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<p>I never said that they are not “serious colleges” because they lack graduate divisions. However, I did say that MOST serious colleges do offer graduate degrees, so RHIT being #1 on that list does not mean a whole lot to me. It means a little, but not a lot.</p>
<p>RHIT might be the equivalent of being #45 in the list of colleges who do offer graduate degrees.</p>
<p>I was considering throwing this out here earlier, but didn’t for some reason. I’m not going to bring up the RHIT/MIT debate again, but just want to show another perspective on how bachelors-only schools are viewed by grad school admissions. Thomas Sowell, an economist and fellow at the Hoover Institute think-tank at Stanford. </p>
<p>[Source</a> 1](<a href=“http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/7662]Source”>Hoover Institution)</p>
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<p>[Source</a> 2](<a href=“http://www.leaderu.com/alumni/sowell-choosing/chpter12.html]Source”>Sowell: Choosing a College Chapter 12)</p>
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<p>I don’t know if he’s referring to any sort of study or not, but I think his perspective is interesting. FWIW, in US News doctoral-granting undergrad engineering ranking Princeton is #12, UCLA #19, Duke #26, and Penn #26.</p>
<p>Thanks to all of you for offering your thoughts. My son is in the home stretch of making his decision and I would love to hear your thoughts. I will give you some background so you understand what type of student he is, not to brag.</p>
<p>Will be receiving an IB diploma; GPA = 4.0 UW, 5.3 W; ACT = 35, 36 on Math; SAT = 2280, 800 on Math; SAT IIs - 800 Math, Physics, Chem; 12 APs to date of which 10 were 5s, 2 were 4s. He is a very serious student, nerdy, math team type. Very self-motivated.</p>
<p>Accepted to GA Tech, Rice, UFlorida, WPI, Harvey Mudd. Not accepted to Caltech or Olin. Currently wants to be an Engineer focusing on computers. </p>
<p>He has narrowed his choices to GA Tech & Rice. I’ve read dozens of posts about both schools, we have visited both for two days each and son has sat in two or three classes at each. Money is approx the same at both schools. Please share your thoughts. Thank you.</p>
<p>Personally, I think Rice is a terrific school for undergrads. I’d pick it over GT in a heartbeat. That’s just my opinion. Others may differ. </p>
<p>Rice has outstanding faculty and his peers will be tippy top also. I get the sense that Rice students are much happier than GT students, without sacrificing the rigor. Both are very rigorous schools, but I think the biggest difference is that GT admits a lot of student who can’t handle the rigor, whereas Rice only admits really top students. That’s why GT sounds so gloomy.</p>
<p>Rice is a private school, really small with a lot of opportunity and probably far superior talent.</p>
<p>It’s important to also look at the actual retention rates of the students in engineering.
Many of the well known schools with grad programs do a pretty poor job of actually retaining their students. often as many as 50 per cent change majors due to this Darwin approach to teaching,. further more the internal burn out and mental health issues are significant in these programs.</p>
<p>It is also important to many to consider class size, approach to teaching, ability to do internship durning undergraduate engineering…often that leads to excellent career options where as doing research for a TA at t huge school where profs never even know you are a student in the program do not.</p>
<p>Rhit student have gotten top internships prior to graduation. …and something closet to 90
Employed in positions of their choice even in a recession. I know of many mitt Eng grad still without job 2 years after graduation…despite all their research opportunities…so yes now they are applying to grad schools.</p>
<p>In looking at some ot the top ranked Cal Engineering programs…and the top Large univ.
