<p>ExplorerCY I would say you are right where you need to be
my son is a 4.0 unweighted...that means he has never ever even gotten an A- and he is going to purdue
it is a good school
other schools just might cost more...doesn't mean they are better
and don't think you are too smart to go to purdue...most going into your field are just as smart or even smarter
this is so different than high school</p>
<p>Hi all! I am a student from Singapore. I hope to get into purdue ENGINEERING (very selective right?), one of my favourite universities. Purdue is such a great place to be at! Not sure whether I can get in though. Pls advise!</p>
<p>First try:
M: 720 (careless!)
CR: 660
W: 650 -_-</p>
<p>ECs: Have won several research awards (such as silver for Singapore Science and Engineering Fair and finalist for A*Star Talent Search 2008). Presented project at several international conferences. One of the top 10% in my school. Was previously the national champion for my age group in table tennis as well. Captain of table tennis team, community leader (100+ hours) as well etc. Will get good recommendations from my teachers, will write a decent essay.</p>
<p>Btw, does purdue require SAT II for international applicants? Also, is my SAT score too low for an international apply to engineering, or just right? Is there also early action, or rolling admissions for purdue? Hope any kind person out there can answer my questions! Thanks everyone! :)</p>
<p>I will be a sophomore at Purdue in the fall studying Materials Science Engineering. Like the original poster, I went through the First Year Engineering Program, but disagree completely. Purdue is a very good school and the numbers do not always show that, nor did I believe that during my college search.</p>
<p>Does Purdue have its downsides? Sure, any college does. But the ones the original poster lists aren't among them. </p>
<p>A school cannot easily be great in all fields. Purdue tries its best and does pretty well. Krannert School of Management is a good program. NO program can guarantee a prestigious job after graduation. They prepare you the best way they can and then you do the rest. </p>
<p>As for teaching students "teaching courses which are only relevant to their field," this is simply not true. Freshmen are required to take English, many majors require a foreign language or Economics and many others require electives not in your major. I currently have English composition, literature and 4 German classes and I still need another "General Education Elective." Furthermore, there is nothing against a student taking courses that interest them. One of my friends took a German literature, another took German history. </p>
<p>Every September, Purdue Engineering Student Council (PESC) hosts the Industrial Roundtable, one of the largest internship and career fairs in the country. Companies from all over the country, of all sizes, including big names like Rolls Royce, NASA, IBM, Microsoft, GM, Chrysler, Ford, etc. Also, the CCO website hosts internship postings by company and field. I found my current internship on the CCO site a week before classes ended. From the time I logged on to the time I submitted my resume to the company was maybe 15 minutes. If you do not want to find the help, you won't, but if you want it, it is there. As for Professors, yes some don't care about students, but many others do. </p>
<p>It is a big school and it can be daunting when you first find out you have back to back classes with 10 minutes between each and you have to get across campus. However, since it is a large school, you have a wide variety of clubs and organizations ranging from athletic to philanthropic to comedy to religious. Saying their is nothing to do other than sorority or fraternity parties is wrong. I never went to one greek house and never had a lack of things to do. I am not a "game nerd" and rarely played video games, never D&D or Magic, etc. You just have to find or come up with things to do. </p>
<p>Yes, the acceptance rate is fairly high, but it is also a state school, unlike MIT. It receives state money (very little, sadly) and many in-state high school students see the school as their only shot at college. Purdue obliges by using a very easy application. They are adding a writing sample to it, but I do not know when. Many graduates from my high school (an hour away from Purdue) went there for their freshman year. A good number transferred to one of Purdue's regional campuses after a semester or year. </p>
<p>Like I said, many people from my high school class went to Purdue. Originally I did not want to go to Purdue. I was valedictorian of my high school class, I had good SAT scores, etc. I thought Purdue as "too easy" a school. My top choices were MIT or Northwestern, but I did not get in to either. By the time I started at Purdue I knew I was wrong and Purdue was a great school.</p>
<p>One of the big things the University is pushing across all schools is honor programs. There is an overall University Honors Program and then most schools have their own. I was in the First Year Honors Engineering Program, so can only speak about that one. I would say a good 50-75% of the students in the Honors Program were in the top 5 of their graduating class. Many were valedictorians or salutatorians. The students were from all over the country, from Utah to Virginia and coming from a range of high schools from public (like myself) to top private science and math schools. Many others were from foreign countries.</p>
<p>As for competitiveness, we were not cutthroat. That isn't saying we did not compete. Our first semester project was building a Lego Mindstorms robot to operate in a simulated warehouse facility. Each "team" could not help any other team and were secretly ranked at the demonstration based on the performance. At the demonstration, however, all the teams wanted others to do well. At one point there were 20-30 people cheering on my team's robot. They wanted us to succeed as much as they wanted to.</p>
<p>I am not saying all of Purdue's students are the same level or higher than those at MIT. Some, including one of my friends, turned down MIT for Purdue. Purdue is a public school and admits many more students than MIT and therefore the averages are much different. </p>
