My son is international applicant and got admission offer to five US Univ for UG - Engg. After UG, he plans to go to Grad School.
We thought that he should go to the one that has the highest Ranking for Engg courses.( We refer US News Ranking)
Then we came across another thread and lot of people mention that - Grad School cares about GPA and does NOT care about the UG School.
Now, we are confused. Please suggest .
He has offer from two private universities with 50% scholarship (that is still 20,000 USD in tution), offer from two SUNY universities and fifth is university in Virginia .
Please don’t focus on the USNWR ranking It’s really more important that you find a good fit for him with the campus size, type of engineering offered, location.
You might as well name the schools. Without knowing what the schools are or the major (engineering majors definitely differ), the only advice I can give is to go with the cheapest one.
Medical and law school are more GPA focused. PhD programs are likely to care about undergraduate research and recommendations as well as courses and grades; to the extent that the undergraduate school is respected in the major and provides such research opportunities, it can matter.
International students also need to consider whether employment in their country of citizenship or residency is school-prestige-conscious and whether the ranking of schools in their country differs from that in the US.
What kind of engineering, and what five schools at what prices after applying scholarships?
Please understand that there are no official rankings. US News is a business to sell rankings to you. It is useful if you have no idea at all, but putting numerical ranking on undergraduate college is absurd in reality and you should think more in tiers. Also you may not really want to equate best grad school ranking with best undergrad as they are somewhat different focus. Grad school ranking is much about the department publishing research which may not really be a factor for undergraduate education.
Maybe you will get more comments if you give the names of the colleges and the type of engineering.
For grad school you want a good solid gpa, gre and letters of recommendation. You can usually get good letters if you do research with your profs, so access to research as an undergraduate is very helpful and sometimes it is mandatory for serious consideration.
Yes if the college has solid reputation and ABET accreditation for engineering, factors come into play about what setting the student finds most appealing and conducive to learning. Congrats to him!
I will update net cost, his preference is in Engineering physics.
He was informed that with EE also, her can move to engineering physics in grad school
Thanks
I’m assuming you mean Florida Institute of Technology? I used to live in Melbourne-decent place to live but not a college town. If he’s looking for the true college experience pick elsewhere, if he likes beaches it’s a good pick.
I would go with where he will be happiest personally and academically (and finanicially) for the undergraduate years. You may be getting a little ahead or yourself with the specific concerns about grad school.
If he likes Engineering Physics, why not go with the SUNY;s?
Congrats to your son on having several excellent choices! I think what will make his decision difficult is that you may not be able to visit any of the campuses in advance. In his case, however, I would focus on the likelihood that he will be comfortable and successful at the college. I think this is what most CC posters mean by “fit,” but it may be particularly important to an international student. Here are some questions I would ask in addition to the ones about cost and courses of study:
Is one school particularly good with support services for international students? Any US engineering school will have some international students, but some of the five your list may have better international students offices and support programs than others. You can probably get a sense of this from online research. I would especially check out resources for students who speak English as a second language. I’m sure your son’s English is quite good or else he would not have been so successful in admissions, but living full-time in a second language and taking very technical coursework in it will be a new challenge for him.
Are there other students from your home country on campus? It seems to me that many international students appreciate having some presence from their home country on campus, if for no other reason than to get a break from speaking English all the time.
How important is it to your son to have a familiar community off campus? I am inferring from your user name that you live in Tokyo. Keep in mind that a school in a major city like Chicago (IIT) may give him more access to Japanese restaurants, expats, cultural events, etc. On the other hand, if he really wants to dive into a more “traditional” American college experience, a school like Virginia Tech would provide that. You know your son better than we do, but you can help him think about that.
Is one school better than the others at helping students access US internships or job opportunities? Some schools may have more services to help their international students obtain work visas or other legal necessities to supplement their engineering coursework with work experience. That could be valuable to your son.
I’m sure there are other good questions to ask, and folks here might be able to supplement this list.
