<p>I am an Ohio resident looking to major in mechanical engineering. I’m considering Ohio State along with Purdue and the University of Illinois. I know that Purdue and Illinois are both better engineering schools that Ohio State but how much better? Obviously the price tag is the big issue. I can’t justify paying the big bucks for Purdue or Illinois if Ohio State isn’t that far behind them. So in short, how good is the engineering program at Ohio State?</p>
<p>Overall, Illinois is the strongest of the three. Purdue is great for engineering, but the depth of the university drops off seriously beyond that. Even in the hard sciences, Ohio State is much better than Purdue, so I'd caution anyone to make absolutely certain that they really, really want to be an engineer before committing to Purdue.</p>
<p>Ohio State's engineering college is very good--top 20 as opposed to top 10 for UIUC and Purdue. By and large there won't be that much difference between the quality of faculty to whom you'll be exposed and your job prospects after school. A top quartile engineering grad at Ohio State is going to get better job offers and grad school options than an engineering grad at Illinois or Purdue who was out of the top quartile.</p>
<p>Also Illinois, because of the politics involved with the Chicago area, is very, very hard to get into OOS, and they're not very generous with merit aid for OOS students for the same political reasons.</p>
<p>My son is considering Purdue and OSU for engineering. After scholarships, Purdue will cost about 5K more per year but is still affordable. I think both schools have good programs but my son is leaning towards OSU because he feels it is the best value and he likes the location better. His friends who have gone to OSU have nothing but good things to say about it. A friend's son is a mechanical engineering senior at OSU and he has racked up quite an impressive resume with lots of co-op work for companies like Honda. I think he has an award to go back for graduate work at no cost this fall.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the help. I did just find out today that I got into UIUC, but like what was mentioned, I'm not expecting much help in terms of scholarship money from them. OSU still seems to be the only place that fits my criteria.</p>
<p>My son looked at Carnegie Mellon, Purdue, UofM, and OSU as an engineering major. It was down to either UofM or OSU. He ended up choosing OSU since he could graduate without debt based upon his scholarships. All the other three would require getting some significant loans to pay tuition.</p>
<p>He's now a junior and very happy at OSU.</p>