<p>colorado_mom, please read my two sentence post in its entirety.</p>
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<p>I’ll let you in on a little secret. Campus recruiting is not necessarily an indication of companies that are hiring… Not any more than companies that perpetually advertise open positions yet never seem to fill them…</p>
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<p>I’ll take Juneau before Houston, and I spent many years in South Louisiana :-). Houston weather is evil. Having said this, Rice is an awesome engineering school. For some strange reason Texas has lots of good engineering schools so if weather is a factor…</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd is wonderful. Yeah. It’s small. So when Bill Gates dropped by, he actually talked with students. Yeah. Undergrads. (But it is very intense and not for everyone.)
Olin is another tiny place to look at. Small and not urban and engineering is a tricky combination.
Rochester Institute of Tech might suit.
How small is small? How urban is urban?
UMD CP is huge, but broken into schools giving a bit smaller feel. It’s in the burbs really.</p>
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<p>Too small a school can mean too limited a selection of course offerings (whether in the major or out of the major).</p>
<p>Quantity and quality are enemies. </p>
<p>In the way that restaurants with ten page menus are always hardly worth their highly paid for, self-promulgated (read: advertizing) reputation. In anything.</p>
<p>Be careful of whole-school pay surveys. The mix of majors* and the tendency of students to go to graduate school may have a significant impact on a schools’ graduates’ pay levels.</p>
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<li>Not all “engineering schools” are exclusively populated by engineering students. </li>
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<p>Yes do be careful about how each of the many lists out there were compiled. The one I quoted didn’t include me or my husband since I was home with the kids and not “working in my field” and he had gotten an MBA and it is a Bachelors only list. Never the less I think it is a better way to look at a school than the number of applicants they reject. That I find disgusting!</p>
<p>You might want to be looking at the size of the department he wants to major in rather than the entire school.</p>
<p>Another option - Wabash College in Indiana ( men only ) has 3-2 programs w/Purdue,
Columbia University & Wash U.</p>
<p>Just a word of caution about 3-2’s. Those engineering spots are not guarenteed at the engineering school (you must have above a certain GPA and I’m not sure if you can choose the school or if it is just what is open) and my understanding is in reality the school anticipate that a sizable percent of students don’t go on for their engineering degree since they are only one year away from graduation with 4 yr one. </p>
<p>I believe the engineers who post in the engineering forum would suggest that if you think you want engineering go for engineering. If you are not sure, then consider a 3-2 is an option.</p>
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<p>Explain how a department with one faculty member can offer the depth of courses that a larger department can offer.</p>
<p>There is such a thing as too big, but there is also such a thing as too small and that varies based on the student’s needs which is why we are always looking for “fit.” Quantity and quality are not enemies, but they both require optimization and consideration for the student’s needs. It’s an applied math thing. Only an artist would think you get the best results by making one at a time. A true engineer knows you make several at a time and then evaluate.</p>
<p>Is there an engineering department at some university that has only ONE instructor? Where is that?</p>
<p>Ohio Northern University</p>
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<p>Not exactly engineering, but CS at Coker. There was a thread not long ago where a student intending to major in CS was debating between UNC or NCSU (at in-state cost) versus some various small schools like Coker with very small CS departments (with tuition exchange scholarships covering full tuition and sometimes more).</p>
<p>Our son applied to 3 universities and 3 LAC’s majoring in CompSci. All three LAC Dept’s had no more than 4 profs in the department while the 3 universities each had more than 25 profs in the department with far better CV’s and research credentials. The available course offerings were also far better in both number and breadth at the university level. Even after the finaid considerations, the choice was a no brainer.</p>
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<p>I know this is a common refrain on CC, but I absolutely don’t agree with it. Research is in teams. Students learn, and can coauthor just as much with a grad student on the team as a grad student not on the team. They can easily, and readily be trained by post-docs as well as principal investigators (given the level they are at). Where LOTS of research gets done is at big universities, LOTs of it. </p>
<p>And research is not at all the same quality. It is not just simply ‘getting publications’ or ‘doing research’ but <em>what</em> publications and research? The quality, impact, the journals, and the reputation of the faculty member counts for a HUGE amount (not only for LORs but also for training). C journals and crap research is a dime a dozen and rather pointless to be frank; being part of top quality research is an entirely different animal. I know to those outside of it, it might all look the same, but to those judging grad student files, it really isn’t. </p>
<p>I’m not knocking smaller schools at all for lots of benefits and one can get great experiences and education at tons of places (indeed, I think my oldest will go to lesser well known place for research because she wants a particularly school environment) but I think there is a lot of questionable logic about pros and cons on CC that just don’t line up with the reality of publishing and research for the most part.</p>
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But with grad students around, do undergrads even get a chance to be on the team?</p>
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Yes!<br>
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<p>For those students seriously interested in pursuing advanced degrees, starbright’s post #97 is the best summary of the advantages of choosing a U over a LAC I’ve ever seen, especially this sentence.-</p>
<p>“The quality, impact, the journals, and the reputation of the faculty member counts for a HUGE amount (not only for LORs but also for training).”</p>
<p>DS had the choice of many overall “higher ranked” LAC’s and U’s, but choose the U and program that had academic stars in his field of interest and had raked in millions of research $$ over the past 10 years. He did [paid] research over 3 summers under both profs and post docs, and is now in a Phd program at the #1 graduate program in his field [ as well as as the #1 U, according to a recent survey] .</p>