Just because fewer schools recruit on campus doesn’t mean students don’t find jobs. Sometimes the jobs you find on your own, with less well-known companies, can lead to better advancement opportunities than with the giants who recruit at the biggest name schools.
We recently visited a small school with an excellent honors program and accredited engineering major. They mentioned that their students can sign up for interviews at the large, well-known state flagship nearby. So it may be fewer companies recruit on-campus, but that hasn’t hurt their students in finding internships or jobs in their field. Their students had a high rate of paid summer internships and post-graduation employment.
My middle son liked one of his safeties the best. (UAH) He ultimately decided on an Ivy (Penn) because they allowed a gap year and were actually more affordable for us. Also, at UAH, he was accepted as a Mech E major, and accepted into the honors college.
I will tell you, UAH is a better fit for my son in terms of environment and location, and I would have been very happy if he’d chosen it.
The problem is that my son doesn’t want to do engineering anymore. He wants to do animation, fine arts and/or game design, so Penn’s Fine Arts program is a better fit. My son actually didn’t know anything about prestige or reputation of any of his schools. He was laser focused on affordability.
If he’d stayed in engineering and chosen UAH, I would have been very happy. I’m not sure Penn is the right fit, as my son does not like urban settings, but he’s going to give it a go.
It sounds like your son will thrive at his safety since he likes it so much, and he will probably be a top student. That might work out very well!
Thanks again everyone for your perspectives. He hasn’t brought up attending that school since the day of our visit, and we are going to leave this on the back burner for now. I think I just needed to hear how it worked out for other people.
“What do you do when your child falls in love with the safety school, even though accepted to the more prestigious schools?”
We did not have to answer this type of question. D. did not apply to any prestigious schools, despite of the push from her GC when she was graduating at the top of her private HS class. She did not care to apply to any Ivy / Elite, she said that she would do fine absolutely anywhere and she did at in-state public where she was attending on full tuition Merit award. As far as I know, it does not matter where you attend for the Engineering, what is matter is to make sure that you actually make it in Engineering. This was the focal point of my D’s choice - attending at the place where she feels the most comfortable. As a pre-med, the name of the UG did not matter for her either, what was important that she would actually makes it as a pre-med. Based on our family background and most friends being engineers who send their very successful kids to in-state publics that offer them great Merit awards, I can only say, let your kid decide where she wants to be. It has worked for my D. wonderfully and her experience exceeded our expectations by far. It has work for many many of D’s friends and kids of our friends.
If you’re seeing a lot of local/regional companies vs. the Fortune 100 type companies that recruit at some of the other programs he’s looking at, that’s a data point. Not the only data point, but something that should be up for discussion.
Having hired engineers for big companies- I am not in the “it doesn’t matter where you go” camp for engineers. If the goal is a regional civil engineering firm which gets contracts for state bridge/tunnel construction and modifications, than any ABET program is fine. If the goal is to develop advanced propulsion systems for one of the global aero/astro companies, or to work on new robotic prototypes for prosthetic limbs or advanced surgical techniques, or to work in a “skunk works” figuring out driverless cars or people-moving systems in dense urban environments- then maybe it matters.
Why? Because a kid is going to need a lot of “get up and go” to get summer internships and that first job or two, if those companies aren’t recruiting on campus. Why? Because a kid may need to cobble together the right academic program which hits all the right buttons if the school doesn’t have an interdisciplinary center for the study of advanced composites (or whatever the sub-field is). Why? Because attending a school (and I don’t know if this is one) which doesn’t have its professors presenting at conferences and preparing grant proposals and WINNING grant proposals and with the bulging rolodex isn’t going to give your kid the ability to walk into a professor’s office and say, “I’d love to turn that project I did for you last semester into a summer job- can you figure out who might be interested in offering me a 10 week gig?”
