The decision process...

Parents Forum
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<p><strong>I feel stupid even posting this in the wake of Virginia Tech. Doesn't this stuff all seem so unimportant today? Sigh. But, well, anyway, here it is.</strong></p>

<p>I'm surprised to find ourselves in a decision quandry. I frankly never thought my son would have this many choices.</p>

<p>My son applied to, and was accepted, for Electrical or Computer Engineering at the following schools:</p>

<p>Purdue (he has declined, too far, too big, never visited)
Case Western (he has declined; too expensive)
Univ Pittsburgh (he has declined; didn't like - maybe too urban)
Rochester Institute Tech (he has declined; too close to home)
Northeastern (he has declined; "that school has no personality")
Rose Hulman
Ohio University Athens
Rensselaer
Worcester Polytech</p>

<p>Since he seems to be having a very hard time deciding, last night we sat down and had him rate various features of the remaining schools. I was a little surprised at what I believe to be his misconceptions about some of them. (For instance he felt that when applying for a job, Worcester would have the greatest name recognition...He also thought all had comparable facilities...) By our primitive ranking system this was the order: RPI, WPI, Rose Hulman, OU.</p>

<p>Of course the odd ball school remaining is Ohio Univ. He reports that he liked the school a lot - especially for the $10K/year (all included) that it would cost. He liked the town, the living arrangements, the kids, the pretty campus, the small engineering dept. The other 3 remaining schools are all in the $30K/yr range - necessitating him to borrow $5K/yr towards his degree.</p>

<p>He has always leaned a tiny bit towards WPI. I think he feels like he would fit in there best. (Why he thinks the social scene is much different from Rose Hulman or RPI is a mystery to me.) He also likes the small campus (!). </p>

<p>After the open house at RPI last Saturday, he has become interested in the Product Development and Innovation (PDI) dual major at RPI. (Top secret info - I'm a little concerned about him completing ONE major to say nothing of two...) Anyway, I can't tell at this point how much this will influence him.</p>

<p>My husband (and everybody else, except me - I'm clueless) is leaning heavily towards RPI, but so far everyone has kept their mouths shut. I would have picked U Pitt, but oh well. </p>

<p>Anyway, just wondered what everybody has for advice on this one. All schools have been visited (some more than once.) His ECs are theater and music - which seems to be basically accommodated at all these schools.</p>

<p>Thanks for advice.</p>

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<p>Three tech schools, one university. If he is not really dedicated to a technical degree (you kind of hint that you aren't sure), I would think Ohio might have some benefits. I had a friend change his mind about math during his junior year at Caltech and then have to transfer to earn a degree in journalism. His only advice to my son was to go to a "full service" university.</p>

<p>As for the others, good luck. My son would choose WPI in a second for their undergrad robotics program, except that it costs $45k a year, and it's one of only two schools that didn't offer him a tuition discount ("merit scholarship"). Other than that, I dunno. Pick straws? This is not entirely a joke. Sometimes I don't know what I want to do until I make a definite choice and then check my emotions afterwards. Good luck. We mailed Jr's acceptance letter this morning...</p>

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<p>wow weenie, such great choices! I agree with Wash dad re being able to change majors being a definite plus...</p>

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<p>Your son can't decide and one school is $10,000 and the others are $30,000? </p>

<p>Uhhhhh.... that's not a small difference in price.</p>

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<p>dstark: LOL. Believe me, I know! But we are talking about a kid who I really can not imagine doing anything besides something very techie - and OU's engineering program is nowhere near the others listed. Of course, whether or not engineers "need" a name-brand degree has always been a point of debate on CC...</p>

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<p>"Of course, whether or not engineers "need" a name-brand degree has always been a point of debate on CC..."</p>

<p>Do they?</p>

<p>Isn't engineering......engineering?</p>

<p>I would double check if I were you. :)</p>

<p>Where do OU engineers end up compared to the other schools on your son's list?</p>

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<p>My store of information about engineering schools is really limited. The kids I grew up with would have picked RPI in a heartbeat, but we lived in New York State. The best, most brilliant engineer I know -- someone whose children would have been developmental admits at any college in the country, and someone who employed and dealt with veritable armies of engineers -- enthusiastically steered his son to Rose-Hulman six years ago. He told me he thought it was the best engineering college in the country. (I don't know for a fact that he thought it was better than MIT or Cal Tech, because his son would not have felt comfortable at either of those schools. And the father did have family ties to Indiana, where he had grown up.) In any event, the kid had a fabulous experience there.</p>

