<p>Anyone who goes to Rolla have good things to say about it? Is the size of the town a major issue? My son is trying to decide between Rolla and Georgia Tech.</p>
<p>My son is looking at these 2, has 2 other schools. In state or out of stare tuition ?</p>
<p>I heard it is great for engineering</p>
<p>We'd be paying out of state to Georgia Tech and Midwest Student Exchange rate (1.5 times in state rate) to Rolla. Rolla would definitely be much cheaper. Georgia Tech seems more prestigious. Now we need to figure out which would be BETTER for our son.</p>
<p>I am not a current student at UMR, but I graduated from there with an electrical engineering degree in 1991, so I can give you a somewhat dated perspective of my impressions from a few years back.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the engineering programs at Rolla are very solid. While this school does not have the prestige or reputation of Georgia Tech, it is well respected within the technical community. I found the majority of the professors to be very competent, and most are willing to go the extra mile to assist a motivated student.</p>
<p>I think that part of the reason that UMR doesn't have a better reputation with the general public is that their admission criteria is too low. Back when I went there, they accepted far too many students who, quite frankly, had virtually no chance of graduating in any of the engineering programs. Perhaps this is because they are a state institution and therefore have to admit a fixed number of in-staters. Whatever the reason, it just didn't seem right to me for so many folks to spend their first year flunking out because they simply weren't properly prepared. They were effectively just subsidizing the education of the rest of us. Having said that, I found UMR to be an excellent value for the serious student. Many of the best technical minds in the midwest use UMR as a springboard to more advanced degrees at institutions like MIT, CalTech, and Stanford.</p>
<p>As far as the town of Rolla is concerned, it is a typical small town in Missouri. Besides the university, there's just not much there. However, it is a very safe place to live, and St. Louis is only about 100 miles away.</p>
<p>Since your son got accepted to Georgia Tech, he is obviously a top notch student. In my line of work (aerospace), I have worked with several Georgia Tech alums as well over the past few years, and I have found them to be very capable engineers. I must say that the reputation of their institution is well deserved, at least in the EE department. I have been to some professional conferences at the Georgia Tech campus, and was very impressed with the students, faculty, and facilities.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that I don't think you can go wrong with either one of these schools. Best of luck!</p>