Florida Tech and Illinois Tech are science and engineering focused schools, with few other offerings. The other schools have more classes in other majors and are much bigger schools. VT, of those listed, has the big time athletics. The SUNYs and Chicago are in very cold climates, VT more moderate although can get cold.Pack his flip flops for the beach at FL Tech. Chicago is the only big city, with Buffalo coming in second in size but maybe not in diversity. He also should consider what area he’d like to focus on - aerospace, design, etc.
Florida Tech is 30% international students, so has very good support. Many internships and co-ops in the US aren’t open to international students, so you need to make sure the school will have not just internships, but some open to international students.
Big city wise, Stony Brook is about a 2-3 hour train ride from New York city. Probably ok for an occasional day trip, but not like being in a big city.
Thank you all for the comments. Really appreciate it .
Hi ucbalumnus
Thanks . My S pretty much wants to work in US after UG and Grad. That’s primarily the reason to apply for UG in US Universities.
Hi Brownparent.
Thanks . Research oriented UG course is what we seek, something which is not available/focused in my home country US courses.
All the colleges i listed are ABET accredited.
Hi SomeoldGuy
Thanks . My son has all his education in English, so language is not an issue. We are not Japanese.
Would you kindly elaborate on what you meant when you say - “traditional” American college experience" (Virginia Tech would provide that)
Being outside of US, we don’t have the opportunity to visit the college before deciding and high school education in US is very different from what
my son had till now.
I would definitely look into which universities have better international students offices and support programs. Thanks for pointing out.
Hi twoinanddone
Thanks. Internships and co-ops open to international students is something i was not aware of. Thank you for bringing it in.
Virginia Tech is a large school in a town that is dominated by the university. It’s pretty far from any big city, so the students have to provide all the entertainment - football, fraternities, musicals, concerts. There are 25,000 students to do that. The university is mostly engineering, but there are plenty of other departments offering theater and music and English majors. There is a division 1 football team, and high level of play in other sports. On a Saturday afternoon in the fall, there will be few people not in the stadium as that is the focus on a Saturday. It’s a big American university experience.
Florida tech is much smaller, although closer to major cities (Orlando, Miami). There are only about 3500 students on campus. There is Div 2 sports, including football, but it is not such a focus of campus life. There are clubs for theater and music, but few classes and no major in the arts. Almost everyone is in some kind of engineering or science, but there are degrees in business, psychology, and communications offered. It has a lot of marine science offerings and aerospace.
Want more of an urban lifestyle? Then the other three are better choices. Stony Brook and Buffalo are not going to be so engineering focused as there are many students majoring in arts and sciences, but are also more traditional university experiences. Want that big big city experience? Chicago is it at IIL.
All are good choices, just offer different things. Weather, size of school, sports, major airports, male/female ratio? What’s important to you? My daughter goes to Florida Tech and loves it, but if I were choosing for me I’d probably pick VT because I wanted the more traditional big school college experience and Buffalo is really really cold.
Illinois Institute of Technology has a large and diverse population of international students and from what we’ve observed so far, a very supportive career center. Maybe @xraymancs can give some information on the major and specific support to international students. It’s a very tech focused school, around 8000 students total, division III sports, close to downtown Chicago with easy access to public transportation. My daughter is a student there and having a great experience so far.
IIT would also have a lot of internationals. That could be considered good or bad. It’s also not in a good neighborhood. However, Chicago is a big city and many places are easy to get to by public transportation.
BTW, my understanding is that for a foreign student, finding work after a masters would be easier than after a bachelors. Why engineering physics, though? That doesn’t seem to prepare you for much to me, but I may be wrong. Anyone with more expertise want to comment?
IIT is in a reasonable and improving urban neighborhood where normal city street smarts are needed. The biggest trouble with the surrounding area is the lack of stores and restaurants within an easy walk. Insteaad they are a stop or two away on the train. My daughter has not had difficulties though, and when my husband and I visited we did not feel unsafe or have more than a reasonable level of concern with leaving our kid on campus.
My daughter loves the diversity and has made friends from all over the world as well as from all over the U.S.