@Spark2018 from the other forum rexxxx (forum name omitted so that moderator will not disapprove), RPI ranking 39 in 2017 and 50th 2019.
I hope we agreed that some of the posts were shaped by the person’s experiences. Summer offerings as of last year won’t work for us (hopefully my student gets a waiver because of her summer internship). It is so true that “Condensed summer classes are tough everywhere, and were when I was an undergrad.” and the fact the RPI did not recognize it before last summer just showed RPI’s lack of planning. I am not sure the 12 week classes are better solution as most of us knew that weekends are important for studying. with 12 week, the students lose several weekends to deep dive into the courses.
You are fortunate that your students found the jobs easily (my student has an offer of summer internship) but it does not mean that we cannot understand the frustration from those who do not get job offered. In fact, my daughter just told me her friend, a junior, is going to have the Spring AWAY, but as of now, still has no internship.
Hopefully, ARCH is no longer my problem, but it does not mean that I should not advise families to do their due diligence. As part of the RPI family, I like to see the program succeed if it were to stay.
@Polar2000 You are correct, RPI had an “informal coop”, the difference with the AWAY semester is that students now have to invest a Summer taking a condensed course load and the AWAY semester is fixed to be in the junior year. Students would lose opportunities and time if they could not find coop during the AWAY semester.
Good for your student that RPI is “easy” for him, but for those students who do not have a 3.0, getting a “forced” coop can be challenging.
@StudentsR1st I am not going to be tied up on the terminology - i.e. co-op vs internship. Let us just call it paid vs unpaid internship/coop. My student has been offered a paid summer internship. I agreed with the 9 semester support. If RPI requires an AWAY semester, RPI has the responsibility to ensure most of the students achieve their goals with reasonable amount of support and guidance. Only 47% getting coop is not a good indicator.
@annamom as I posted on post 111 after @StudentsR1st said both you and I can be right on the ranking (we are both talking about US News rankings; I included the link in post 109). I’m sure there is a lot posted on CC about the true value of these ranking +/-. If you cross check the all list to the engineering list there are many, many reverse ones (which I would expect), for some excellent schools. This is among the reasons US News has the different categories.
post 111: Of course we are both right on the ranking. Not sure it was on me to recognize as annamom was challenging me … but whatever. To me the engineering one is most relevant as that is my sons major and I view RPI as primarily an engineering school, along with other peers on that ranking. If I was strictly looking as CS I would have to quote a rank of 55, which I don’t really understand.
Please note, 29th is on the ‘with Doctorate’ ranking list. Right or wrong it is with some of the other big names, esp the top 10.
I wanted to set straight something that you said, “It also affects study abroad experiences, I read recently that because sophomores are required to participate in ARCH, therefore there are certain countries they could not go during Spring because of the conflict with the “Summer Here” at RPI.”
You must have misunderstood. My son (doesn’t attend RPI) is doing a semester abroad with on the more popular abroad programs (CIEE). He is doing the spring semester. Starts Jan 8 and end April 28. So no - will NEVER interfere with the summer. It will ONLY if they chose to want to travel on their own around Europe, Asia, etc. after the program has officially ended.
As to some of the things discussed here - randomly:
1 ) when I attended RPI in the early 80’s - I would like to think that 50% of the kids did a co-op. In actuality, it was 50% of my friends; across the school, maybe it was 18% did a co-op upon graduation.
It’s NOT an informal co-op. It was formal (paperwork, financial aid, reports to file, etc.). In my estimate, less than 18% participated. Most kids did not understand the value of it back then. Most did not want to take a semester away from their friends. Or graduate late. Some majors didn’t want/worked out (science/lab, architect, business majors, Often, back then, you had to find your own housing. Who rents for 6 months? So that was a major hassle that most did not want to deal with.
my dd who attended Cornell, I think less than 15% of the kids that wanted to do a co-op (those that interviewed not total students population) were able to get an offer. She did summer after sophomore year and the fall, entering with a semester of credit so did not have to graduate late. (Cornell recommends, summer school after sophomore year and then a semester during junior year and then summer after junior year).
My feeling is that when SJ implemented the ARCH, it was to be able to grow the student population (currently about 1200 per graduating class?) so you can get not 4*1200 but 4.5 *1200. And be able to use the dorms during the summer.
Northeastern co-op. I have heard that there are kids, esp in the business majors, that are unable to obtain a real co-op and have to work in a department store @ minimum wage. So, it’s not just RPI that has a problem placing kids.
You can call it 9 semesters, but during the co-op semester, you only have to pay fees. at Cornell, it was a few hundred dollars (to keep your records active).
I really think ARCH should be for summer after freshman year. When I broached it with my dd (at Cornell, not RPI, but in school of engineering), she REALLY needed a break after 2 hard Freshman semesters (same with my son who really just wanted to be home again after his freshman year). Esp since most kids are unable to obtain any position that will either pay or provide any substantial experience with one year of college, it would be the ideal summer logically. Not sure about emotional or mental.
For some kids (at cornell engineering) it was hard to obtain a summer position even with good grades after sophomore year/rising juniors, companies were hiring rising seniors. Some had to make minimum wage to get experience.
