<p>I wasn’t aware of the recognition that UMass had received in science and engineering. It’s good to know, even though my son probably won’t be majoring in either (undecided now). We were frustrated he wouldn’t even give UConn a good look, though he had been accepted. I feel a little better about just enjoying the $ savings now.</p>
<p>I don’t think that the difference between UMass and UConn is a big deal, but if UConn gave me a good merit scholarship, I would definitely lean towards UConn… for some students, going OOS is a great experience. I would have gone OOS if I got into UC Berkeley (Michigan definitely didn’t make the cut to make me consider going OOS).</p>
<p>If you want a good party experience, UMass is also great. There’s a reason it is nicknamed “ZooMass” (I just felt like saying that :-P)</p>
<p>IPD - hope you don’t mind the abbreviation - thanks for pointing out what I didn’t have time to get into, that research is generally weighted toward medical / bio / health and that some areas at some schools get substantially more than the same areas at other schools. And that it’s not simply apples to apples. I love when people have actual facts or points to offer.</p>
<p>(BTW, we’re both off on UofMichigan’s research $$$. I inadvertently counted their own funding - meaning what they put in themselves. They get $611M from the feds and $100M from other sources, not counting the state, this from their annual report. But it doesn’t matter.)</p>
<p>Even though my family went to Michigan, there’s no way I’m paying oos money to send my kids there. Period. Not worth it. Even though I lived in Ann Arbor and love it.</p>
<p>As for UMass, it does have a medical school - it’s just not in Amherst - and we should give it credit for the $174M in external funding the medical / research program gets. (And again, to draw the CT comparison, their state medical / research center got $92.5M in research funding.)</p>
<p>Lergnom . . . what do you do? You respond to so many postings on a variety of schools - just curious as to how you are the expert on so many colleges.</p>
<p>I only post here and in the BU forum. I have children at BU and at UMass and one looking … we were on the road this week. I know a lot about Michigan and some other Big Ten area schools - for a variety of reasons - and a few other schools that I went to and that family are at, teach at, etc. </p>
<p>The rest is research and contacts in academia. And I did admissions work on a graduate level some years back. This not only gives me a handle on how schools are actually viewed but I’ve been involved in discussions about how rankings are weird. Note that I usually give facts about schools, not opinions like “better.” </p>
<p>I also type very, very quickly. These longer posts take very little time and I often do one in the background while my computer is working on something. </p>
<p>For example, research dollars are reported each year because 70% of it comes in some way through the federal government. (UMass, btw, is an anomaly by not making their number look as big as it could be. Most schools include medical center research - as in Tufts which says bluntly that it includes all affiliated medical facilities in its $160M.) If you include UMass medical center, UMass is in the top tier of research institutions. </p>
<p>All this information is published somewhere and very little of it is gated - meaning hidden behind a fee or password system. You can for example look up UMass and see [this</a> page](<a href=“http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/4045/screen/29?school_name=University+of+Massachusetts+Amherst]this”>http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/4045/screen/29?school_name=University+of+Massachusetts+Amherst), which is the report by the American Society on Engineering Education. It says UMass engineering, including compsci, got over $35M in external research grants for the 2008 reporting year. Of that, you can see that over $23M went to compsci and electrical/computer engineering - and a big chunk went to polymer science. That’s a lot and that gives you sense of how “good” a department really is. </p>
<p>Again, by contrast, the same report shows that UConn got $21M in external research grants for engineering in toto and about $7M for compsci and ee/computer engineering. Big difference. UMass has over 3 times the funding for these fields of research. (An advantage for UConn is clearly in biomed but by comparison BU gets 2 and 1/2 times as much.)</p>
<p>Again, by comparison, MIT gets a whopping $244M and Michigan $155M in engineering grants - and across more fields. And for the curious: Harvard gets - surprise - almost the exact same as UMass, $36M. The difference is that $22M of that goes for physics. Harvard’s strength is not engineering and they get less computer related grants than UMass. BTW, if you think Ivy schools are always great, look at Yale and Brown. They get very little engineering research money.</p>