Programs students are in lectures of up to 400-600 student for all their core req,s
Then labs taught by TA s of up to 35-40 students…?</p>
<p>RHIT is a small and specialized curriculum…one does specialize, and it is rapidly becoming more well respected nation wide , especially even in Silicon Valley when Standford and Cal are next door.</p>
<p>Look also at how students themselves rate their satisfaction with their experience!</p>
<p>^^^^sorry, but nothing that you posted here proves that RHIT would be a better school to attend for undergraduate than MIT</p>
<p>there really is no comparison here</p>
<p>in fact, the stats that you refer to favor MIT completely:</p>
<p>Student/Faculty Ratio
7:1 – MIT
12:1 - RHIT</p>
<p>Classes with fewer than 20 students
65% - MIT
38% - RHIT</p>
<p>6 year Graduation Rate
91% - MIT
80% - RHIT</p>
<p>Freshman Retention Rate
98% - MIT
90% - RHIT</p>
<p>Alumni Giving Rate
38% - MIT
25% - RHIT</p>
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<p>I don’t know the specific numbers, but I have no doubt this ought to be a serious concern to many students and should not be taken lightly. The fundamental notion is in fact true. Many people who start as engineering majors find it too difficult. </p>
<p>That is exactly why I think that the fundamental value proposition for a school like RHIT is in the support it provides to the student who would otherwise get weeded out. I’m not discounting the value of a school like that, not at all. There is not only one right way to become a successful engineer. </p>
<p>But from the point of view of an employer, going to a top school and not only surviving, but excelling in such a harsh environment is in fact a higher level of achievement.</p>
<p>I think that washout rate is for all schools in general, and you’ll find in “top” schools that fewer people wash out since they’re much better prepared for an engineering curriculum. I know in my undergrad I only knew three people that switched out. One to business, one to physics, and the last to math. This is a bit different from my brother’s friends at the state school down the street.</p>
<p>I do not understand how can folks who either work in or have to the ability to work in…can turn a discussion about an academic and employment area such as engineering turn into a p*ssing contest. We are talking about an employment field where (in most cases) there are more jobs than what the schools can produce.</p>
<p>Good thing that this isn’t about the communications major or the business major or the sociology major.</p>
<p>It’s not that serious folks.</p>
<p>I agree that it isn’t that serious. I also disagree with the idea that someone with close to zero experience with a school or its graduates should speak about it and/or them with any sort of authority.</p>
<p>It’s the same reason I won’t say anything about MIT or any other school in this forum. I have never been to MIT’s campus, never spoken with an MIT student, never sat in on an MIT class, etc.</p>
<p>I have no place saying anything about MIT other than I highly respect the reputation that has taken 150 years of outstanding success for MIT to develop.</p>
<p>I think comparing RHIT against MIT is a frivolous exercise. </p>
<p>One is undergraduate focused, the other post-graduate.</p>
<p>One is an engineering rising star with a small student population akin to a top LAC like Amherst, or Swarthmore. The other is essentially a world class research lab with education as an adjunct. </p>
<p>The contest here is same as asking is Harvard better than Amherst? </p>
<p>The parameters are too ill defined in the original question to be able to produce a satisfactory answer. Amherst is exclusively undergraduate focused, Harvard is not, so how can anyone compare the two. </p>
<p>And by the way, Amherst is a feeder college for Harvard graduate programs. So RHIT could be one day become a feeder college for MIT.</p>
<p>Well said, ickglue.</p>
<p>Ladies and Gentleman,</p>
<p>As both an alumni as RHIT and MIT, let me offer an inside perspective on the topic. First of all I would like to defend my alma mater RHIT. Do not consider RHIT a minor league college. On the US News and WOrld Report rankings which you are all referring to there is a very important stats. On the list of the rankings, US News gives each school a ranking out of 5. RHIT is given a 4.6/5 which would place it 5th on the list of schools that offer a doctorate degree. MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, and GT are all above them. So do not consider RHIT a minor league school. It’s undergrad is very impressive. They just don’t like to keep their school quiet which I am not sure why. Secondly, you can’t really compare the 2 schools. RHIT is a undergrad driven school. The curriculum is setup to where they want to send their alumni out into workforce right after graduation. Kids that go to Rose are focused on graduating in 4 years and never going to back to school again. The majority of the 15% of graduates that go to graduate school fall under 2 scenarios (myself being the miority in this group). The first being students that did not do as well in their undergrad work as they wanted and they want a second shot at grad school. The second scenario is for alumni that want to go on to be a college professor. So that is RHIT, do not look at as a minor league school. That is a horrible assumption. Now MIT is a graduate concentrated school. They focus on reserach and gradute and dorctoral thesis. That is their goal. That is why they are so well known. They publcize their research which means more grant money from big business. That is their goal as instution but their undergrad is still really good. It was given a 4.9/5. The key is that you can’t comapre these schools. RHIT is a undergrad based school where the professores that are there on focused on teaching and not research where as MIT is the exact opposite.</p>
<p>MIT is an AWESOME school. Toured there with my son and there was nothing we didn’t like about it. He was deferred EA and then rejected during the regular round. If he’d been accepted, there’s no doubt at all that’s where he’d be attending school. There really is NO comparison.</p>