For the complaints about 6 weeks and 12 week courses for summers at RPI, why would anyone want to attend WPI? They have four 7 week terms a year. After being through the harder program at RPI (5 courses minimum per semester, several 6 course semesters) years ago, I can’t even imagine learning Diff Eq or Physics 1 in 7 weeks.
Wanted to share an update on Arch. As expected, the spring career fair was disappointing with none of the most popular tech companies there (Apple, Amazon, FB, etc) even though they are there for the student run fall career fair. My DD said only 3 companies at the spring career fair were of interest to her and she applied to all three. It turns out she got a great internship for summer and fall with one of those companies (a well known tech firm) and because of the offer, she was able to get an exemption from Arch. She came into RPI with tons of credits, so missing the Arch summer classes won’t impact her ability to graduate on time.
I just wanted to share the fact that although the spring career fair can’t hold a candle to the fall one, it’s clearly worth attending for your children as there are still good opportunities to be had. Needless to say we are very relieved our DD has something under her belt.
One thing we didn’t think of and I wish we had, (and this totally depends on personality and individual social natures) but ARCH is pretty disruptive socially. Kids come in with various AP credits so some kids are skipping freshman classes and some are not. Freshman year my kid’s best friend was someone they met as a lab partner who was a sophmore. But then because of ARCH, that person was gone half of my kid’s sophmore year and then my kid was gone half of the junior year. If you make friends within your grade cohort, then it is fine, but I don’t think RPI considered what the program does to social groups. I don’t think we’d have encouraged RPI for them if we’d thought about this.
@snakeskin thank you for keeping the record straight. Therefore what you wrote was NOT about your child’s experience at RPI Summer ARCH but his/her experience at another college. The study abroad was also about your child attending a different college rather than RPI.
What people may not know is that this Summer 2020 students are still required to take the Summer Semester online even the prospect of getting a meaning co-op is low and the “benefits” for a summer semester, as RPI claimed, does not exist with remote learning.
now rpi is 55. i think we can safely say urochester is ranked much higher on the list. the arch info at the medal winners’ program was not encouraging. sad. rpi used to be known as a baller’s school.
@GnarWhail@tristatecoog True USNews new overall ranking for RPI went from 53 to 55 YOY . However, RPI USNews undergraduate engineering ranking improved from 32 to 31 YOY. As I have posted before as an essentially STEM school that is the best measure. RPI has hovered around 30 for years now.
Not sure which Rochester institution you are considering, but RIT would be the one I would look at, even with a 56 ranking for engineering. Excellent program and one many look at when considering RPI, along with WPI, Stevens, NYU, Northeastern, and UMASS.
RPI had an easy opportunity to pivot on ARCH during Covid but did not. Too bad. Hopefully President Jackson’s replacement with their team will revisit along with other RPI areas of improvement. ARCH has merit on a number of levels, but the current format has rough spots. My student was all set to be in ARCH during Covid but was able to get a waiver based on a CS internship for a major US company.
Now in our senior year I can say with 100% confidence RPI has been great. Hard and challenging for sure. Areas that can be better, yep. Right for everyone, nope.
the previous post had referenced university of rochester, which has been doing a cracking job of turning itself into a truly competitive institution. every school is so much more selective now than 20-30 years ago, but rochester is getting kids whose parents walked into cornell, stanford, usc, cmu, brown, penn, columbia and come out the other end as engineers, doctors, phds, lawyers. the same cannot be said of rpi these days. not sure what rpi does to get that mojo back; it’s not gonna be a quick trick regardless.
unless you’re a hiring manager in engineering, i think THE LIST that matters is the usnwr national universities list, which has been a bloodbath for rpi in recent years. it’s the only list that the civilians read/care about.
for rpi, it’s all self-inflicted. your point about using the rona as an excuse to kill off the arch program is key. a missed opportunity for sure.
@GnarWhail Happy to hear U of Rochester is a great school ! Good for them. As far as where the current student body parents went, well, I don’t know where you obtained that information of what it is worth. In my experience, especially with the schools you listed, the alumni encourage their child to go to their school. As far as who applies and goes to RPI the stats show high SATs, with HS GPAs, and solid APs, along with a wide range of life experiences etc. My interaction with students in my students orbit and parents I interact with confirm it. With that said, RPI, like all schools, have to apply a continuous improvement. President Jackson’s departure will give RPI a great opportunity.
As far as USNews, anyone who is just using the all colleges list is doing their child a disservice. The sub reports and those available on compass should be used by the student, parents, and HS advisor to increase the chance of a strong match. If you are looking for STEM, especially engineering and CS, not looking at the best engineering USNews is a mistake. Lastly, ‘bloodbath’ I don’t know how you come to that conclusion. Look at the list, current or YOY, they are essentially consistent and in very good company.
USNews is a place to start, not end. Hey, RPI is #50 of the most expensive schools in US, ouch. At the same time they are in the top 10 for post grad salary. Apparently the quality of grads is recognized in the market.
I have shared my interest and experience with RPI, what are yours.