Schools suggestions for Engineering major with Merit

Parents Forum
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<p>our D shadowed a few engineers at a national engineering firm that is headquartered locally and spoke to the recruiters there. They told her that they are just looking for bright, energetic graduates with good communication skills and have no preferences if you go to Big State U or Private Top U. Anyone with experiences whether or not this is common practice and/or true?</p>

<p>This is absolutely true. As I’ve said many times, my H and my family are hiring engineers, directors, VPs for Northrop Grumman, DirecTV, Canon, Boeing, Google, etc. </p>

<p>They do NOT care if you’re from CSULB or you’re from Harvey Mudd or you’re from Purdue. They hire the PERSON (experiences, courses taken, GPA, personality)…and everyone starts at the same salary.</p>

<p>there seems to be some odd myth out there that engineering and its various disciplines are so hard to teach that only a few schools can manage to have good programs. I agree that it is very expensive to build and maintain the labs and equipment needed to have good eng’g programs, but there seems to be enough money out there (from feds?? from corporations??) that there are over a 150 schools with good engineering.</p>

<p>Someone once asked for a list of 10 good engineering programs in the US. Heck, it’s easy to name 10 in Calif alone.</p>

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<p>In most types of engineering, one can use ABET accreditation as a reasonably good baseline of quality. Some specific schools may be better for some specific students, but such academic fit issues can apply generally to choosing colleges, regardless of major.</p>

<p>There are 786 schools with some type of ABET accreditation, but not all are for engineering (some are for engineering technology or applied science) and not all are in the US, while there are 2474 bachelor’s degree granting school in the US.</p>

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<p>The people I work with have PhD’s in engineering/computer science from very well-known and respected institutions. But the vast majority have their undergraduate engineering degrees from state universities all over the map. A student who does well at an ABET accredited institution will have great opportunities for both employment (barring cyclic downturns in specific majors) and graduate programs.</p>

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<p>Drexel and Northeastern offer full tuition scholarships for National Merit Finalists.</p>

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<p>ucbalum, Does a student need to look for a school with ABET accreditation to make sure that their engineering degree will be looked at more favorably by employers?</p>

<p>I guess the general consensus is like medical schools, engineering schools are all fine. Location, scholarship, atmosphere (Greek scene, apathy vs. school spirit, etc…) are the things to look at.</p>

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<p>For engineering I think the main reasons for going private are:</p>

<p>You want a smaller school
You want a particular program the private offers (coop at Eastern, design center at RPI for example)
Your little niche is particularly strong at that school (Comp Sci at Carnegie Mellon for example)
You like the offerings outside of engineering (residential colleges or other courses at Rice or Havard for example)
You want a more diverse student body (State universities tend to have more in state students.)
And of course with a merit scholarship it could be cheaper even much cheaper than the state options</p>

<p>I’m sure there others I haven’t thought of</p>

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<p>A large school can give you a larger alumni network, which can help with the job hunt.</p>

<p>Also if you know where you want to work, find out where they like to hire from. Many places don’t care, as stated, but most places also have a set of schools they recruit from, and it may be easier to get a job there coming from one of those schools, as they are more familiar with the course offerings at those schools, etc. </p>

<p>Or on the other side, for schools you are considering, find out where their graduates end up. Find out about their career services office and the kinds of companies that attend career fairs to recruit their students. I will say that my son got an internship at a small company coming out of freshman year that he would never have heard about if not for a career fair at his school. It was not advertised online.</p>

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<p>Career Fairs/Career Services were very helpful to my kids as well. My younger son’s actual department was also very good in putting out info on specific employment opportunities or graduate school opportunities that would come up.</p>

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<p>In general, yes. There are some exceptions in newer fields where licensing is not typically done like biomedical engineering and computer science, where some of the top-reputation schools have not gotten or applied for ABET accreditation (in those cases, careful inspection of the courses and curricula are needed to sort out the good from the bad). But for the more established fields like chemical, civil (especially, due to licensing needs), electrical, industrial, materials, and mechanical, look for ABET accreditation (or a mutually recognized accreditation for non-US schools) as a minimum baseline.</p>

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<p>sevmom, Congrats to your S for landing a job, that’s nice to get one off of your payroll.</p>

<p>pamom, Northeastern’s full tuition scholarship to NMF is not guaranteed, don’t know what else they are looking for but my guess is the usual stuff, GPA, ACT/SAT, EC’s , ranks, etc… I don’t know anything about Drexel.</p>

<p>About ABET - so does coming from a school like Tulane (couldn’t see anything on ABET) put an engineer at a disadvantage? I think they only have Chem and Biomed Eng.</p>

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<p>krug,Thanks. Actually, I should have TWO off the payroll after next May. Older son (also in engineering) graduated from UVa in 09’ and has been supporting himself since then. Yeah! Good luck with finding a great school!</p>

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<p>My HS’11 son was a NMF. When I called and asked in 2011 Northeastern said their scholarship for for NMF was guaranteed. Are you sure that’s changed? Drexel’s was guaranteed as well at that time, and they awarded it as soon as my son faxed a copy of his finalist letter – they do not bother with the being named first choice thing as their award is not “official” (does not go through NMF folks).</p>

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<p>Tulane’s programs are ABET accredited. [Tulane</a> University - Department of Biomedical Engineering - Undergraduate Program Objectives](<a href=“http://tulane.edu/sse/bme/academics/undergraduates/prospective/program-objectives.cfm]Tulane”>http://tulane.edu/sse/bme/academics/undergraduates/prospective/program-objectives.cfm) and [url=&lt;a href=“http://tulane.edu/sse/cbe/about/mission/]Tulane”&gt;http://tulane.edu/sse/cbe/about/mission/]Tulane</a> University - Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering - Mission<a href=“scroll%20to%20the%20bottom%20of%20each%20page”>/url</a>.</p>