<p>However, since Rose is ‘in my backyard’, I know a lot about the school, know many graduates, and definitely don’t understand many of the comments here, I guess I’ll assume they belong to the uninformed.</p>
<p>Rose isn’t by any means an easy school to get into. Easier than MIT, well of coures, other than Caltech what school isn’t easier to get into than MIT? It’s the school around here when you mention applying, you get responses like, “That’s a GOOD school. Good luck.” When you tell them you’ve been accepted, you get “Wow, you must be a REALLY good student. It’s a really good school.” </p>
<p>It’s the engineering school of choice for most top midwestern students because statistics still show that the overwhelming majority of students still don’t travel more than 200 miles from home to attend college…frankly midwestern students aren’t going to MIT or GT or Caltech or any other school more than a couple hunded miles away in big numbers, but to say top students don’t attend Rose is simply not a true statement. Top east coast students, top west coast students don’t attend Rose in large numbers (although they do exist there), but top students most definitely do attend Rose. I know of several class valedictorians who have attended there or are currently attending. In my S’s graduating class <em>2</em> students were admitted to Rose.</p>
<p>When touring colleges, my son and I met with a professor in a southern school who had attended a west coast school and although had no affiliation with Rose or Indiana that I know of, encouraged my son to attend there, telling us what a great school it was, in spite of the fact that we were touring the school where he worked. To say that Rose is not known within engineering circles is also simply not true.</p>
<p>For those that say they don’t know any Rose grads, that’s most likely becaues it’s a small school and most grads stay fairly local. But even during the recession, the local TV stations would show the job fairs at Rose and say that employers left disappointed - not because there wasn’t talent there, but not enough of it. Even with 100% of students seeking employment getting offers, there were more positions available. There simply aren’t many people graduating from Rose moving back home to their parent’s couch. I work at a location with many engineers and know MANY Rose grads and they are very gainfully employed and happy with their choice to live in rural Indiana, and don’t want the ‘rat race’ of living in a big city…not to imply that Rose grads can’t go that route if they choose, only to imply that maybe that’s why some people haven’t run across many Rose grads, they’re very happy to stay here with the low cost of living. </p>
<p>The students attending Rose are the same ones that are applying to engineering at Purdue and UIUC, which may not be the caliber of MIT, but are by no means ‘weak’ engineering programs.</p>
<p>To use the statistic about how many students go on to PhD programs is a silly statistic to me. What does that statistic imply? How many engineering students care to get PhDs? Why do they need a PhD in industry? Most engineering students only go on to pursue an MS because that’s all they will need for their career path. To say a school is a lower quality because it is not producing researchers and professors is silly…it’s just not a career path the majority of students are pursuing, but that doesn’t make them a lower quality student.</p>
<p>Agreed that Rose is not the quality of MIT, but frankly as is stated over and over again, getting into MIT is a crap shoot even for TOP students - even with perfect grades and test scores the odds are against you. But to make a comment such as “I actually looked it up, and “Snooki” from Jersey shore holds a BSEE from Rose-Hulman.” really just shows the knowledge level of the poster and not of the students at Rose.</p>
<p>The purpose of the post didn’t seem to be to bash Rose-Hulman, though. Rather, the title is literally RHiT vs MIT. A direct comparison. Which is better? If you get accepted into both, which wins? No question. MIT.</p>
<p>The problem I have with this rather condescending thread is that there is an implication being made by some people that every prospective engineering student has a goal of becoming a top researcher and/or elite ‘ivory tower’ academic. It’s as if everyone had the same goal and everyone was in the same sinking ship feverishly competing to see who was getting on the life raft…</p>
<p>The reality is that not every student wants to become a top researcher and/or elite academic. In fact, <em>most</em> just want to become great engineers and live a comfortable lifestyle with their dog and 2.5 kids. Therefore, the real question becomes, where does a person need to go to school in order to accomplish this modest goal? The answer is: there are many good engineering schools that will allow a person to accomplish his/her goals. You don’t need to go to MIT to become a great engineer or researcher, and to those who think you do, get over yourselves.</p>
<p>RHIT is a perfectly good schools to become a great engineer and live a comfortable lifestyle with your dog, 2.5 kids, and maybe even a spouse and a mistress added to the mix. </p>
<p>Some people find cutting edge research pretty exciting though. Not every HS kid knows what they want. One of my favorite professors Amar Bose just died. Google him and read about his life.</p>
<p>I’m a MechE myself and did tireless engineering school research along with DS (hs 2010). I was favorably impresses with R-H, but DS never warmed to the idea of college in Terre Haute. However he did evolve to a preference for small undergrad-centric colleges. Olin (his final choice) and Mudd were tops on his list. </p>
<p>College selection is all about fit. Even if MIT had accepted DS and offered to match the Olin half tuition scholarship (hypothetical example - MIT has only need based aid)… he would have probably still picked Olin.</p>
<p>Rose-Hulman is in the EcoCar2 program</p>