<p>So these are my top 3 picks in order of my interest:
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
University of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign
Illinois Institute of Technology</p>
<p>What is your opinion of these schools? Just so you know I am confined in the distance I can go for school because of parents (I live in Illinois).</p>
<p>I plan to go into Chemical Engineering.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about the other two schools but I do know that UIUC is a damn good school.</p>
<p>I would definitely rank both Rose-Hulman and UI way above IIT for chemical engineering.</p>
<p>Oh, another addition. IIT is more of a safety. Both of my brothers go there and so I respect the school as one of respected engineering, but it is not my top choice as I had demonstrated above.</p>
<p>I’m sure someone will mention that Purdue is probably in your range. Maybe even Case Western, WUSTL, or U of Missouri S&T (Rolla) if you want more options. Those might all be within a 6 hour drive for you.</p>
<p>Well he is trying to stay fairly close to home, it seems, so I am guessing he lives somewhere in central Illinois, which would mean that most likely Case Western and Rolla are out, but Purdue is in range for sure. Then again, if he is from central Illinois, there is a decent chance he is too big of an Illini fan to bring himself to go to Purdue.</p>
<p>All three would be fine on the engineering side - kind of depends on what you want for a lifestyle outside of the classroom, as these three are very different in a variety of ways. Also, if ChemE is your thing and distance is an issue, you could consider Wisconsin-Madison or (a bit further afield, but possibly your least expensive option) Minnesota-Twin Cities. Both are highly thought of for ChemE.</p>
<p>I was looking at University of Wisconsin-Madison, but I don’t think that that will go over well. What is your view of the three schools I listed. I figure that there isn’t really a reason to go to Purdue if U of I is right here. I was looking more at RHIT though because I am a big fan of small schools.</p>
<p>Rose is a wonderful Engineering School and not to be missed for a visit. The students are very focused on their studies but also have fun on the weekends. If Engineering is your passion this is a school you should seriously take into account.</p>
<p>thanks cheezwiz</p>
<p>Try Kettering U as another safety.</p>
<p>Also, you might want to check out the Milwaukee school of Engineering, as well.</p>
<p>RHIT is a pretty good, but over rated engineerign school. It doesn’t deserve to be ranked the #1 engineering school for schools not giving doctorates. It’s no better than schools like WPI or RPI in terms of undergraduate education, and is arguably worse because there are very few research oppertunities avalabe there. RHIT is definatly worse than Olin and Mudd, schools it beats out in the rankings. That said, it is a good school if you don’t care about research.</p>
<p>UIUC is very, very good. If you are in-state, good for you, but if you are OOS, beware that they give practiaclly no financial aid, and charge 40K a year for OOS engineering students.</p>
<p>I’m an in-state student for UIUC, just so everyone knows. That is the biggest reason it is near the top of my list.</p>
<p>RHIT seems to have been praised by both students and employers as an excellent undergraduate school. I myself am not very familiar with the school, so therefore I can’t comment on the validity of SpacePope’s statements. Is RHIT over-rated? I would like to know the overall benefit from getting an education there. I have heard from many parents who say that they have a son or daughter at RHIT and find that there other kids then wish they would have gone there. Now I doubt this speaks for everyone, but there has to be something about the school that ranks it where it is. That is what I am trying to figure out. What makes RHIT “better” than the other schools? I think a big thing for me is the small school environment, that is exactly what I want, a small school. That is why I have been leaning more away from UIUC (although my sister is a grad student there, which makes it more appealing).</p>
<p>Thanks for all input and any future input!</p>
<p>RHIT may be a good - even great - undergraduate engineering school…but its in Terre Haute!!! Nuff Said.</p>
<p>some people say that a school in a isolated/not as fun place is good for people’s studying habits</p>
<p>Salve!, if you want an outstanding engineering program within a small school, you should definitely be looking at Rose-Hulman . It is *not[/] over-rated; in fact, it tends to be under-rated because so few people – outside the engineering world – have ever heard of it. I encourage you to visit the school and see for yourself. I think you will be impressed by both the academics and the hands-on experience you can get there. There may well be fewer research opportunities at R-H than at other schools (I have no first-hand knowledge on which to judge that issue), but I can tell you that R-H has very strong ties with industry and the opportunities for internships/co-ops/full-time employment for graduates are excellent.</p>
<p>By the way, I have no bias here, as I am not affiliated with any of the schools you are looking at. (I went to RPI and Texas A&M for my engineering degrees.)</p>
<p>UIUC seems to be a no-brainer in that group. </p>
<p>The RHIT crowd will fight vehemently to defend “teaching schools”, but the argument just does not hold water. Doctoral students from top universities can go one of two ways: research or teaching. Research pays much more (more than twice, on average), is more prestigious, is more secure, and involves research (which is why most doctoral students are doctoral students). Obviously, the “top” students all pursue research positions. This leaves the “lower performing” graduates and the graduates from lower tier schools to pursue teaching positions.</p>
<p>As a direct comparison, consider “teaching only” professors at research schools (yes, research schools do have professors that only teach). Teaching positions in major research schools are held in much lower esteem. Teaching faculty must have a PhD, but cannot receive tenure, are paid much less, and usually do not participate in faculty meetings. Teaching professors generally only teach the basic classes, not the advanced or graduate classes. And are “teaching professors” better at teaching, and do they provide more “personal attention” than other faculty? Student surveys overwhelmingly say no. A pure teaching professor will have a higher class load and larger class sessions leading to less individual attention. Surveys also indicate no difference in the perceived teaching ability (of course, you can always find horror stories of the “professor that doesn’t speak English”, but that is rare). </p>