<p>But I would say that if one attended a program that was not accredited, that would represent a fairly significant disadvantage. I wouldn’t hire someone from a non-accredited program unless I had specific knowledge of the program and understood why it wasn’t accredited and that reason did not feel like a deal-breaker to me. With an accredited institution, I don’t have to know each institution intimately to be assured that certain educational standards are being met.</p>

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<p>Ah… the stuff that THIS parent can only dream of…TWO off the payroll…</p>

<p>We thought that we will only have two in college, but our senior in college decided on professional school instead of the Ph.D. route in March, so she will need support. Not complaining, just sooo close, then, POOF!</p>

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<p>mathmom, thanks. I checked it out and here is what’s on their website:</p>

<p>Admitted freshman applicants who are designated National Merit Finalists or National Achievement Finalists by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) are eligible to receive full tuition scholarships from Northeastern.</p>

<p>I think the word “eligible” instead of “will receive” threw me. I’m not sure … Drexel is a good option and that’s good to know about Tulane. You’re a gem.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I found Northeastern’s wording vague as well, and elsewhere I believe it says they only offer up to 100 full tuition scholarships from NM and other programs, but they did tell me it was guaranteed for all NMFs. When he was named a finalist, they confirmed and said they would award the scholarship as soon as he named them first choice. He ended up somewhere else, but I assume they really would have.</p>

<p>Drexel has a really nice-sounding honors college with lots of social opportunities. I really liked Drexel when we visited.</p>

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<p>The Cooper Union in NYC.Free tuition if accepted.</p>

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<p>The Northeastern/NMF wording was vague like that a few years ago too. But as far as I can tell all NMF that were accepted and named Northeastern by a specific date received the full tuition scholarship.</p>

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<p>I too have a DD interested in engineering but a year behind in high school. We just returned from a college road trip in Texas. A few places might be of interest. SMU has a pretty new beautiful engineering school. We liked the labs and programs we saw and the engineering students seemed pretty enthusiastic. They have pretty good merit scholarships available through the admissions office and the engineering school. We met some students on full rides. The job market for engineers is very good in the Dallas area. It is easy to get to on Southwest. Another option is Texas A&M university. We were told that a student who receives at least $1K in merit scholarships from the school would qualify for in-state tuition which dramatically reduces the bill. Very nice campus and good engineering programs. </p>

<p>We saw Georgia Tech over the summer and really loved the school. Great labs and curriculum offerings. They are trying to increase the number of women in their engineering school and told us they would be generous with merit scholarships. The WISE program said that they offer more in terms of scholarships as the student returns each year. Clemson was another school who spoke of being generous with merit money for female engineering students. </p>

<p>My DS is involved in fencing at Ohio State and loves the school. He is there on a full merit ride. Although he is not an engineering student- most of his friends are in engineering and speak highly of the program. Very easy to get to Columbus and I know there is a center nearby. </p>

<p>Good luck. Just remember a lot of merit deadlines are quickly approaching.</p>

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<p>krug,
A little bird who new I had a daughter at NEU gave me a tip you were looking for some input on merit aid for a child who was looking into engineering. Our daughter was 6/400 in HS, 6 APs, SAT math 760, reading 750, writing 740. She got accepted to (with merit shown) NEU ($20K), SU ($12K - top level), UMass (full tuition + $1K), RPI ($10K, then appealed with NEU letter and bumped to $20K), Carnegie Mellon, Lehigh (forgot, sorry, but I think low). Defered early action Princeton, then rejected. </p>

<p>She was heavily leaning towards RPI. Civil Engineering with minor in Architecture. RPI has a combined program that ties the two together (heard from dean at admitte students day and had e-mails with him on details, but hard to find on their web site), and adds 0 tuition masters for 5th year. But she has been in dance since age 3, and there wasn’t much for dance at RPI. She had wanted the classic college campus out of the city, so RPI was a match on that for sure. We almost didn’t go to NEU. But after the 2nd visit during admitted students day we did the usual bookstore tour. She wanted to buy a t-shirt (never happened before), and knew that was the place for her. She got great vibes about the balanced student life (engineering is well represented, but I think it’s just under 20% as opposed to RPI), and even though in the city, it has a 73 acre campus with green areas here and there. She’s in honors, so the International village (new tower, with AC, and other stuff) and absolutely loves NEU (OK, it’s only been about 2 months). One plus (or minus depending on how you look at it), NEU has the co-op program, where you go for 3 6 month co-ops during your undergrad and graduate in 5yrs. They have an accelerated version where if you come in with a decent amount of AP (I think 3-4 courses is OK), you do 2 co-ops and graduate in 5 yrs with a BS and MS. BTW - you don’t pay tuition while on co-op, and co-ops could be local to Boston (you could stay in dorm and pay room/board) or live at home or even abroad while on co-op. </p>

<p>NEU is rising in the rankings overall as shown in their “Institutional Accomplishment” doc, which you can find on top page (neu.edu) under the “About” drop down. Note the rising SAT scores as well. We had seen several students with 2100 SATs overall rejected during the seasonal admittance thread. But RPI and especially Carnegie Mellon (from her choice list) are the next tier up the chain for engineering. </p>

<p>Good luck, and wherever your child decides will be the right choice.</p>