You know, sometimes you want to date the guy who really wants you. The other schools waitlisted her (and hundreds of others, she might not have been close to acceptance) but RPI wanted her. It’s nice to be wanted and not always feel like second choice.
Not an engineer myself, but part of an extended family with many engineers* including those who do hiring in companies based in the US and abroad and OP IS seriously underestimating the international reputation of RPI.
RPI has an outstanding reputation among engineers in both engineering/tech firms and in academia. She will have no issues landing a great engineering/tech job or grad school with an RPI degree.
For chem/chemE, I don’t think the reps of UChicago or Cornell are so dramatically higher that it’d be worth the trouble of transferring…especially if she is happy at RPI as you’ve indicated. And UChicago doesn’t even have an engineering school to speak of…
In fact, some relatives who’ve hired engineers and been in the field for several decades have noted some engineering/tech firms…especially ones with oldschool owners/hiring technical executives would actually prefer hiring from tech schools like RPI, Georgia Tech, etc over Ivy engineering schools…sometimes including ones with topflight engineering programs like Princeton, Cornell, and Columbia SEAS because of the popular perception among such firms’ hiring managers that most Ivy engineering programs aren’t very strong in the first tier or two due to past(as recently as less than 2 decades ago) institutional prioritization strongly favoring Arts & Sciences divisions and funding. Even the uncle who is himself an alum of Columbia SEAS(late '50s graduate) has mentioned and felt this himself when evaluating engineering hires.
- One of the uncles who is himself an engineer/engineering hiring manager proudly sent one of his kids to RPI.
What happened to,the OP?
Add me to the choir. Sounds to me like th onky one interested in the transfer option is the parent. Parent needs to remember…the kid is going to college…not the parent. The kid is happy, is doing well, and likes where she is.
Parent needs a different hobby.
@insanedreamer , I don’t think you are the prestige hound that some paint you as. We all want the best for our kids, and it doesn’t magically shut off the moment they move into their freshman dorm! 
I remember asking my S if he wanted to transfer when he complained about some aspects of his classes freshman year. He rejected the idea immediately and seemed rather offended that I would suggest it.
I think that since your D is happy and doing very well at a very good school, you should take her hint and drop any discussion of transferring. If you were to pursue it, I fear that she would get the idea that YOU think her school just isn’t good enough and that you are disappointed in her. I know you don’t want to take that chance.
OMG leave the kid alone! You can’t put a price tag on happiness, and if she wants to work overseas, she can regardless of where she’s in college now.
Heck, I dropped OUT of college and moved to Europe and worked there. It’s not like they won’t let her in.
Thanks, everyone for taking the time to reply (as you said, @ChicagoSportsFn, I definitely got my money’s worth!) And no, @thumper1, I didn’t go into hiding after the rebukes. I appreciate everyone’s comments, even the pointy ones.
Everyone clearly confirmed what I was already thinking - why change something that’s working and she’s happy? I originally posted this to see if I got some push on other side (towards a transfer) and I didn’t, which helps me feel more sure that I’m doing the right thing. Very helpful to have this forum to talk with other parents who have college kids.
Thanks especially for the comments on RPI’s reputation abroad. That was really my concern. I don’t care about her going to a “prestigious” university, but I do want her to have the best opportunities to achieve what she wants to do. It was good to hear that I’m probably underestimating the value of an RPI degree abroad (thanks, @cobrat, @twoinanddone @SouthFloridaMom9, @noname87, @katliamom and @1012mom [@happymomof1, your question is valid–I’ve been going on assumptions]. And I agree I should focus on ways to help her work towards grad school or employment in Germany/Switz while at RPI — thanks for the tips on this, @xraymancs, @bjkmom @ChicagoSportsFn @brantly and @Consolation - encouraging her to consider German companies in US for jobs or even internships during college could be a good step in the right direction. She’s already planning on joining RPI’s study abroad program to go to Europe. She’s also already decided she wants to go to grad school after graduation.
I should clarify that the Germany/Europe interest is not a passing fad for my D. She started her own tutoring business in high school to earn money to spend the summer with relatives in Germany, and when applying to college she wasn’t even going to apply to US universities, wanting to go to Germany instead, until I advised her that she should at least apply to some top US ones and if she got accepted to one that she liked, then the US might be a better choice and she could go to Germany/Europe for grad school. (She doesn’t speak German well, and the options for undergraduate programs in English at German universities are quite limited.) She took that advice and is now quite happy studying in the US. But you’re also right in that between ages 17 (her age now) and 20 (when she graduates), a lot can change in a young person’s mind
I really didn’t see myself as a “prestige hound” (thanks, @Consolation - your name is well chosen), but your helicopter parent comment, @NoVADad99, got me thinking: I consider myself to be very “hands-off” and let my daughter make her own decisions, but I realized I’ve been judging myself based on those around me here in China— who are true “helicopter parents”. So the rebukes from the parents on this forum made me realize that I’m not as “hands off” as I thought I was and maybe I need to adjust my thinking a bit.