I am not saying don’t go to the safety. If it’s the right school- then you’ve hit the jackpot. But I know lots (as in dozens) of kids right now who bought the “it doesn’t matter where you go” who found that they needed a Master’s degree to get that first job they wanted. Whereas their peers who are at bigger, or better financed, or better known engineering schools do just fine with only a BS.
My D liked only her safeties (one we thought was a match, but it turned out to also be a safety), and insisted on applying to ONLY those safeties.
Once the merit scholarships came in, it was harder to be disappointed about it anymore.
I sort of know how you feel, OP. I really pushed my D to apply to one of the CTCL schools or other LACs, but she simply did not care for them when we visited. I still think they’d be a better academic fit for her, but she doesn’t see it that way. (And I have to concur that they may not be a good social fit for her…)
And I firmly believe that the college she attends should be her decision (given a few simple parameters, since we’re paying) and she should own it. It’s one of the first of some major decisions she will need to make as a young adult and I think it’s important that she be the one to finally choose.
I will preface this by saying that we have a modest income and an EFC low enough to qualify for a pell grant. We have saved some money and have a portion of our income we can contribute to help pay for her education but it was necessary for her to get scholarships and to receive at least some financial aid. The safety for us included Stafford loans.
Our Ds 1st choice was considered her safety. She was accepted back in early October and wanted to know then if she had to apply to any other schools. While it was a safety, she will probably be doing graduate work and we need to limit or eliminate loans if possible. I asked her to apply to 3 other schools all of which would be deemed higher ranked and she agreed she would attend if the difference in financing became an issue. We now wait for financial aid packages. My goal was two fold. First to give her better financial options if they became available and second if the other schools were to offer superior financial packages to perhaps be able to use them as a bargaining chip to help eliminate some of the loans if possible. The other schools were all strong matches.
So far so good. She was accepted into each of the higher ranked schools and into their honors programs and with scholarships. We have received our first financial aid package from an OOS flagship and it would make that school affordable with zero or minimal loans (we would consider taking the subsidized loan just as a hedge).
The reason the safety is her first choice is fit and comfort. It has good programs both for her desired future career and for her interest. It is geographically perfect, the perfect size, and has the feel she was looking for in a university. Her chosen field requires a graduate program and where she obtains her undergraduate degree is not much of an issue merely how well she does in that degree program. Finally they offer the graduate degree she is looking for and while there is no guarantee of admittance they have admitted that graduating from their school would be a consideration all else being equal. I believe if funds were not an issue she would have applied early to this one school and once accepted not applied to any others.
Another anecdote. My older D is a Chem E at Purdue. She is currently doing a 5 term co-op. There are students at that co-op from several schools not considered top engineering schools, however, they each have the same opportunities and seem to be hired at the same rates. Engineering seems to be one of those fields that because of the accreditation and the fact that engineering programs are selective to begin with offer similar opportunities.
My daughter didn’t want to apply to any “reach” or prestigious schools, even though she had the stats for some great schools. She applied to 3 safeties and 2 low matches (our state flagship was one of her matches) and got into all of them. She chose the safest of the safeties and will graduate this May, having had a wonderful experience there. Sometimes kids know themselves better than we do.
I have no issue whatsoever with a person choosing to attend a safety school. But IMO the final decision should be based on fit, affordability, academic opportunities, job placement, overall comfort level at the school and not as much for reasons like the school offers surfing lessons and skiing. If the safety school would not be in the running without those admittedly lovely features, perhaps it isn’t the best choice. Good luck as you go through the decision process.
…I say, whatever makes them happy. Pretty campus was at the top of my D’s criteria. I never blamed her for that. Anything that helps them to adjust, as determined by the student. With the attitude “I will do fine anywhere”, why not have whatever they ask for?
“Just eyeball the list of companies which recruit.” - the tiny international engineering firm would not be the Fortune 100 type at all, while opportunities for the new engineer at such a place in comparison to Fortune 100 are astonishing. Most of our friends and my own H. are working for such a place. He has been with his company for over 30 years. They routinely hire only from the local unknown and very low ranked college.
