<p>Our son is interested in Mechanical Engineering and cannot make up his mind between Univ of Alabama and Lehigh University. Son was accepted at UA with the Computer Based Honors Fellowship and we are very excited about the program. However my husband wants him to go to Lehigh University instead. At UA he gets the Presidential Scholarship and Engineering scholarship with a cost of attendance ~$6000/yr. Lehigh awarded him with a $31000 grant which when added to the Federal loans, $1500 work study and external scholarships will result to a cost of attendance ~$10,000 for the first year. We think this financial aid package will be roughly the same each year- although this is one of my concerns and we will check with Lehigh to be certain. My concern with UA is that there are only a few labs that are doing research on the field that my son is interested in (Bioengineering- specifically prosthetics) whereas Lehigh has an excellent program in Biomechanics and prosthetics and seem to have more internship opportunities in this field. My husband has his bias against UA and is worried that our son will not be able to get a good job in the northeast if he graduates at UA. We are loath to give up UA Computer based honors but Lehigh seem to have a better Engineering program. We also liked that Lehigh is a smaller school and that graduates at Lehigh don’t seem to have problems getting high paying jobs. Our son will be visiting Lehigh for the Diversity Week-end and will hopefully be able to choose where to attend. We would really love to hear from others who may have some insights to help us decide.</p>
<p>We were told to choose a college that you think your son/daughter will end up calling home for at least the first year or two after graduating.
Being from the Northeast, I would choose Lehigh. The end price difference is not that much. </p>
<p>Our example, was Carnegie Mellon or PSU. for Chem Eng. The people in the same field said “PSU”. It is a more recognizable name around here with lots of alumni.</p>
<p>Just so you know we plan on choosing UA as one of our future choices for child #2 along with several others.</p>
<p>If the COA is close, he plans on living and working in the Northeast and it offers the program he’s interested in most, then Lehigh would be a good choice. :-? </p>
<p>A couple of very different college campuses. That being said, don’t dismiss Alabama just because there doesn’t seem to be much opportunity for undergraduate research in Bioengineering. Bio-E is such a new discipline that most jobs require a graduate degree, from what I read. I would get in touch with the Dean at the Engineering School at Alabama and ask a few more questions. For example, what are the opportunities for special projects and (independent) research? If there’s no possibility at all for your son to get involved in the research he seeks, then you know what your options are.</p>
<p>Two awesome choices. Congrats to all of you.</p>
<p>My suggestion would be to pour over both colleges engineering departments websites. He can find all the recent news on what they are doing in his field. Do the same thing for the computer science departments. </p>
<p>Read the papers that they publish to see the projects they are working on now.</p>
<p>Ask ( he can even email profs) at what point undergrads are involved in research opportunities. Earlier the better.
Ask about REU’s. How many kids take advantage and the difficulty of getting in.</p>
<p><a href=“Search for an REU Site | NSF - National Science Foundation”>http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/reu/reu_search.jsp</a></p>
<p>Can your son get excited about the research at both colleges. Does one look much better than the other?</p>
<p>Other points.</p>
<p>Does he have to keep a certain GPA to keep his grant monies? Do most kids do this?
Where do kids get internship opportunities?
Many internships turn into jobs. Where might he want to live?
Weather is very different. What does he like?
Where do graduates go. This can be found on line. What grad schools do they end up, in. Also found on line.
Is Lehigh a car ride away. If so price is looking better and the convenience of Lehigh would be awesome.
And last, at diversity weekend talk to other kids one on one and get a feel for how diverse the school actually is.</p>
<p>Good luck and have fun deciding!</p>
<p>At Lehigh, if your financial situation stays the same, your grant should stay pretty close to what it is this year. As far as employment prospects, the students do place very well. When DD graduated a few years ago, all of her friends either had great paying jobs lined up or admittance to grad school in hand well before graduation. </p>
<p>You mentioned that DS was planning to attend a diversity weekend. I will say Lehigh is not a very diverse place. They are trying to fix that but I am not sure how much progress has been made in the last few years. While visiting on diversity weekend is a good idea, I would plan to stay around a little after or arrive early and get a sense of what the campus is like in general.</p>
<p>I quickly looked at/for placement data for both schools engineering departments.</p>
<p>Lehigh has some (maybe there is more–I didn’t find it in a quick search). It is co-mingled for the entire university, and clearly has the business school placements as well.<br>
<a href=“http://www4.lehigh.edu/Media/Website%20Resources/pdf/admissions/LU_placementsummary12.pdf”>http://www4.lehigh.edu/Media/Website%20Resources/pdf/admissions/LU_placementsummary12.pdf</a></p>
<p>I wasn’t able to find the equivalent data for Alabama. I did note that Alabama’s engineering program has about 4000 undergraduates. That alone is a big deal. They seem to be more oriented towards mechanical and civil engineering, with Chemical engineering being another large department. Electrical and Computer science seem to be a lot smaller.</p>
<p>I’d inquire by phone to see if you can more quickly find Alabama’s engineering placement data. There must be some for a department that large. If there isn’t, its a bit of a red flag, IMO. </p>
<p>I agree with the diversity comment. As far as location of employment, the Lehigh site is heavy with NY and PA assignments. I’m not sure that is the best choice for the future. There is a steady trend of employment and prosperity shifting south and west. That sort of thing is a bit “imponderable” at the early stage of your life, but over time it can have an impact. </p>
<p>EDIT: I found the Alabama report. Its more barebones than Lehigh in terms of detail, but indicates that salaries are about the same. I’d like to see more information in these reports. There isn’t any reason for it not to be out there.
