<p>I heard about this school a while ago. The "Dakota" part and 81/19 gender ratio were enough to keep it off my list, but now I'm not so sure. While I think I'll end up at a larger university, small schools do have their appeal. and I like the idea of adding another to my list (to keep my options open). SD Mines is known for close student/faculty interaction (and cheap tuition). The only place I've seen it mentioned is on the PayScale salary charts.</p>
<p>Can anyone here shed some light? I know it's not MIT, but this might be worth adding to a list...</p>
<p>Well my cousin played football there, and now he’s doing grad work there. However, I know almost nothing about it. I do know that it’s pretty well respected within the state, and it’s near the Black Hills, which are pretty cool.</p>
Which doesn’t comfort me, since I have no intention of sticking around South Dakota.
Eh? A different school (Colorado School of Mines) is tremendously respected everywhere I’ve lived, and it is just known as “Mines” in conversation.</p>
It’s not a particularly funny name. Many western and midwestern universities were originally established as the “School of Mines”. Most of them eventually dropped the word “mines” from their name as they broadened their focus, but it’s still in use at the Colorado School of Mines, and the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology. </p>
<p>Other former “Mines” schools that I know of (could be more):</p>
<p>Missouri S&T was Missouri School of Mines & Metallurgy
Michigan Tech was Michigan College of Mines
Montana Tech was Montana School of Mines
UTEP was Texas School of Mines & Metallurgy
New Mexico Tech was New Mexico School of Mines</p>
<p>Even in the Ivy League, the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia was originally the Columbia School of Mines.</p>
<p>“Schools of Mines” are found in other English-speaking countries too, including the Royal School of Mines in the UK, the Indian School of Mines, and the Western Australian School of Mines.</p>
<p>In general, “Mines” schools tend to have solid reputations within their regions, and within the science/engineering community, but are not well known to the general public (as certain posts in this thread suggest). </p>
<p>I don’t have the latest US News rankings, but in 2008, Colorado School of Mines was the highest-ranked university in the Rocky Mountain region – ahead of the University of Colorado-Boulder, BYU, University of Arizona, etc. </p>
<p>South Dakota Mines was considered a “specialty school”, and was not ranked in 2008. But it had the same ACT range as Boulder.</p>
<p>DS looked at the school as a potential safety. It certainly meets two of the three criteria for most applicants - high likelihood of acceptance and low cost. As to whether you’d be happy to attend if you weren’t admitted to your other choices, only you can answer.</p>
<p>Your engineering education here would be good, and the top of the class would be competitive at almost any engineering school, but there’s a pretty steady dropoff from there. And like, say, Rose-Hulman, it’s a geeky place with a paucity of females. Rapid City can be just as appealing (or unappealing) as Terre Haute, too.</p>
<p>In some ways, it’s more like an LAC in that you do have more interaction with professors, and despite admitting many lesser qualified candidates, they really work to help their students succeed (not so much a weedout school like many in engineering), though those not cut out for engineering still are eventually left by the wayside (and unfortunately, that’s a lot of them).</p>
<p>It’s reputation is more regional, but if you do well there, it won’t limit you going forward, whether in the workforce or for grad school. Many initially make the decision to go there primarily because of costs, and adcoms in grad school are aware of that and won’t hold it against you (with the caveat that you have to perform above your peers).</p>
<p>Not that you asked, but a couple other safeties in the midwest you might consider are Bradley and Evansville. Both have much better M/F ratios, relatively low tuition, and decent FA. Not as many flavors of engineering, but well-respected (particularly Bradley) in what they have. Was very impressed with both of them.</p>
<p>If you are from Alaska, you might want to consider the [url=<a href=“http://wue.wiche.edu/]options[/url”>http://wue.wiche.edu/]options[/url</a>] available through the Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE). This program allows students from western states to attend certain public universities in other western states at a discounted out-of-state rate. The discounted rate is 150% of in-state tuition, which is typically much less than the normal out-of-state rate.</p>
<p>Colorado Mines and SD Mines are not in this program, but NM Tech and Montana Tech are. If you attended one of these schools under WUE, you would probably pay even lower tuition than the out-of-state rate at SD Mines.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that the WUE tuition rate at University of Nevada is actually lower than the in-state tuition rate at University of California. So Californians actually pay lower tuition if they go out of state to Nevada.</p>
<p>The catch to the WUE program is that the most popular public schools typically don’t participate</p>
<p>I would not say that Rose Hulman is a geeky place…my D choice it because it was not. Sure there are a few but most are just really smart students that want to be engineers. I would say not geeky at all.</p>