<p>(BTW, I don’t know how the ASEE collects data.)</p>
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<p>Since you say “as far as you know”, I assume you didn’t go to the school. </p>
<p>Actually, the frat/sorority scene at UMass Amherst is very small. If you’re interested in Greek life, it’s very much there for you, but you don’t have to go anywhere near the frats in order to have a full and complete social life at this school. </p>
<p>There are parties in the residence halls, and you can party if you want to. Or not, if you don’t want to. There’s so much to do, on campus and off, that you don’t have to party if that’s not your scene. There are dances, pubs, restaurants, study groups, theater, dance, film festivals, political rallys, events on campus, in town, in Northampton, and at the other colleges. It’s a vibrant place to go to school, with a lot of variety in terms of social life options.</p>
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<p>This is actually one of the reasons why I picked UMass - the lack of obsession over college sports. I didn’t want a school where, in order to have a social life, you had to be into the football team and etc. I wanted a school where there were other options. I found that in UMass. </p>
<p>Yes, the sports are there, if you’re into them. But just because you don’t love college basketball, that doesn’t mean you won’t have a great social life. And that, I liked.</p>
<p>I was in Poland - Krakow - a year or so ago, and my cab driver, in Polish, asked me if I was a university student (I look younger than I am :lol: ) When I told him where I’d gone, he stopped a beat in surprise, looked at me, and then, in English, said, “Good school.” UMass Amherst has a strong rep as a research university on the international level - both anecdotally, as in my story, but also as shown in international university rankings, which others have already cited. </p>
<p>But what’s that matter? It’s the best public university in Mass., and one of the best in the northeast, and that means that a lot of students choose it for a variety of reasons - fit, size, location, price. I don’t feel that anyone can say, “UConn is better” based on rankings, because rankings aren’t the be-all, end-all of a student’s decision. They can be a factor, but they shouldn’t be the only factor. </p>
<p>It’s true that some of their buildings get run down when there’s a financial crisis, like in this recession. You may see more trash on campus. That’s because when they’re asked to make cuts, they cut physical plant so they don’t have to touch academics. It happened during the last big recession, so I’m not surprised it’s happening again. Our roof in the fine arts building leaked. So what? We had great professors, and I got a great education at a bargain price, and to me, that’s what really mattered.</p>
<p>I was on college touring duty with my youngest this week and the dorms, etc. that I saw were no better than UMass. Some were newer and some older. </p>
<p>Back in the dark ages when I went to school, we’d begin wearing our coats in class and then fall asleep as the heat kicked in.</p>
<p>I know about UMass’s reputation as a CS graduate school. My cousin was turned away by thier CS masters/phd program, as are many internationals, because it is a top 20 program and many with high gpas and 2200+ GREs don’t make the cut. As for its graduate reputation in general, I’d say it’s a peer to SUNY Stony Brook, SUNY Bing, UConn, UA, UMCP, Rutgers, Penn State to name a few. I’m not sure whether UMass is top notch, mostly because it doesn’t have as many top 10 departments as many other schools (think Michigan, Berkeley, Minnesota, Wisconsin, UW) but it’s science and eng. programs are largely top 30, which is fine</p>
<p>As for the undergraduate reputation, people are not as concerned about where you went, although some of the courses are very challenging and doing well there gets you a good job or grad placement, which is what I guess matters at the end. UMass has many problems relating to funding, which are shared across other systems including the UC’s which have an amazing academic reputation. However, the Massachusetts state legislature puts politicians into the board, which causes many of the problems we see there.</p>
<p>There are two pieces of relevant research. One looks at earnings of people who were admitted to “prestigious” schools but who couldn’t or decided not to attend. Their earnings were the same as people who actually went to those schools. The point: it’s the person, not the undergraduate school. The other looks at earnings of academics. In that case, the people who graduated from the higher ranked graduate program made more money. The analysis was that higher ranking translated into better starting positions and, because people tend stay in those jobs for a period, the starting advantage lasted for up to 10 years. </p>