<p>In addition, you have to wonder about the quality of education at a teaching university. The pure teaching faculty that I know do not keep up with the latest research - they just don’t have time. So, the material they teach is generally as old as their doctoral degree. A 1970’s PhD is therefore teaching 20-30 year old material. Now if that person is just teaching statistics or thermodynamics, but if a student is taking the latest separations course or reactor design course, they should demand a state-of-the-art education.</p>
<p>Finally, there is the issue with industry ties and value of your degree. A large research university, such as UIUC, is well known all throughout the country, both in engineering and in non-engineering. The teaching schools, however, tend to tie themselves to specific companies or industries. Kettering was mentioned earlier - I spent much of my career as a hiring manager for a Fortune 100 engineering firm, and I had never heard of Kettering. I interviewed tens of thousands of graduates from 100+ engineering schools, and never once did I meet or see a single Kettering degree because I wasn’t in the automotive field. Now, if a Kettering graduate couldn’t find an automotive job and applied to my company for a position, how do you think I would have viewed the educational background of that person? Here’s a hint: it’s very different than I would have viewed a UIUC grad. Then again, that’s only if I ever met the person; we were never contacted to recruit there.</p>
<p>UIUC is certainly an excellent engineering school but there’s no reason to put down R-H, which is also an excellent engineering school – and may well be a better fit for the OP if he doesn’t want a big, rah-rah sports school.</p>
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<p>Wow! All I can say is that I am just stunned by the absolute conviction with which these ridiculous generalizations have been pronounced. Someone who prefers teaching to doing research is automatically a “lower performing” student or – horrors – from a “lower tier” school? And he must also be someone who will never pick up a current publication or attend a conference to keep abreast of the field in which he has invested at least seven years of his life to obtain a PhD? (By the way, how did he get a PhD in the first place if he was such a low performer?) We’re talking about engineering – a field where new technologies are emerging all the time. Anyone who doesn’t try to keep up would soon find themselves out of a job – including your “pure teaching professors.”</p>
<p>I have never heard of Kettering either, so the school clearly does not have the national reputation of R-H and should not be compared to R-H. I do know that R-H is not just a “teaching school.” There is indeed quite a bit of research going on there. It’s certainly not on the scale of UIUC in terms of $$$ or number of people involved, but on a proportional basis, given R-H’s very small size, it’s probably just as important. Quite frankly, the OP would likely have a greater chance of doing research, if he’s interested, at R-H than at UIUC since there won’t be tons of graduate students to compete with for research positions. And I have never heard of R-H being tied to one particular industry or company, although it does have strong relationships with many different industries and companies; these links help R-H graduates get good jobs upon graduation. </p>
<p>Bottom line: R-H well deserves its reputation as an outstanding institution for educating young engineers, as does UIUC. But the two schools differ substantially in so many ways (size, location, cost, amenities, opportunities, etc.) that neither school can always be the “best” for any individual student; that’s a personal choice.</p>
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<p>The problem is that you are being defensive in this discussion. My comments were geared in general towards teaching schools, since the difference between UIUC and R-H, at an aggregate level, come down to the philosophical difference of teaching schools vs. research schools.</p>
<p>All too often posters on this site extol the benefits of teaching universities: “the professors care about teaching”, “the classes are smaller”, etc. My previous post was a comment about the negative aspects of attending a teaching school. </p>
<p>While teaching schools have both benefits and negatives, if teaching schools were inherently better than research schools for undergraduate education, they would be more prevalent. Instead of having research universities, we would have undergraduate colleges and separate graduate universities similar to the Naval Academy (teaching professors) / Naval Postgraduate School (research professors) design.</p>
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<p>While there may be the rare case of a student with the sole intention of teaching, the vast majority of graduate students at top schools are there for the research. As a result, given then choice, nearly all students will choose a top research university over a top teaching university, even when you ignore the prestige and pay differences. </p>
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<p>Because you routinely fire tenured professors? Working in academia is not like working in a corporate office. As long as your record is satisfactory for tenure, you are set. So a doctoral student graduates in 1965 and understand 1965’s current hot topics. In 1971, that person receives tenure with relatively recent information about the state of the field. At that point, you lose the ability to fire them. In 2009, that person is teaching with 35 year old information, the students are being inadequately prepared, and there’s nothing the department can do about it.</p>
<p>How is the situation different in a research university? That same professor would have not received tenure, but let’s say he did for the sake of argument. Over the years, that professor (rather than just teaching), would have performed research projects for companies, would have attended conferences and seminars, and would have been required to sit on the committee for PhD students. All of these things at least make the professor aware of the current state of the field.</p>
<p>I would totally disagree with the notion that it would be harder to do research at UIUC than RHIT. I did 2 years worth of undergrad research at UIUC, and had no problem finding it. Just because you don’t have tons of grad students to compete with doesn’t make it easier to get research, mainly because there is so much less research to go around at RHIT. I would venture that it would have a similar research to grad student ratio as UIUC, if not lower simply because it is not a research oriented school. Given, I never went to RHIT, but everyone that I know at UIUC that actually wanted to get into undergrad research eventually did.</p>
<p>Also, for the record, I can say that every professor that I had within my department at UIUC really did care about teaching to at the very least, a reasonable degree, and probably at least half are what I would consider outstanding teachers, despite the fact that they are there primarily to conduct research. So far (albeit in one semester) I have found the same to be true at Texas A&M, though it is for graduate school, so there is some difference there.</p>