(As an aside, @NoVADad99 your comments about the Chinese were right - the prestige of a university is pretty much the only factor that is important. Having said that, there are many reasons why they feel this way, and some of them are quite valid, though this is not the place for an analysis of this topic. I don’t agree with their views, but I do understand why they have them. By the way, neither I nor my family, are ethnically Chinese. Irish-American in fact.)
Thanks, again. And good luck to all of you and your sons/daughters.
PS. By the way, I’m a “he” – not sure why so many replies would assume I’m the mother and not the father. Are the majority of CC posters mothers?
PPS. @NoVADad99 - regarding my comment about how Chinese view prestige, I should clarify that I’m referring to Chinese in the PRC, not Chinese-Americans.
^^Understand perfectly. That is my impression too. Mainlanders are absolutely obsessed by brand name recognition.
@NoVADad99 and, more specifically, “prestige” as measured exclusively by the USNWR university rankings (not even the LAC rankings). Off topic, I wonder if USNWR is aware of just how influential their rankings are in China, and specifically how their decision to split off LACs into a separate rankings means that most Chinese don’t even consider them (or understand what an LAC is).
Maybe someone should print and distribute millions of t-shirts with Hofstra, Trevecca Nazarene University, and Seton Hall on them- make sure mainland China is flooded with them. After the tee shirts have been around a while maybe the applications to those schools will go up.
Assumptions that you’re a mom. Maybe due to the smiley faces but I use them too.
:-*
True for the average newly arisen upper-middle class who are fixated on crass social climbing in the materialistic SES sense and not really interested in genuine intellectual learning.
Personally, I found the ones who has some family in academia and/or intimately familiar with the US college landscape like some Mainland Chinese academic families I’ve met in the late '90s are much more openminded and will encourage and send their kids to attend US LACs.
There were plenty of mainland Chinese students attending Oberlin in the '90s…and not only in the conservatory. Also, when I mentioned to Chinese academics and their families where I was attending college during my study abroad, I was treated with the level of respect they usually accorded to students attending the topmost Mainland Chinese universities or internationally known US elite universities*.
Also, older generations of Chinese folks with some exposure to academia in the family or familiar with the US college landscape were similarly openminded.
For instance, he tried encouraging me to apply to UWisc-Madison because he and many other Chinese students of his generation had such high regard for the institution. Sometimes he still asks why I never bothered to apply there(Too big).
- Oberlin has had a long historical association with China going back more than a century and has some notable Chinese alums like H.H. Kung( 孔祥熙) (Class of 1906).
^^ He would cry if he heard what Scott Walker has done to that venerable institution.
Seems like the answer to your title question is “no”.
@cobrat “True for the average newly arisen upper-middle class who are fixated on crass social climbing in the materialistic SES sense and not really interested in genuine intellectual learning.
Personally, I found the ones who has some family in academia and/or intimately familiar with the US college landscape like some Mainland Chinese academic families I’ve met in the late '90s are much more openminded and will encourage and send their kids to attend US LACs.”
Absolutely. There’s a huge difference between Chinese students who went to college in US in 80s/90s, and their families, and those who are going today (or hoping to go tomorrow).
None of the students in a class of Chinese high school students preparing to go to the US had heard of Oberlin when mentioned (in its historical context of first US college to admit women/blacks). But they could probably recite the top 30 universities USNWR ranking by heart.
Interestingly, most recent Chinese undergrad students I’ve met…including some current undergrads knew who H.H.Kung was once I mentioned him and were favorably impressed that he and I shared the same undergrad alma mater.
FWIW, I went to RPI 30 years ago. My parents, who are scientist/engineers, Asian, and very much into “good schools” 
encouraged me to apply there. Your daughter won’t have any problem with name recognition among other engineers/scientists. That said, after working a few years, no one cared where I went to school.
BTW @insanedreamer, my S’s GF, who is from mainland China, got her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from a Chinese university, and is doing her graduate work at Columbia on a fellowship from BASF. It provides all of her school costs plus a generous stipend. Apparently BASF prefers to hire American students to work for them in the US. Possibly to avoid passport issues? Anyway, it’s something to look in to down the road. A visit to the career services office to discuss this and other possibilities going forward would be a good idea. Now that she is settled in, it isn’t too early to start scoping out the landscape of internships and so on.
BTW, my father was a chemical engineer and BASF was one of his firm’s major clients for many years. (An interesting coincidence. ) He traveled to Germany quite frequently when I was a child, and we lived in England for two stints and one in Holland.
If she has no interest in transferring why make her transfer? She’s doing great at RPI and you say she’s happy. Don’t wreck a good thing.
This one seems pretty much like a no brainer. The clear consensus here is that the answer to your question is “NO.”