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<p>JHS, I'm trying to save Weenie $80,000. ;)</p>

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<p>engineering is one of the most standardized majors in college. Engineering programs are ABET acredited, which means no matter where you go you'll be studying the same topics. With more rigor at some schools, to be sure. As far as whether one needs a "name-brand" college, the answer is no. Within a broad tier, employers view the schools themselves as about the same.</p>

<p>What does make a difference is participation in things such as internships and coops. Some schools have much stronger programs in this regard, and these schools will produce grads having more & better job offers.</p>

<p>Given the misconceptions the OP's son seems to have, I wonder how much real-world exposure to what EEs do he has. The reason I raise this is the dropout rate for engineering is incredibly high. Nobody can predict what will happen to the OP's son, but statistically things look grim. So I'd advise anyone without enough exposure to know its what they really want to consider a U with broad offerings, as was suggested earlier in the thread. According to one trade publication
[quote]
the majority of engineering undergrads drop out or flunk out of the curriculum within the first two years. With a few notable exceptions, U.S. engineering schools typically have attrition rates hovering between one-half and two-thirds.
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/buzhg%5B/url%5D%5B/quote%5D"&gt;http://tinyurl.com/buzhg

[/quote]
</a></p>

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<p>(In my humble opinion) I don't buy the line that all engineering programs are the same just because they meet the ABET criteria. </p>

<p>My S sat in on a Physics II class at our good Flagship state U, and the professor was shining a projector across a hot plate to demonstrate refraction of light. A number of kids couldn't quite fathom that you can't just "see" heat. He knew he could skip that course with his AP credit.</p>

<p>Then he sat in on a Physics II class at RPI. The demonstrations and lab experiments were at an entirely different level. Shining a light on a negatively-charged sphere to observe the charge dissipate as the electrons were released (but not with a positively-charged sphere). Shining a laser through an arching stream of water to demonstrate a wave guide. He figured he would retake that class, even though he could place out of it with his AP credit, because it covered material he hadn't had and it was exciting!</p>

<p>He also sat in on an RPI embedded controls class (sophomore year course) where teams of two kids each were building and programing the gondola of small blimps with microprocessors, ultrasonic sensors, gyroscopes, and three little fans in them. Later they would fly around the field house and see how well they could stay in one place when bumped around. I don't think you are going to get this level of instruction at every ABET-acredited school.</p>

<p>Also, I don't think that the engineering dropout rate at schools like Rose-Hulman or RPI is anything close to that quoted above.</p>

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<p><a href="In%20my%20humble%20opinion">quote</a> I don't buy the line that all engineering programs are the same just because they meet the ABET criteria.

[/quote]
Well, its good you don't buy it because it isn't true. One characteristic of good engineers is attention to detail. Probably not a bad characteristic for those advising prospective engineers, either ;) If you look back at my post you'll see mention of considering schools as similar within their tier, and that rigor of programs differs among schools. Extracting "all are the same" from that is to create a straw-man argument that is easily punctured. </p>

<p>Having personal experience in several highly regarded hi-tech firms (some of which are household names), I can assure you that recruiting is done quite widely and isn't limited to the Caltech's and MIT's of the world. While always quite happy to get kids from those schools, we have found great engineers from a variety of schools, even (gasp!) state schools. And we'll be much more excited about a kid from State who had spent the last 2 summers actually working in engineering than the kid from Stanford with coursework and nothing else.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Also, I don't think that the engineering dropout rate at schools like Rose-Hulman or RPI is anything close to that quoted above.

[/quote]
Again, attention to detail :( Note the clause "with a few notable exceptions" in the magazine article.</p>

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<p>No helpful comment here, but I'd have picked UPitt for my S too. Grrr.</p>

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<p>HeliMomNYC, are the tours over in your house? What did you like about Pitt?</p>

<p>Wait a second. William and Mary? I thought it was between a CUNY, Cornell and Pitt. :)</p>

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<p>I am going to ask, why did the son apply to schools he didn't like?</p>

<p>I think that is part of the issue.....</p>

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<p>cgm: He liked them (sort of?) when he applied, but then used those criteria to eliminate them. (Apparently. ;) )</p>

<p>There. That clears it up.</p>

<p>mikemac: I agree with you that co-ops are the way to go. Of course, he has heard that over and over at the colleges too. But he just doesn't seem quite focused on that...</p>

