I am intentionally not mentioning the state flagship because it isn’t relevant to any of my points, and I want to avoid the picking apart of the school here on CC. Because of my practice, I have access to information non-professionals do not have. So I can promise all that we are fully informed of every imaginable detail about the flagships’s (and any other school he gets very serious about) chem eng. dept. Don’t mean to be cagey, just don’t want to encourage a full-body-search of its chem eng dept.
And he did NOT create his final list based on rankings of the chem eng depts. He chose it based on the specialities of the chem eng dept’s faculty and how prolific they are in publishing in his areas of interest (and a couple of other academic quirks he desired). It just so happens that many of the schools are highly ranked overall. But many many schools got axed which had higher rankings in chem eng. In fact I don’t think any of his schools are T20 in chem engineering. Maybe one or two.
The way he thinks is that he can see a way that a school like Notre Dame (because it is Notre Dame!) would be worth more $ than his flagship (because it is not Notre Dame). But he won’t know that for sure until he sees the dept., understands more about the program, and has a chance to talk to students about what they are learning. He walked away from UCLA saying ‘this place is worth the money.’ Said the opposite for a couple of the other UCs. We can’t and don’t weigh in on that judgement because he is the only one who knows what he is looking for academically. I did like the view at UCSB, though! He didn’t add UCSB back on the list because I liked the view.
If someone is aware of an injection of new faculty into a chem eng dept somewhere, that would be useful info. Other than that, any suggestions we make to him are met with a list of reasons that school was cut, and they almost always have to do with the faculty. Another student will have the opposite opinion because that student may dislike exactly what my kid likes. He is truly idiosyncratic in what he wants. .
@millie210 I completely agree with you! At first we were pretty horrified that he was ignoring fit completely. He isn’t a machine, after all. And he will do well anywhere…he really is resilient. But once we visited a few schools he started to get that. So when/if it comes down to just a couple/few schools,I think fit will come into play.
And the $ thing is a tough one. Being willing to full-pay is very different than wanting to. And he is indeed rational about that. Because of his summer construction job, where he is sometimes living away from home for a few weeks (true this coming summer again), he has a good sense of what $70,000 means! And we want the best for him, as do all parents. We know he won’t choose a school for a frivolous reason but we also don’t want him to self-sacrifice because he fears we will be eating dog food in our retirement years.
He carries ants outside of the house instead of stepping on them. He calls his grandmother all the time. He got punched last year in a game because he challenged an opponent who yelled a racial slur at one of his teammates. He sits on the floor and chats with our cat everyday. He is a caring guy and I know that he would only ask let us full pay if a Nobel is sitting in the engineering dept. of his school of choice. We will be less discerning and will just want him to be happy. The ants of the world are depending on us.
Your choice, but your son sounds like he knows what he wants, so he wouldn’t like the safety if he didn’t like the faculty and the school itself.
I wouldn’t push him to see a bunch of schools that are really tough to get into and that involve planes and vast distances. It’s not going to help at schools that don’t consider interest, and if he gets accepted, he can always visit then. If you’re making a vacation out of it, that’s different.
I think it would be important for your son to learn about the opportunities for undergrads to do research/spend time with professors at each of these universities. The type of research and thinking that your son is doing (which I think is fantastic) is more of a search for graduate school vs. undergrad.
My hunch is that your son will go onto graduate school and finding an UG institution where he can really have an opportunity to do research could be important to him. This might be a way to tweak/add some matches/safeties to his list. (I have no idea about Chem E offerings - but thinking along the lines of Vanderbilt, Wash U, Duke, etc- these aren’t matches/safeties unless he has a hook or is URM. Maybe LAC’s with strong science?)
@lindagaf, Good feedback, thanks. And we are definitely doing something fun on every trip. I have a gazillion frequent flier miles and hotel points which expire before I can use them all, so time is more of an important commodity than $. So this summer our vacation time will be devoted to our college-visit-palooza, and each school needs a full day as he cross-examines half of everyone we see, and sometimes he chats with a coach or two AND has an appointment with someone in the music dept. too (didn’t mention this as not a deal- breaker but he wants to be in a performance band in college too, as a non music major - fortunately that has proven relatively easy to investigate - the music people have been very encouraging for him to stop by during his visits).
One saving grace is his job sites run 7 days a week so his foreman is cool with him taking 2 days whenever he needs them. And that’s how this will roll - 2 days at a time, four times.
I personally wish these visits could be done during the school year to reinforce the notion that colleges are filled with PEOPLE and each school will have a different personality. But he refuses to miss a single day of practice for his sports (see earlier post on his being a rule-follower). Parental over-ride might be needed on that next spring. We will see if needed.
I will also throw out there that your S may change his mind about area of interest within chem e once he had more exposure. Undergrad research and internship/coop opportunities are key.
Ok…I’ll guess. If he is driving five and a half hours through cornfields to get to Notre Dame, he either lives someplace in Illinois, Iowa or someplace like that. They wouldn’t seeing much corn right now in PA.
I do think the prestige factor needs to be dropped for chemical engineering. The biggest thing I would have a student look at is the career center and job placements for recent grads. Chemical engineering has had its ups and downs in terms of jobs. I would want my kid to attend a place where job placement with THAT degree was high.
He may change his mind altogether about major once he gets to college. He should certainly be able to get what he needs in engineering at the undergraduate level at Ohio State . You need to decide upfront what you are willing to pay and communicate that clearly to him. And decide if perceived higher prestige level is worth the cost to your family. Good luck.
