My son is deciding between Notre Dame and Tufts for engineering (though he’s not 100% he’ll stick with it). He loves both schools and is having a tough time deciding. This is the list of pros and cons he came up with. The financial aid offer is comparable and we can afford both schools.
Notre Dame:
PROS
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Higher-ranked academics (17)
Excellent alumni network
Very high school spirit
Everyone who attends loves the school
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CONS
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Further away (CT to IN)
Very white, very rich student body
Mediocre surrounding city
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Tufts:
PROS
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Much closer (CT to MA)
Culture that resonates with me (son)
Liberal arts
Diverse student body
Close to Boston
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CONS
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Lower-ranked academics (26)
Weaker reputation and alumni network
Fewer students “in love” with the school
It seems to me that the pros for Tufts outweigh those for ND. I agree with you. And in these days of coronavirus, being closer to home is a big plus in my book. Who knows what next year will be.
I don’t see the difference in ranking as significant. Regardless, engineers go to graduate school these days. Which is ample opportunity to pursue his studies somewhere higher ranked if he still thinks that matters at that time.
I strongly considered ND but one thing gave me pause: parietals. Is that something that won’t grate on you, now or in a couple of years? If it would bother you, I wouldn’t recommend ND.
@RelicAndType good point. Something to consider. @privatebanker are you a BC guy/girl? I feel like you were super helpful on something I read and thought it was a BC thing. either way my memory is shady. So, I go to ND, and will list some pros/cons for me:
PROS: school spirit, academics, alumni, feels like a family atmosphere
CONS: location, weather, parietals and dorm system for some is an issue
In conclusion, don’t assume “everyone loves the school” because I have friends who actually don’t! My advice is flip a coin and in your heart you know where you want it to land. Follow your heart.
there is no significant difference in prestige between these 2. I think Tufts students love their school too- obviously without big time sports the school spirit looks a little different. If the “culture resonates” with your son it seems like the clear choice to me. And driving distance is a plus.
@irish2020. How is ND for you. My brother in law is a ND grad and absolutely loved everything about it.
I’m a BC P22. I went to college 25 years ago. Lol. The whole college process changed so much over the years I think kids and parents without private college advisors or good guidance counseling are at a big disadvantage these days. I learned a lot in our recent process. And come here to try and make sense of it all for others.
I’m literally making the same decision right now. There’s an 80% chance I’m going to choose Notre Dame. I’ll just talk about the things I’ve been thinking about deciding.
I love sports so Notre Dame clearly won in that area, academics really aren’t that different at either but Notre Dame’s alumni network is one of the best in the country.
Location for me isn’t a big deciding factor. Tufts has a more vibrant city relatively nearby, Boston. Compared to clearly not as exciting South Bend, Indiana. I don’t see location as much of an issue as there is more than enough to do on campus.
Social life is the most confusing aspects for me as you can never truly know until you actually go to school. Parietals, which at first would be very annoying but I have heard from current students that they really aren’t that big of a deal as long as you’re clearly not roaming the halls. Tufts gives the most conflicting answers in terms of social life, some say it is amazing and some say it is completely dead.
I can help anymore if you want, then again I don’ t go to either school and just know what I have seen from the LARGE amount of time quarantine has given me to research. I could be completely wrong.
Note that undergraduate engineering rankings differ from general rankings. In U.S. News, Notre Dame and Tufts place at 39th and 54th in their category, respectively. Also take note of each school’s reputation score, which more fairly captures their degree of separation.
Tufts may seem to have a weaker reputation than Notre Dame because it is a relatively new addition to the circle of elite universities. 50 years ago, Tufts was considered a commuter school. My guess is that Notre Dame was ahead of Tufts in rep back then, so older people may know its name more often than Tufts. Tufts also wasn’t great with alumni engagement until more recently, so that could have something to do with alumni perception of their respective schools.
Notre Dame is much more of a traditional college experience; Tufts is more unconventional. I would also guess that Tufts is a good amount more liberal and has much more of an artsy vibe to it. I can’t specifically comment on the differences in engineering, but Tufts’s class of 2024 had more female than male students accepted to the engineering school this year (which likely means that there will be a roughly equivalent number of men and women in the engineering school). Tufts also has a 0% attrition rate in the school of engineering, which I think points to the quality of it. However, if your son were to transfer to arts & sciences, it’s super easy.
I personally feel a big connection to the city of Boston since I engage with it pretty often, both in a political and experiential sense.
“Culture that resonates with me.” I think this is the most important aspect of an undergraduate education, and it’s personally why I chose Tufts. There is always grad school to go to for the sake of prestige/reputation/networking (even though Tufts has built a great rep for itself in the past decade or two). Your undergraduate years are some of the most formative years of your life. I wouldn’t trade those for the reputation of a school.
First of all, I hope your son sticks it out with engineering. It will be hard work. Engineering students have to take more courses per semester than liberal arts students, and there are a significant number of labs and projects which take up big chunks of time. This will leave less time for some of the traditional school spirit building activities, but in exchange he will receive a base set of analytical reasoning/problem solving skills and the ability to work in teams that can be applied for the rest of his life. If that is coupled with the communication skills and cultural wisdom imparted by the liberal arts, then he will have built a strong foundation for a lifetime of learning and for finding his place in the age of innovation.
In terms of rankings:
Engineers like to create things, so they tend to create their own rankings optimized to their own situation rather than use “off the shelf” rankings. I do not know anyone in engineering who hires based on US News ranking.
Engineers also like to take things apart, analyze them and see how they work (or don’t work). If one looks at the methodology behind the US News Engineering Ranking, it becomes clear that it is a pure poll of people in academic positions who have a vested interest in the outcome as well as little to no familiarity with any institutions other than the ones that they attended. This would suggest that the poll is actually a measure of how many people each school feeds into academia, which correlates more with the size of the school’s Phd program than with the attributes of the undergraduate academic program. A “back of the envelope” correlation analysis tends to support this hypothesis.
Note that if a practicing engineer were to use something similar in rigor to the US News ranking as justification for decision, it would be seen as “career limiting”.
Also note that “prestige” is an irrational construct that has no use in the rational world of engineering. No one in their right mind would fly in a plane whose design was based on the principles of “prestige”.
In terms of reputation:
It is probably best to think of the notion of “reputation” in these rankings as the “reputation within academia” not the “academic reputation”. It is also important to note that industry will use a different set of evaluation criteria than academia and it will vary based on the type of job that they are hiring for. Also note that it is industry, not academia that hires the vast majority of engineers.