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<p>Yeesh, that sounds like the most repayable debt I've ever heard of. I'd think a young engineer w/o family could repay $5K/year without blinking. Not that engineers are wealthy, I understand this. But they are employable immediately, correct? To me, "cost savings" via Ohio State is nothing to tip a decision if you find the other schools superior academically in his field.</p>

<p>My kids are all in the arts, so of course I'm wicked jealous. The only thing smart they do financially is date engineers...</p>

<p>Speaking of which, a h.s. friend went off to RPI, really brilliant fellow. He found great teaching there. He reports a 4:1 ratio boys:girls. Weather is a sore point. But as someone mentioned, in upstate NY that's considered the place that dazzles for its brilliance, FWIW. I really don't know the ins and outs of the field.</p>

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<p>Weenie, at least you got your son to sit down and do some sort of rating chart with you! My son got into 8 engineering schools and let us know a couple weeks ago that he had narrowed it down to 3 top contenders- Carnegie Mellon, RPI and Georgia Tech- but in his own mind was fairly sure which was his favorite. Would not give hints. Took a trip to Atlanta to see Tech 3 weeks ago, revisited RPI this past Saturday. Had seen CMU last August but was disappointed with their financial aid package (still waiting on appeal results). </p>

<p>At RPI on Saturday, our last stop was the bookstore and he picked up one of those expensive hooded sweatshirts. Our agreement has always been that I would spring for a t-shirt at each college tour stop but would not buy a hoodie unless it was the school he wanted to go to. So this is how he let me know his decision. He says he has known RPI was his choice for weeks now but wanted to see Georgia Tech first. He is quiet about his reasons but he says he was so impressed with the studio classrooms at RPI, loved the labs and campus, thought he would fit in with the kids there. He feels the school has such a collaborative vibe to it which he felt was lacking in other schools. </p>

<p>We are still waiting to hear from CMU about financial aid but my son says it won't really matter to him. He wants to go to RPI. Even bought the hoodie!</p>

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<p>mikemac-</p>

<p>Sorry--wasn't trying to start a fight. </p>

<p>I've been struggling over the last couple of years with how to compare the quality of engineering schools. I've heard the ABET-same-subject-matter argument a few times and, while I think there is some merit to the argument, I have been grasping for ways to distinguish between different schools. The examples I related from my recent visits have given me something concrete to go by, and I thought I would share them in case others can relate to them, though your mileage may vary. (I think we often make our decisions based on anecdotal evidence, but when alll of the choices are good, that's probably OK.)</p>

<p>What are the "broad tiers" that employers view the same? Is OU-Athens in the same broad tier as RPI, Purdue, and Rose-Hulman? Is WPI? I don't think they would be considered so where I work.</p>

<p>As I have mentioned before in other posts, I think the type of school one attends greatly influences the type of starting job an engineering graduate will be able to land. Some types of schools will educate kids that will be well-prepared for circuit design or VLSI layout. Other types of schools may be better at produce kids who are well-suited for research and development or system engineering. The larger State U's probably turn out both types.</p>

<p>As for the engineering dropout rate, I would guess it is fairly low at most of the schools on Weenie's S's list, and higher at some larger State U's or maybe less selective schools (I don't have any data to back up this guess, though). </p>

<p>I certainly agree that a kid who is torn between humanities and engineering or one struggles with math and physics should probably find a school with a variety of options. It sounds like Weenie's S (and mine, too) is hard over on the technology side of the spectrum, though. I worry a little about the "well-roundedness" factor. We are visiting Case Western this weekend, and I think it would provide a more well-rounded education (slightly more liberal-artsish with a few seminars required) than RPI. However, I don't think that's going to appeal to my S who is still recovering from having to write a 5-page analysis of an obscure Robert Blake poem. In the end, it's his decision to make, not mine!</p>

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<p>Only thing I would add. My sons found a lot of engineering hiring to be regional in nature. (with exceptions of course)</p>

<p>This helped them pick schools based on where they wanted to live after they graduate. They stayed in the west with this in mind.</p>

<p>In many engineering classes it is all in the professor delivery and access to equipment that is for student use that is important. In addition, my kids liked the bigger schools where there was more variety to the engineering majors and minors. Things like nano-technology, environmental engineering, and engineering physics were important to them to have as options.</p>

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<p>Sounds like this is turning into the RPI fan club meeting here, which is not what weenie wants to hear right now! </p>

<p>She's mourning the loss of Pitt from this list (or maybe OU for the $80K!), Mr. Weenie wants RPI, and little son-of-weenie thinks maybe WPI. </p>

<p>Don't worry, weenie, there are no wrong answers on your list!</p>