bad, just an observation he has made.
@tejasgal , thank you for the response. It was most helpful and your situation may end up being very similar to ours. Good to know that all worked out well and your son is enjoying Purdue. It is a great school with a stellar international reputation.
@tejasgal …thanks so much for your response. You echoed all of the reasons why the two big schools in-state just don’t seem to be high on the list. Good luck to your son!
@Axonta If your child also wants to pursue a minor, please ask a lot of questions of UT. I’m not absolutely certain, but was told in 2015 that you can only get a minor at UT if your department will write the minor into your degree plan. When my daughter was in high school, the UT department for her major told her they absolutely wouldn’t allow her to get a Spanish minor. They would allow her to take Spanish courses. However, when you write a resume & apply for jobs, having a Spanish minor on your transcript is a lot more meaningful than saying “I took a lot of Spanish courses.” She quickly crossed UT off the list. Decided against A&M because she has seen what my Aggie has to endure: subpar advising & not enough courses to accommodate freshman & upperclassmen already admitted to their degrees. My National Merit Finalist (not a STEM major) decided on an OOS university that offers a great financial aid package & has almost 100% job placement rate in her major.