A few thoughts from a parent of a CBE home for the summer, commuting to internship and getting ready to apply for PHD and lab funding.
There will be 0 educational expenses after 4 undergrad years. He has already declared a fully funded PHD track to do his own research.
CC talks about job placement but he will be concerned about his CV developed over 4 years. That support should not just come from the Chem Eng dept but the dept supporting undergraduate research. He may do collaborative research with another dept. I call them ‘clubs’ but generally there are groups of professors from across the university reviewing NSF, Goldwater, Fulbright applications. They received scholarships as undergrads. I feel that the classes outside of the engineering core made her a better writer and communicator, very important for applications, entrepreneurial opportunities, presentations and writing for publication.
Don’t be concerned about internships or research in summers at other universities. He will research and apply in the same manner as he has approached applying to college. I would encourage some summers away from the university he attends. It is a healthy break.
CBE is very broad and often collaborates with physics (energy), med school (drug development) and on…,Although he has picked one, options are good to have at the same institution.
We did not consider our state schools because a Med school was not located on campus, where she does her research. We do not have any regrets. Our family situation is different and the $$ spent for undergrad can not be replaced due to illness.
Don’t underestimate the time spent outside of engineering and the student vibe. Chem Eng is often referred to as the toughest undergraduate major. It can be isolating and healthy to have classmates, friends outside of engineering.
Agree with KSLD’s final point. Students in Chem Eng collaborate with other students and other professors across the university. Entrepreneurship contests? A student led Accelerator/Incubator with private funding for new initiatives? Even the most prolific professors are doing interdisciplinary research these days, so the publication record may not accurately reflect who does what. A new nanotech lab was just built and a boat load of assistant professors are being hired across all the scientific, mathematical and engineering disciplines? That might be a much better indicator of what your son is looking for then just the past publication track record of senior faculty…
@cypresspat Can I adopt your kid? Seriously, he sounds like a kind, responsible, mature young man who is prioritizing academic fit over more superficial preferences. Having grown up with chemical engineers in the family, I recognize the rational approach to decision making! I have no doubt he will thrive at his preferred school, or any other that meets his requirements.
I would be deliriously happy if I had a kid who chose a school that was both practical and easy on the wallet. This is a very good problem to have! I agree that he should investigate the research possibilities for undergrads wherever he goes.
The vast majority of posters on these forums do not consider departmental strength or subspecialties when recommending colleges. Indeed, in some threads, some posters will recommend their favorite colleges even if the student’s intended major does not exist, or its department is small with limited offerings.
For chemical engineering, you can assume that any ABET accredited program is good, but some may be better academic fits for him than others (and it appears that such academic fit is a focus for his search).
Note that some chemical engineering departments prefer that students attend different schools for BS and PhD study. For example, see https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/grad/cbe/faq which has this question and answer:
@cypresspat It sounds like your son is approaching this college search the right way. Since you mentioned that you are visiting Cornell this summer, you will have to think more creatively about opportunities to meet current students and professors in the chemical engineering department. During the summer before their junior year, students in the engineering co-op program at Cornell take courses in their major. Then, the following Fall, they work at their co-op company, returning for their Spring semester. If you time your visit right, you can catch one of the courses:
Click on the course you are interested in and google the professor teaching the course and ask if you can sit in on the class. I’ve never had a professor do anything but say “of course”. You can use this opportunity to talk to current ChemE students and maybe even the professor after the class. Take a tour of Olin Hall afterwards. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but recently got an infusion of $$ from Robert Smith (Cornell ChemE Class of '85). He was the guy in the news who recently paid off student loans at Morehouse College for the Class of 2019 there.
OP, Congrats on having a high stats kid. One that knows exactly what he/she wants to study. And one that is willing to do the research. Also congrats on having the means to be able to handle being a full-pay family.
The majority of folks on CC aren’t in your position. I am not trying to be snarky, but rather stating facts. Many people here might fall into one or two of those categories.
Good luck in the coming 11 months finalizing the decision.
“And St. Louis is 5 hours and 28 minutes from South Bend. Through the cornfields.” But mizzou is auto admit for this kid, I think. Not a “ safety” the way the OP described it …as very high probability that he’d get in, but not a sure thing.
And Chicago is only 2 hours from south bend and I don’t think there’s any other area of Illinois that you’d have the diversity he speaks about. So that’s why I nixed Illinois as a possibility. Also I don’t think anyone would pick apart the choice of UIUC the way OP feared if she revealed the state they live in.
It also struck me that the depth of his research, on faculty and publishing, might be more suited to a grad school applicant. And I hope he noted that many of the rankings are for grad programs.
Did he choose chem engineering soley because of the job stats? Is there genuine interest? Do you think it might change?
I would be a little concerned about his laser-sharp focus on academics. Generally folks recommend thinking about size, location (well, he wants closer to home), academics, extracurriculars (and he wants music),social life and “vibe.” I think that last one is important. Does he hang out with friends, does he make friends easily, is that important to him? I guess you can assume he will make good connections socially at most chem engineering programs. So maybe it is a non-issue. But we tended to hang out in dining halls and bookstores etc. and felt we learned more that way than in the info sessions
If he wants to do music, he might avoid schools that have a BM program, though there are exceptions where non-majors can have access to teachers and performance.
Tufts is one of the “little Ivies” and competitive of course. It is different from the big schools he is considering. It sits on a hill, and is about 10 minutes from the subway in to Cambridge and Boston. Personal attention and internship/research opportunities nearby.
