@anmurno Congratulations on your acceptances! It will be hard to pass up MIT if you end up being able to afford it. What STEM major are you pursuing?
@NorthernMom61 Thanks! I’m planning on going into either chemical or biochemical engineering.
Thanks for the replies to my question about other schools that you are considering. What criteria (besides cost and ranking) are you using to make your decision? Are you trying to evaluate the quality of the specific STEM department in which you plan to major? If so, what criteria are you using to do so? I looked at the US News rankings of graduate programs for specific STEM majors at UConn vs. other schools, as well as number of professors in the department and their credentials. I don’t know if any of this information is relevant. Maybe other factors, such as the dedicated STEM advisor and/or STEM research seminars and/or the Honors Living and Learning Community, etc. are more important. What do you think? Thanks.
@FredFlinstone99 We are comparing UCONN and Purdue as my daughter’s two top choices. She wants to study biomedical engineering. At UCONN she has been accepted directly into biomedical engineering versus Purdue where all engineering students are First Year Engineering students then you apply for you specialty at the end of freshman year to start sophomore year. Biomedical engineering is not ranked as highly at Purdue as other specialties in engineering there. I really don’t know Purdue’s BME program stacks up against UCONN. Both are ABET accredited. The pleasant surprise of the UCONN STEM Honors and nice scholarship lead us to read more about the STEM initiatives in Connecticut and it is exciting to think that my daughter might in a small way be part of that initiative and be a beneficiary of it. The fact that Connecticut is contributing to their public higher education institutions rather than cutting away from them as is occurring many other states is impressive to us as a family. A dedicated adviser and real research opportunities is certainly a plus. Getting a nicer dorm or other treats is just frosting, not as important as the other factors.
I’m interested to know just how selective this program is. I can’t find much info on it.
From what FredFlinstone posted in #10 it appears to be about 1/4 of the honors students admitted.
@NorthernMom61 Thanks, but I don’t understand your math… 75/500 is only about 15% not 25%?
Also, it seems like the STEM scholar program is basically just a RAP/Living and learning program?
Don’t know, we also didn’t know about it until it was offered to daughter. Funny enough, when she applied to UCONN we had no confidence that as a out of state student that any of the merit scholarships would be enough to offset the relatively higher cost of the school, and the STEM scholarship just does. Sorry my rough eyeballing math was a bit off.
I guess we have to look past rankings because affording a school pretty much out of pocket is our goal. The savings on travel costs alone at UCONN vs Purdue will be substantial. If money were no object her list might have looked quite different.
If you don’t need to worry about cost,pick the school you feel is best for you.
@NorthernMom61 I really do want to pick the school I like better, but I don’t want to pass up a better education from UMass or Maryland for UConn. That’s why I’m trying to figure out how much better the STEM program is than the regular school 
Yes it seems relatively new so may be hard to judge. All of you choices are great. Congrats.
Sorry I can’t be of much help distinguishing between the three schools, seems like you have three great options.
Hello JoeSweeney83 - In terms of UConn STEM (Honors) vs. UMass (Honors) - UConn overall is ranked higher than UMass overall. The schools provide stats (SAT, GPA and class rank) for their honors program so you can compare them that way. UMass’s honors criteria are formulaic whereas UConn’s honors evaluation is holistic. As I mentioned in an earlier posting, UConn’s STEM program is a subset of their Honors program. The GPA and SAT criteria are the same - the additional requirements for the STEM program are a STEM major and significant STEM activities (e.g. research) in high school. What other schools are people considering and how are you comparing them to the UConn STEM program?
Still between Purdue and UCONN for my daughter. Daughter got into RPI and WPI, but RPI is too expensive even with the merit scholarship (every merit scholarship is a gift), and haven’t heard from WPI about scholarships yet as she just got her admission decision this past weekend, but unless there is some kind of miracle, I fear it will also be too expensive as well. She didn’t try MIT because there were no merit scholarships. She is leaning toward UCONN, and will likely make a final decision at the end of this week.
@FredFlintstone99 Thanks so much for the reply! I’m interested to know where they have these honors college statistics because I have searched for them for hours and hours and have never been able to find them.
@JoeSweeney83:
Here are the UMass Honors criteria: https://www.umass.edu/admissions/academic-life/honors-college
Here are the UConn Honors criteria: http://honors.uconn.edu/prospective-students/admission/
You may want to ask the colleges about the typical profile of an honors student. UConn reports that the average SAT score of honors students is 1400 (CR +M) and students entering the Honors Program regularly rank in the top 5% of their high school class. Again UConn’s criteria are holistic whereas UMass’ criteria are formulaic.
@FredFlinstone99 Thanks you for the links.