My son will be starting college next fall and wants to study Mechanical Engineering. The overarching goal is to find employment when he completes. He is OOS for all 3 so cost is a secondary (but less significant) consideration. Which of these 3 schools is better for the stated objective? Are there similarly ranked schools that have good employment opportunities?
NC State, Iowa State, Arizona State, LSU, Auburn, Clemson, UCF, Oregon State, Colorado.
These are all similar schools. Purdue, Texas AM, NC State being the best of these for engineering.
What state are you in?
NC state was not on our radar so this is very helpful, thank you.
He is a US citizen currently studying in India. Hopes to return back for college.
The question has no answer because you’ve selected three top tier schools.
All three have have a weed-out system where frosh in first year pre/general engineering must earn high enough college GPA to be assured of entering their majors (otherwise, it is competitive admission). TAMU requires a 3.5 GPA, Purdue a 3.2 (if the major is not over “critical capacity”), and VT a 3.0.
https://engineering.tamu.edu/academics/advisors-procedures/entry-to-a-major.html
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ENE/Academics/FirstYear/T2M
https://enge.vt.edu/content/dam/enge_vt_edu/undergraduate/com_requirements/COM_GE.pdf
If he’s starting in the fall, has he been admitted to the schools you listed? Where does he ultimately want to live?
My apologies, I wasnt clear. He will start fall of 2019. His scores are in the 75th percentile of the 3 schools we picked. I am assuming he has a reasonable shot at acceptance. He does suffer from seasonal allergies so that could be a factor we will consider. Other than that, it boils down to best employment opportunities.
Good points about maintaining good grades. He and I will have to talk about it.
I forgot Penn State and Pitt.
For academics:
Purdue, Pitt/NC State, Penn State/Texas AM/Virginia Tech/Arizona State/Iowa State/Clemson.
Texas is lousy for allergies.
Engineers can get a good education, resulting in good job placement at many schools. He should think more about what he wants his college experience to be like. Where does he want to live after he graduates? What size school and classes is he best aligned with. What sort of budget do you have? What non-academic interests does he follow? Weather? Just looking at rankings is a pretty poor way to vet colleges. One, the rankings have flaws. Two, they tell you nothing about the college experience.
These are all good schools for engineering and all of them should have good recruitment and job opportunities. Your son may or may not change his mind about pursuing mechanical engineering once he gets to school and is exposed to other types of engineering. Or could end up switching out of engineering altogether. So, best to look at schools that he likes overall in terms of vibe, location, cost, etc. You can find post grad surveys for Virginia Tech here. Other schools probably have similar info you can look at. https://db.career.vt.edu/PostGraduationSurveyReport/PostGrad.html
Employment opportunities are really what you make of them. A good GPA at any of those schools will get you job offers. A sub-3 GPA at any of them won’t bring squat.
Jobs aren’t guaranteed based on what school you go to. Loan payments are. Go with your cheapest option.
Appreciate all the responses. There are a lot of variables in here that we have not given serious thought to. We are just getting started on this journey (seems more onerous than I imagined) and the advice is much appreciated.
Good luck! And please be careful when you look at average SAT’s, 75th % type of things. Often, engineering scores are higher than the college averages, and admission is often more competitive in certain majors like engineering.
Thank you sevmom, we will keep that in mind.
One other question: How critical are ECs at these schools? His academics are good but lacks ECs other than spending a good deal of time volunteering in the community and playing the piano in church.
I can comment directly on ECs for Virginia Tech and NC state. Son #3 was accepted for engineering fall 2018 at both. Here is his entire EC list - Band, Boy Scouts. My thought is that ECs are important at these two schools to show that you do something other than academics.
I’m not a big believer in rankings. All three are about equal, but Texas A&M has an advantage. Texas has a much bigger economy and it’s going to open doors for jobs in Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio. The only downside is going to be the Texas summers.
And Virginia Tech would give you an “advantage” if you wanted to work in the DC area (although their graduates end up all over, there are lots that end up in Virginia and the DC Metro area). I would imagine lots of Purdue grads end up in the Midwest, NC State grads end up in the Research Triangle area, etc. All of these are good schools, with good recruiting (and grads end up working all over), so agree about not worrying about rankings.
Want to emphasize the point made by @sevmom - these schools are very large with a wide range of majors, so looking at their general stats (e.g., 75th% for overall acceptances) is very misleading for determining whether you are competitive for engineering. You can probably obtain information on stats by major from admissions.
Volunteering as an EC will definitely count at VT based on their motto Ut Prosim, Latin for “That I May Serve”.
This is only relevant if the goal is to remain in the state in which the degree is completed. If student is open to moving anywhere geographically, then it doesn’t really matter which university is in the state with the strongest economy as long as the university has a reasonably broad geographic recruiting footprint.
I have a graduate degree from one of the schools on this list here and at no point have I been employed in that state since then.
Engineering students at these top schools, tend to be recruited nationally, as well as regionally. Lots of opportunities.
On how important are ECs in admissions, you can use the common data set (section C) to get an idea. For example, at Virginia Tech, Rigor, GPA and standardized test scores are all “very important”, while nonacademic factors (ECs, volunteering, etc.) are only “considered”.
https://www.ir.vt.edu/data/cds.html
A school that uses a more “holistic” approach, like UF for example, would list several of the nonacademic factors as very important or important. UF even lowers standardized test scores from “very important” to “important”.
As long as the school only flags the nonacademic factors as “considered” or “not considered”, I wouldn’t worry about ECs. If they list nonacademic factors as very important or important, do more research on that school admission process. The school’s forum on CC is a great place to start.
Also keep in mind that some schools admit by major, and admissions to the engineering program could be much more competitive (VT is a good example).