Notre Dame or my State University for Engineering?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>Hi all,
I recently got accepted to the University of Notre Dame with a full-ride and 2 in-state Universities: University of Colorado at Boulder and Colorado School of Mines. From what I've perceived on the CC engineering forum, the engineering programs at state universities are often better than the programs at some 2nd-tier private universities such as the University of Notre Dame. Therefore, it's quite a dilemma for me to decide which college to go to. I've made a list of pros and cons for these two decisions:
I intend to gain a solid background in an engineering discipline related to energy or computation and business management. </p>

<p>1/ State Universities(Colorado School of Mines and University of Colorado at Boulder)
PROS:
- High ranked engineering programs
- Colorado School of Mines has a reputation for energy related engineering
- University of Colorado at Boulder offers many solid engineering programs(especially Aerospace Engineering). In addition, there are four Nobel Laureates(in physics and chemistry) in CU-Boulder faculty. Recently, 17 CU-Boulder members just participated in the CERN project. </p>

<p>CONS:
- CU-Boulder is too big for me. The interaction with faculty may be difficult.
- Research opportunities are available, but not guaranteed for undergrads.
- Colorado School of Mines student body is not diverse in terms of majors and perspectives because most of them are engineering majors.(In fact, except for business and economics, all the other majors at Mines have "engineering" in their titles.)
- No solid business program, which I also want to major in.
- My state is cutting budget for higher education. The tuition is increasing and financial aid from the state is decreasing. I have to borrow 10k/ year to go to Mines, and 5k/ year to go to Boulder. In addition, shrinking budget may imply that I wont be able to graduate in four years because the classes I have to take to graduate may be canceled. Only around 60% of CU and Mines students graduate in 4 years. </p>

<p>2/ University of Notre Dame</p>

<p>PROS:
- Graduate debt free
- Great overall reputation
- Because their engineering college is not well-known, theyre pouring a lot of money into it.(This school is filthy rich.)
- Close interaction with the faculty due to the small size of the engineering college
- Excellent undergrad business program. Their Mendoza School of Business was recently ranked 1st by BusinessWeek.
- Abundant undergraduate research opportunities.
- The campus community is very supportive, and school spirit is unrivaled.
- Their brochure says that 99% of their engineering students graduate in 4 years, and 99% of students who take the FE exam pass it.</p>

<p>CONS:
- The engineering program is not well-known.
- Far from home</p>

<p>The engineering programs at the above schools are ABET accredited. </p>

<p>Please give me some advices so that I can decide before May 1st.</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

2

<p>I wouldn’t really consider ND 2nd tier, no more than CSM, etc. Seems like ND fits about right in the middle between Boulder and CSM which are almost two extremes size-wise and for social life, etc. Since you don’t like big, then forget Boulder. If you don’t want to go out of state, then forget ND. BTW, CSM is great for math too. Overall, ND may be the best compromise between CSM and Boulder. None of these choices are bad, so you can’t really go wrong. Personally, I think CSM is enough better than Boulder, but not as much fun. I’m surprised I never considered ND, but that probably was because I had the wrong ideas about the religious aspect. Maybe ND would have been a good choice. Financing may end up trumping everything, so there’s nothing wrong with ND. In general, ND has more name recognition than CSM which most people don’t know outside the region.</p>

3

<p>bump</p>

<p>I think my question relates to a more general question: “Is general prestige more important than the actual quality of the engineering program?”</p>

4

<p>Go with Notre Dame. Just being with Top notch studenta ia worth the extra cash in this case</p>

5

<p>So… you got into Notre Dame and you get to go there for free? I’d say go there, it seems to me you like a lot about it. I think for the level these schools are in the rankings, that shouldn’t matter too much to you (you’re not comparing top 10 to top 30), and like you said Notre Dame is filthy rich and to me that sounds it would make it a really awesome place to be. No debt is also great, even better if you’re coming from a private school. My uncle had a taste of both not too long ago, and he definitely preferred private schools because of the things you mentioned, they made a big difference to him.</p>

6

<p>Notre Dame, hands down.</p>

7

<p>Thanks lol</p>

8

<p>If you were able to get full scholarship at Notre Dame… I don’t know why you didn’t apply to other great engineer school like Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, Cal tech, Georgia tech, CMU, UCLA and UIUC. If you are able to pull off full scholarship at Notre Dame as entering undergraduate student, I am sure you were able to get admission for top engineer undergraduate program…</p>

9

<p>Sounds like Notre Dame is the winner to me!</p>