Um, but aren’t things like “the school offers surfing lessons and skiing” an element of fit and overall comfort level, at least for students who find those sorts of things worthy of consideration?
Miami DAP said “I have no issue whatsoever with a person choosing to attend a safety school. But IMO the final decision should be based on fit, affordability, academic opportunities, job placement, overall comfort level at the school and not as much for reasons like the school offers surfing lessons and skiing. If the safety school would not be in the running without those admittedly lovely features, perhaps it isn’t the best choice.”
I think you have hit the nail on the head! Our state’s flagship school is in the top 5 in the country for Engineering and while there are no mountains, I’ll bet they have an outdoor adventure club too.
Blossom said: “Having hired engineers for big companies- I am not in the “it doesn’t matter where you go” camp for engineers.”
My husband has a PhD in Engineering and has worked in industry for 30 years and he believes strongly that it matters a great deal where one attends college. If the goal is to be a municipal engineer in a small town, then I don’t suppose it matters one bit where your got your degree.
There has been a study that has indicated that it is the quality of student more than the quality of program which will determine ones eventual outcome. I think there are two reasons that an engineer from a lower tier school can have similar outcomes to one from a higher tier school.
First, as mentioned before is the program accreditation. All engineering programs are required to teach certain subjects and concepts. I do understand that MIT might have teach some of these concepts to a more advanced degree but they are the same subjects and require the same mastery.
Second, is that engineering students and schools seem to be self selective and better students in general. Even in lower tier schools engineering majors tend to have reasonably high GPAs and test scores. There is less of a difference in the qualification of an engineering student at say the University of Toledo compared to the University of Michigan than there would be for the average student of the respective schools. The average ACT of an engineering major at UT is something like a 27 vs a bit over 32-33 for U of M. The average ACT at UT is 21 the average at U of M is over 30. If you accept the premise of the study it would be no surprise that program outcomes would be less differentiated for engineers than other majors.
Well, my wife has a PhD in engineering and has worked in industry for better than 15 years, and believes strongly it does not matter where one attends college.
Maybe it’s different for different engineering disciplines? My wife’s in one where all that really matters is whether or not you have your FE/EIT or PE licensure (depending on the point you’re at in your career).
It occurs to me that that’s something else aspiring engineers ought to know, and that they generally don’t get information on at the front end—whether you’re interested in a field where licensure is important or not. Engineering isn’t a single monolithic field, after all.
Again, I did not say that a kid coming from a “lesser” college will not have great opportunities. And if the kid prefers the opportunities (types of companies, types of roles) that show up on campus- that’s a win-win.
And there is nothing to stop an ambitious kid from getting hired at a company that doesn’t recruit at his/her college. Happens all the time. Is it harder? Yes.
And again- there may be fabulous research and collaborative opportunities at the “lesser” college.
But I wouldn’t have been persuaded by my kids that surfing, skiing, better parties, or a more relaxing lifestyle would register on my chart of “things that mom and dad really care about”.
Lots of engineers in my family. They didn’t go to college to ski and pick up a degree on the side.
However- none of them ended up in the licensed fields of engineering (and for the PhD’s on an academic track- the research opportunities and faculty connections as undergrads seemed to make a difference in terms of getting into the desired doctorate programs).
YMMV. And as I said- if a kid is interested in working regionally or getting hired by any of the 25 companies the OP indicated hire at this campus- none of this matters.
The fact is that at certain point we simply have to take a break from the kid’s college search, stay on a side, “watch” so to speak and LET THEM DECIDE. It will work better if you do so, not only for UG, but also for Grad. school and beyond. If surfing, skiing, unrelated minor or a pretty campus will make them happy, believe me at the end, it is very important. Just feeling that they are at their own “destiny wheel” is very important! Let them feel this way, make them happy!