<p>Anyone familiar with NM Tech for ME? Is it a good education? What is their job placement? Why is their retention rate so low?</p>
<p>Personally, I think that NMT is one of the most underrated engineering schools in the country. Job placement as I remember it is very good but I have no idea why the retention rate is so low. Here’s a review from the Princeton Review:</p>
<p>Academics:
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology-“Tech” for short-is not your standard-issue, state-run engineering and science degree factory. On the contrary, this small school “is about creating close relationships with actual professors who help students think and grow academically so they can become life-long learners and influential engineers and scientists.” Entering students should expect “an intense, rigorous academic experience” designed “for serious students with a love for all things scientific, electronic, or just plain nerdy.” The academic program provides “a hands-on education” through “immense internship and experience opportunities, so no person should excuse themselves from achieving an exceptional education in theory and tangible worldly knowledge”. Research opportunities also abound, which is another benefit of the school’s size. As one student reports, “Within two weeks of attending NMT I was able to obtain a research position working under a professor doing actual research, not grunt work. NMT is a research facility that just so happens to be a university.” The workload is tough, but “there are free tutoring centers for nearly every subject, as well as individualized help upon request. Professors are almost always willing to help individual students and love to see students succeed at this school.” With all these assets, how does NMT keep the cost of its education so cheap? Public funding is part of the reason, but perhaps “being located in the middle of nowhere”-where property values are traditionally pretty low-also has something to do with it.</p>
<p>Student Body:
At a typical school, you see people listening to music because it’s popular, not really because they think it sounds good, one Techie explains. “The clothes they wear, the way they talk, everything is done to try to impress others and try to be as ‘cool’ as possible. Here however, this is not the concern. No one wears the most expensive ‘cool’ brand-name clothing, no one listens to the music that’s popular. Individuality is absolutely held onto tightly here because no one cares what anyone else thinks of them. I know people who only shower three times a week because they think that’s all they need. They’re wrong, but they don’t care whether you think they’re wrong or not. They do because they want.” Another student adds that “high school ‘popular kids’ will probably feel very out of place here. On the other hand, gamers, nerds, geeks, and students who just never fit the mold will find a friendly home.” The population “has many Caucasian students, but there are also quite a few students from India and Japan, in particular. Males outweigh females heavily. As a male student, the male-to-female ratio feels like 15:1!”</p>
<p>Campus Life:
Surviving at Tech “involves a lot of work, so students are usually very busy.” Undergrads typically immerse themselves in their studies. They “think about school and getting smarter; that’s all anyone thinks about. When you walk by people in the cafeteria, they’re talking about algorithms. That’s not a joke. I didn’t know there were places or people like this. I thought people like this were a joke stereotype that you only saw on TV, but they’re real.” Students do find time for leisure, however. “The more athletic students tend to hike, mountain bike, rock climb, or play rugby,” while “the more introverted students tend to play computer games on the campus intranet.” Social life here “is not so great. Every weekend, people leave town to go home or they get drunk. there are clubs to join and some things to do, but those activities are limited and often stop around midterms.” Hometown Socorro offers “absolutely nothing to do” according to some, although others report that “There are also a few cool hangouts if students really want to get out (Socorro Springs Brewery serves wonderful food).”</p>
<p>You can’t trust Princeton Review summaries - they interview 10-15 people, and generalize that sample to the entire student population. That’s why you’ll see some schools with very different descriptions from year to year. Their “rankings” are even worse - a school will be listed as a top 5 “driest campus” one year and a top 5 “where students drink the most” the next year. It all depends on who they interview that year.</p>
<p>I’ve found the Princeton Review rankings to be absolutely useless. ABSOLUTELY USELESS.</p>
<p>actually I’ve found the princeton review school reviews to be fairly consistent, there are some schools who consistently do poorly and some who consistently do well in them</p>
<p>You also seem to like NMT. I don’t know much about the school, which should be a concern as a hiring manager for a fortune 100 company. However, I do know that it has a less than 50% retention rate, it’s the last ranked program in New Mexico, and it has a fairly low starting salary average.</p>
<p>NMT also has a company representative posting on here - that’s a very bad sign.</p>
<p>[Survey</a> Says: Degree From NMT Compares Well](<a href=“http://www.nmt.edu/news/3485-survey-says-degree-from-nmt-is-valuable]Survey”>http://www.nmt.edu/news/3485-survey-says-degree-from-nmt-is-valuable)</p>
<p>not a top engineering school as the salaries show but decent that if a top tier engineering school is not within reach cost-wise or grades/SAT-wise</p>
<p>Where do I start on that report? First of all, all data are self reported by individuals contacted from the website. For all we know, two people responded representing NMT. </p>
<p>Second, it eliminates all individuals with graduate degrees. Students from higher ranking schools (e.g. Georgia Tech) are much more likely to have a graduate degree than students from lower ranking schools. The students from higher ranking schools that do not have graduate degrees tend to come from secondary programs from those schools. This means that, for a school like Georgia Tech, you’re eliminating the top performing students, and are primarily sampling lower performing students, and students from programs like “Health Science”. The survey even gives a warning for this in their methodology section.</p>
