Did you guys get your Purdue acceptance package in the mail? My son said it contains the password or login for viewing the fin aid package online. We still haven’t received ours and it’s been a month!!
I’ll definitely have to check quora out! I’ve looked at collegescorecard.gov, to get some insight into the graduate outcome piece. But nothing beats hearing the experience of other students that have been in the programs. Though Ohio doesn’t seem to have the same ranking in aerospace that Purdue has, the State of Ohio itself has lots of aerospace job opportunities. That has to count for something!
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Isn’t there a thread somewhere for Purdue? 
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We haven’t received the acceptance package in the mail yet, but Purdue sent my son an email letting him know that the financial aid was available to view using his career login. Your student should have all of the information he needs to set up the Purdue Career Account using information from his acceptance letter in the portal.
Sorry to get off topic. It seems a lot of the parents here have students that applied to both schools. It’s nice to be able to compare the programs, share what we’ve learned and hear the experiences of others. We are all in it together!
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Oops yes☺️
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Can we still get into honors or scholars even if we were deferred from EA?
Has anyone got their decisions after deferral from Jan 29? Thanks.
My son is still deferred and expecting to be waiting for the long haul. The longer the wait, the more he loses interest. From the postings here and on Reddit, there did not appear to be many decisions issued yesterday to RD students and I have not seen any reported by a deferred EA applicant.
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My international student who applied EA heard back with an acceptance y’day. he did not hear back in the first 2 rounds, he was not deferred as such, Admissions simply told him he would have to wait until the next round to hear.
No news here either. Wonder if the decisions now will be rolling each week or simply all sent again the LAST week of March?
March 26 is the next posted date for decisions. lol
Stop looking at rankings…they are like beauty pageants…pretty on the outside but lacking substance. Compare the actual academic courses, curriculum and experiential opportunities…rankings mean absolutely nothing.
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I really appreciate your feedback! I know rankings aren’t everything. Just one piece to consider. However whether the rankings are accurate or not, I do wonder if certain school names open more doors initially for that first post graduation job, especially in terms of certain majors. From what I can tell, Purdue is great in terms of securing co-op/internship experiences. Academics are certainly important but, let’s face it, all of these schools are ABET accredited. It’s the experiences outside of the classroom that make someone marketable. My husband is a Director of Engineering who graduated from Northeastern University. As much as I’d like to tell you differently, when looking at incoming resumes school name though not the biggest factor is still something he considers. The thing that holds the most weight, however, is relevant engineering experience outside of the classroom. You can graduate with a 4.0 and still be passed over for someone with a lower gpa if they have more actual hands in experience through co-ops/internships. My son is also considering our in-state flagship UMass Amherst. Definitely more affordable but I want to learn more about co-op/internship opportunities there and how they would compare.
Totally agree. Actual experience carries farm more weight than where you graduated
from. I know of students who attended “lesser” ranked schools and secured better paying jobs upon graduation compared to kids who attended big name schools. The difference was those kids who got the offers had multiple, quality internships and co ops and the others didn’t to the same extent. All things being equal pick the school that make sense financially and offers a good academic environment…do internships and co-OOS instead of spending the extra money for the name. Unless a school actually offers something another cannot, the added cost isn’t worth it
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Of the schools that offer aerospace as a major, Purdue is our most affordable. If my son attends UMass Amherst, where aerospace isn’t an option, it would be at a lower cost but he would major in Mechanical and try to gain experience is aerospace through experiences outside of the classroom. There’s definitely a path to Aerospace through a Mechanical degree but may be more of a challenge. Trying to figure out if the more focused aerospace major is worth the extra cost. Feels a bit like comparing apples to oranges.
Stating that “rankings mean absolutely nothing” is simply untrue.
Some rankings can and do have value for many schools/disciplines (for engineering, ABET accredited schools may have a higher ranking than those without, higher ranked schools may have more faculty with PhDs, resources, etc). Additionally, whether fair or otherwise, potential employers can and will keep rankings in mind when comparing applicants as well.
There are always many other factors to consider for applicants (and employers), but rankings (at least decent ones) are a great starting point for jumping off into the comparisons and research of schools you are talking about. To say they mean “absolutely nothing” is silly.
Here is a great example why rankings are misleading…OSU Business school ranks significantly higher than Miami U, however the ROI for Miami is nearly 70% higher than OSU. Employers particularly in the fields of engineering, health care and science place higher value on your actual experience than where you got your diploma. In fact, watched a recent interview with the head of HR for a federal agency who stated they placed far more value on a candidates skills and experience than which school they graduated from. She stated she was just as likely to hire a candidate from a small midwestern college who brought with them actual experience as she would someone who attended Harvard. It was the candidates qualities that mattered not the name of the school on the diploma. This is where so many students and parents get lost and end up with loans they cannot afford to pay back. This myth that College A is better than College B because its ranked higher or has better name recognition. As example people in NY dont know much about Perdue or Ohio state other than they play football…but they do know about Hofstra and SUNY Binghamton…its only the very high profile names such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford that carry some weight. There is a great long term study that showed when comparing schools and students based upon individual profiles…students who attended the so called elite schools were no more likely to succeed than their comparable counterparts who declined such elite schools and went elsewhere. They had similar career outcomes regardless where they graduated from. It has more to do with the student than it does the institution.
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No still deferral.
Saying now they are “misleading” is a far cry from saying earlier that they “mean absolutely nothing.”
Most higher ranked schools are higher ranked for a reason: they will give you better facilities, better teaching and likely a better “ROI” (your term) than those in a mid-tier or bottom tier. “ROI” is misleading itself because that term also has many different meanings for many different people.
Everyone can come up with anecdotal scenarios such as your tOSU vs. Miami (Ohio) business degree situation and that makes perfect sense. After all, Bill Gates didn’t even graduate from college, but come on. A Wharton (using that term generically even for a bachelor’s in business @ Penn) graduate with the hypothetical “exact same specs” as the Miami (Ohio) grad initially will likely have far more opportunities and potential “ROI” over the extrapolated course of time. Is the Wharton grad a better a candidate overall? Maybe not, but the potential business employers (nationwide, not in Oxford or Columbus) are “ranking” the Wharton grad ahead in their minds from the beginning.
As far as business schools go, getting a bachelor’s in business at Wharton (Penn) vs. tOSU vs. Miami (Ohio) can lead to different outcomes based on a million variables, but generally speaking, the employers and applicants know the difference. It is the same with Engineering, Law, Medicine and on and on. In fact, for law schools many AmLaw100 firms literally will not even recruit from outside the 25 USNWR rankings - no matter what the candidate has done. Many firms that hire engineering grads will take the MIT grad over the Clemson grad 9 out fo 10 times (at least right out of school) based upon a published ranking or one in their “head” at the time. If the “ranking” was truly worthless, then taking that hypothesis to the highest possible end then every Clemson Engineering student that applied to MIT would have gotten in and just as many MIT grads would be in “top engineering” positions nationwide as would Clemson grads. Past that scenario, the “rankings” within a “tier” may have less meaning (i.e. “Top 10” schools vs. each other being somewhat meaningless, where a Top 10 school may legitimately carry more weight than the #97 school on some list or in an employer’s mind).
That is not to say that you cannot get a top-notch education at “lower” ranked schools, but the legitimate rankings (and to some extent, reputation) exist for a reason. This is for the same reasons employers rank candidates, human beings “rank” potential significant others, high schools (most) rank students, etc.
Use the rankings however you wish, but do not forget they are there for a reason and they mean something to “most” people - good or bad.
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