<a href=“http://career.ua.edu/downloads/firstDestination/First%20Destination%20Report%20ENG%20May%202013.pdf”>http://career.ua.edu/downloads/firstDestination/First%20Destination%20Report%20ENG%20May%202013.pdf</a></p>
<p>Thank you for all these responses. In the end our son will be making the decision. But he will be getting information from us to help him decide and I just want to be as objective as possible since my husband is already campaigning hard for Lehigh. In terms of the cost- UA offered funding for all 4 years as long as he maintains a 3.0 gpa. It is good to know that Lehigh’s financial package will stay roughly the same each year because it is a very expensive school. The career placement is a big concern and I think because we are based in NY we would like our son to stay in the northeast. But the computer based honors is an amazing program. This program will ensure that he work with a faculty mentor to do research for at least two years and get credited with a minor while doing so. When son visited Alabama he spoke to the professor and his students who are doing research on prosthetics. Since Bioengineering is not a major focus at UA, he was the only faculty doing this research. A major focus of the Engineering department at UA was on automotive (?) engineering because of their proximity to the Mercedes Benz factory. My son is not interested in cars and really wants to go into Biomechanical engineering. I will ask son to look into research in other departments. He really likes UA and the CBH program that is why he is torn in his decision. We are grateful that he has this two great options.</p>
<p><a href=“Bioengineering | P.C. Rossin College of Engineering & Applied Science”>Bioengineering | P.C. Rossin College of Engineering & Applied Science;
<p>Here is a quick start</p>
<p><a href=“Directory – College of Engineering | The University of Alabama”>http://che.eng.ua.edu/people/</a></p>
<p>To sax- thank you for the two links. I will pass that on to DS. Based on the research focus of the faculty I have seen, Lehigh might interest him more. However I will make sure that he ask how much opportunity do undergraduates get to do research with faculty. The CBH program at UA ensures that he will get priority access so he just has to make sure to work with the faculty he wants to work with. </p>
<p>Another concern I have is the "party " and greek culture atmosphere- but since both universities seem to have that, we just have to make sure that DS will find a niche he could fit in.</p>
<p>’ A major focus of engineering at Alabama is automotive.’</p>
<p>Well that’s certainly true (many, many engineering schools sponsor motor vehicle research and projects), the automobile companies are interested a lot of other technology that have automotive and non-automotive applications. Again, I wouldn’t exclude an engineering school because it puts disproportionate resources into vehicle technology. Applied technology for vehicles in and of itself is a very broad category of research. Just ask Google Corp.</p>
<p>S2 is a CS major at UA and S3 will be going in for mechanical engineering (the largest engineering dept. which, by the way, is not automotive) so my opinion might be biased. UA is a great school and is getting more known for their engineering. It also sounds like Lehigh has a great engineering program. You mentioned that there was a $4,000 gap with UA being less expensive. If you consider plane fare, driving, and hotels needed, you’ll find that the difference is less than that. Since the price is pretty much comparable, I would definitely go with the school that your son thinks is a better fit for him. If he visited both, he WILL have a preference. (S2 did not go Greek. Many STEM men do not so your S will find others if he doesn’t.)</p>
<p>“Lehigh awarded him a $31000 grant, which when added to the Federal loans…”</p>
<p>Loans? How much are those loans?</p>
<p>I am sure the loans are general direct student loans. This may have changed but Lehigh expects the student to take out student loans unless the family income is under $60,000. At least that was the case a couple of years ago. I am also under the impression that if a student wanted to do research at Lehigh there were lots of opportunities. I don’t think it was a problem to find research. </p>
<p>My parents own a high tech engineering/mfg company. When I visited Lehigh with my parents, they laughed and walked out before we got halfway through the tour. The engineering building looked like a cold war museum. </p>
<p>Don’t leave us hanging. Give us a clue about your parents educational backgrounds and what you decided to do so we can have some frame of reference for your appraisal. FWIW, there are a lot of facilities at HYP that would engender protests if the schools weren’t what they are. :)</p>
<p>sparksflying, did they laugh and walk out because of what they were hearing about the school or because they didn’t like the cold war museum look of the engineering building? Was it the look of the steps building or was your visit before steps was completed? </p>
<p>What did you think or were you leaving entirely up to your parents opinions?</p>
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<p>I am currently deciding between Georgia Tech and Cooper Union. My parents are both electrical engineers. They thought Lehigh was fine for Business, but not for engineering. At one time, Lehigh was a great engineering school. Let’s put it this way. When we got in the car to leave, my parents were laughing hysterically. They couldn’t drive away from that place fast enough. </p>
<p>To each his own I suppose. At first, since you only had one post, it sounded like you might be a wait listed Lehigh candidate trying to help their chances 
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<p>Luckily for Lehigh students many large firms that hire engineers disagree with your parents. As I said, every engineer (and business school student for that matter) that I knew of had great jobs by graduation. I guess that statistic might be more helpful to the new deciding class than the fact that your parents didn’t like the look of a building or a vague “they didn’t think it was fine for engineering”</p>
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<p>Wait a minute. Are you saying that the total out of pocket at UA will be $6K per year, while the total out of pocket at Lehigh will be roughly $16.5K ( 10K + roughly 5K in loan + assumed work study of $1.5K)?</p>