<p>Third, you’re comparing universities as a whole - so NMT, which is almost exclusively engineering, business, and science is being compared to a school that has engineering, business, science, history, health services, political science, architecture, etc. That does not allow the inference that a student from NMT and Georgia Tech would make similar salaries.</p>
<p>Forth, you’re comparing across geographical regions.</p>
<p>So given all of that, I would ignore that unscientific survey, much like you should ignore the unscientifi surveys on Fox News (“…and 98% of voters on Foxnews.com agree that we should impeach President Obama…”). </p>
<p>If there’s a problem with SAT/grades or a cost concern, why not look at NMSU or UNM? Both are well respected engineering schools. NMT would make me nervous. Looking at their career fair in Spring 2009, 32 companies came. When you take out the military recruiters and the for-profit colleges that want you to pay for their grad school, that leaves you with less than 20 recruiters. Even given the size of the school, that’s a huge red flag.</p>
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<p>To be fair, the page itself DOES acknowledge this fact.</p>
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<p>I noticed this too. It was not adjusted for cost of living at all. Of course the schools in the Northeast and California are going to do well on that list since a lot of grads stay in the area where cost of living is high and, thus, so are salaries. I have always wondered why someone doesn’t compile an average salary that takes CoL into account… something such as Salary/CoL so that you get an idea of how much people are making above the average cost of living in their area.</p>
<p>Thanks for your comments. I live overseas and my family knows nothing about engineering schools. Desire ME. GPA 3.6 from highly competitive international school. SAT 1360. I know I can’t cut the top schools, so I applied to NMT, MSOE, Missouri U S&T, FIT, Michigan Tech, and Rose-Hulman–got into all with scholarships. Waiting on Rensselear and Cal Poly. I spent time at RH over the summer, and felt folks there were were not particularly sociable. I also worry that I might not be bright enough? I’d rather go to a lesser school and “finish” the program. Welcome thoughts…</p>
<p>If you got into Rose-Hulman you probably could have gotten into most of the big schools too. RHIT is a very good small engineering school, one of the best actually. That said, I can’t really comment on a lot of those, but growing up in St. Louis, I have a lot of friends who went to Missouri S&T and I have some respect for it. It isn’t quite on par with Rose-Hulman or Rensselaer, but it is still a solid engineering school.</p>
<p>well if you got into Rose-Hulman, you should be able to get into a pretty good engineering school. Forget about NMT then and aim higher</p>
<p>“That said, I can’t really comment on a lot of those, but growing up in St. Louis, I have a lot of friends who went to Missouri S&T and I have some respect for it.”</p>
<p>Haha, small world, I live in The St. Louis area on the Illinois side.</p>
<p>Anyway, I agree MST is a pretty respectable engineering school, ranked generously on usnews.</p>
<p>Illinois side FTW! We have all the great governors and politicians that our Missouri brethren lack! haha</p>
<p>Rotfl, definitely…</p>
<p>Also we don’t have to put up with those horrendous sports teams like those in the Windy City do, which is a plus for me. And by horrendous, I don’t necessarily mean to comment on the quality of their play, more on the quality of their overall appeal to me. (Note: Your definition of horrendous may vary)</p>
<p>My son is a junior in EE at NMT and I have a few observations.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The faculty and staff have all been helpful and talented. My son reports, “Everyone is nice.”</p></li>
<li><p>The graduation rate is lower than a lot of universities in large part because if a student decides they want to change majors to a non-technical subject, they pretty much have to change schools. Also, living in Socorro is not everyone’s cup of tea. It’s a small desert town, and once you get off campus there isn’t a lot to attract students.</p></li>
<li><p>The classes have been rigorous. You won’t get shortchanged in your education if you do the work.</p></li>
<li><p>The Princeton comments about the college for nerds is right on. It’s not that you have to be a nerd, but nerds are not on the fringe or ostracized. For my son, who loves games and made his own chain-mail coat, it is a perfect fit.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>FWIW.</p>
<p>I’m a grad student at Tech. My undergrad was in IL at Benedictine University, my brother attended Rose-Hulman and my sister went to the Art Institute of Chicago, so I have a pretty good gauge of what is a good education. I could have attended many other schools but the academics are top notch at Tech. I have a great scholarship, have had only one “disapointing” prof and KNOW that my degree is of value.
I agree that Tech is a bunch of NERDS, that’s just fine with me! Everybody wants to learn and it’s not dog-eat-dog; students and staff HELP each other and keep the standards very high! College isn’t about playing around, parties and expensive trappings, it’s about doing something for yourself that has value and meaning. THAT is why I chose NM Tech.</p>
<p>Getting into RHIT doesn’t mean you can afford it, even with a scholarship. It also doesn’t mean you will get into schools like Harvey Mudd, CMU, or Rice, etc.
Too bad the OP didn’t apply to CSM (Colorado School of Mines).
Nothing wrong with New Mexico Tech.
My guess: The OP will probably end up at Cal Poly.</p>
<p>BTW, what is considered a good/great freshman retention rate? 80%? 90%?</p>
<p>Freshman retention of 90+% is good, a 6-year graduation rate of 60+% is good.</p>