<p>There isn’t much data on the first point but it makes sense. That is, if you go to MIT you’re likely really smart and motivated and hard-working so you’ll make more. But if you got into MIT and couldn’t afford to go, you’re also smart and motivated and hard-working and the world is big enough that you do well. (BTW, you can see in this data some of the obsession about rankings; people want to get into more prestigious schools because they want to make more money. The problem is that if you do get in, it doesn’t seem to matter if you go. In other words, the process seems to correlate to intrinsic talent and that (plus drive) is what tells in the long run.)</p>
<p>Lergnom - since you have one at BU and one at UMass, do you feel BU is worth the investment (this requires your personal opinion)? My daughter loves BU but the lure of everyone saying they ‘love’ Umass is conflicting. She only has 7 more days to make a decision.</p>
<p>My kids at BU are there mostly because they’re interested in specific programs. One is in film and BU’s film production program is one of the best - and I agree with that. BU also costs less for us.</p>
<p>Straight up $50k versus $18k and liberal arts schools, I’d go for UMass, particularly if you’re talking the honors program at UMass. At some money point, the balance shifts and that is personal. </p>
<p>If you’re interested in a field where BU does a lot of research, it’s a great opportunity. The other board had a kid interested in chemistry, for example, and that’s a large research department with a small undergrad so you get a lot of upper level exposure - I’m not counting pre-med kids - and research exposure. </p>
<p>I happen to live in Boston, near BU. One of my kids is a hardcore city kid and she’s happy with an urban campus. She also is able to see friends who go elsewhere because as they pass through. Another likes the country more.</p>
<p>Lergnom - unrelated to this thread -since you appear to be very knowledgeable: we live in NYC, our son (HS junior) is interested in engineering and definitely prefers “country” over “urban”. Would UMass look for higher GPA & scores for an OOS?</p>
<p>All state schools look to upgrade their student numbers with OOS scores, but I doubt the difference is particularly meaningful until you get to the California systems.</p>
<p>Want to add that engineering is a huge word nowadays and I’d think about which area he might be interested in and then try to match program strength with interest. As I’ve pointed out, American Society for Engineering Education reports research grants by department, which gives you a pretty good sense of what goes on where. [Here</a> is the UMass one for 2008](<a href=“http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/4045/screen/29?school_name=University+of+Massachusetts+Amherst]Here”>http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/4045/screen/29?school_name=University+of+Massachusetts+Amherst) and you can use that to look at other schools.</p>
<p>Anyone notice that “Lergnom” is “mongrel” spelled backward? What’s up with that?</p>
<p>That’s because it is Mongrel spelled backwards. :)</p>
<p>Great source of info Lergnom - thanks. Second question is about retention rates, esp Freshman to Sophomore year. Overall, seems to be lower for state schools vs private. How would one interpret that? Is it purely a function of lower admissions standards and greater numbers of students? Or should one attribute greater importance to it?</p>
<p>My guess is that state schools have greater issues with two kinds of students. First is that some kids can barely afford to go and may have other issues at home that make attending college difficult. A state school is likely to have more kids from families that have never been to college and from families that have difficulties, economic and otherwise. They may need to leave for a while or go to a school closer to home. Second is that school quality varies a lot from district to district across any state so a kid with good grades in high school may find the work is hard. I know this is true at Michigan but I honestly don’t know about that at UMass.</p>
<p>When I was at UMass, I know a lot of students had purposefully chosen UMass due to its low price tag (relative to comparable universities), and many students struggled to pay tuition each term. I think that’s a major influence on retention rates at public universities - students there are at higher risk of having to leave due to financial issues, because more students there, versus at private colleges, have picked the university due to financial issues. </p>
<p>I don’t think it’s due to “quality of applicant” issues. That’s not my gut feel. But you’d need to look at private colleges that have the same stats re: SAT and GPA for their incoming students, and run an analysis of comparables. You may also have to factor in financials.</p>