<p>Not every school is perfect for everybody. Prospective students have to find the school that best fits them. A good way to do that is to ask many current students questions. Each student is going to have a different experience with the school and, therefore, a different viewpoint. Most importantly, take any and all responses with a grain of salt. It is just one experience. It may or may not be representative of an entire student body. That goes for my post, also.</p>
<p>Soggy, I doubt that people at Princeton are any smarter than people at Purdue. You'll find smart and dumb people anywhere. "prestigious" schools never interested me. The school I attended was the only school I applied to and it was the only place that interested me even if I would have been accepted to any school.</p>
<p>okay so i heard that Purdue has a strong computer science program..but i havent heard anything about it in this forum..is it true?</p>
<p>Also what do you think would be a better route - go to UIUC LAS and try to transfer to their engineering or go to comp sci at purdue? Or apply somewhere else completely :D</p>
<p>CS at Purdue might be better relative to its other programs, but compared to other universities' programs it stacks up pretty low. Computer engineering would be a different story. </p>
<p>If you are from California, the UC system would be much better for CS, and much cheaper as well. UCSB is noteworthy in this category if you can make it. </p>
<p>As for the other stuff on this thread, I personally agree with parts of the OP's post and disagree with others. The thing I most agree with is the inflated opinion of the ENTIRE undergraduate engineering student body. The people I know who went to Purdue for engineering went there because they couldnt get into the UC system instate and they had parents who were willing to pay for OOS tuition. That being said, at all public universities there will be those who turned down schools like MIT and Harvard for full tuition scholarships, especially at Purdue which is somewhat lenient with said scholarships. This means that there will be top students at the school, but dont use this fact to brag about how smart your school is. Now with THAT said, Purdue is a fine place to go for engineering even if you are a top student. You will be first to get advantage of new opportunities as you will be at the top, and some classes will be relaxingly easy - others not so much.</p>
<p>Seiken - Did you attend Purdue? If not, how can you judge that some classes are "relaxingly easy"? And you are definitely incorrect about the lenient amount of scholarship money, at least until this point. OOS tuition is about $23,000, and in prior years, the most that many top students could get was a total of $14,100 over 4 years (not per year). There were a few additional ones for first year students, but certainly not "lenient", particularly in the engineering area. That has changed with this year's class, where the new President has recognized the need to offer more merit scholarships to OOS, so it might be more of a factor going forward.
Having said that, I would agree that if a student is from CA and is accepted into the UC system, it wouldn't seem to make much sense to spend the extra $$ on OOS at Purdue.</p>
<p>Why a HM student would come to a Purdue thread and proceed to bash the school is beyond me. Consider the sources of negative comments on this thread; an obviously bitter current student and an apparently bored student at a school 2000 miles away (798 posts on a college message board!).</p>
<p>I was trying to provide a middle opinion, not bash the school. And after rereading what I said, I still dont believe I was bashing the school. I did say it was a fine place to go for engineering, but its not going to have the consistently top student body that MIT will have. </p>
<p>I do believe I am allowed to post where ever I want. This is the 2nd time ive encountered issues in a Purdue thread though, so I might not be back, apparently criticism is not welcome here. </p>
<p>As for my relationship with Purdue, I know a fair number of students who go there/went there and I am somewhat repeating what they said and also commenting on what it may have been like helping them in certain cases. I would say the full range goes from relaxingly easy to rapingly hard, most will of course have some middle ground. I didnt say most are the former and few are the latter. That being said, I dont see how someone who has ONLY attended Purdue has a higher opinion on the matter than I do. </p>
<p>As for how I got here/why I posted. I did a search on computer science and voila, noticed the person was from Cali and decided to mention the UC system. I also decided to comment on other stuff in the thread, sorry.</p>
<p>Final note, Purdue might be in boring place, but from my friends I hear there is an endless amount of stuff to do, if you know where to look for it.</p>
<p>Going UIUC LAS and transferring might not be too bad of an idea if that's what you want to do. However, it's not a guarantee that just b/c you apply to LAS means you'll get in (I tried doing that and still got rejected haha). Anyway, I don't understand why many Cali people come to Purdue tho. It's good and all but I agree that you'd probably be better off at a UC school (you don't wanna deal with the harsh winters). </p>
<p>And yes, there are smart and dumb people everywhere. In my encounters at Purdue, I've met a lot more dumb people than at other colleges. I mean with such a high acceptance rate, you can't really expect all smart people. As far as scholarships go, when I applied, Purdue gave you $4000 if you got a 1350/1600 on the SAT and a 3.75 GPA or something like that and were out of state. And one of my friends got a full ride cuz he was poor so that was good for him. Other friends got Pell Grants and other stuff but all in all, even with all that money, it's still going to be expensive (not to mention plane tickets for Cali people). So yeah, if you can go to a UC, try that first I would say.</p>