<p>After this grueling week of acceptances/waitlists/denials, I have narrowed it down to 3 colleges that I want to attend: Tufts, Northeastern or UIUC. My intended major would be Electrical Engineering.</p>
<p>I really really want to go to Tufts but it may be hard to swallow the $60,000 price tag when I could go to Northeastern for $40,000. My main concern is how well Tufts Engineering helps students for the work force, and if there are any other reasons the $60,000 price tag can be justified.</p>
<p>Total annual cost of Northeastern is $53k a year. Did you get a partial scholarship there, or did you compare NE tuition with Tufts all-inclusive costs?</p>
<p>Those are three very different schools. Which one do you like the best?</p>
<p>Yeah, I got $15,000 a year for Northeastern, after accounting for the raised cost-of-attendance for this coming year, it comes around $40,000. I personally like Tufts the best, but I’m just concerned about the job prospects, and how truly rigorous the Engineering department is compared to top engineering schools like UIUC.</p>
<p>60K ( times 4 plus add in yearly cost increases!) is a **lot **of money, so if you got a better deal at another good engineering school that will allow you to graduate with less debt or no debt etc. then do it.
While I like the campus, size, and atmosphere of Tufts better I would probably follow the money. BTW - All the Tufts engineering grads I know have had great careers and never felt that Tufts was in any way second rate.
All 3 of your schools are excellent and will prepare you well for the future, and provide a great college experience. So you need to evaluate what you can afford.</p>
<p>Last year my daughter (non engineering), had the tough decision between Tufts and Northeastern. We put all the finances aside (she was getting merit money at NU but nothing at Tufts) and let her decide. After attending Tufts Jumbo day she knew it was not the place for her and picked NU. She is very happy she made that decision and it has turned out that NU is the perfect place for her. </p>
<p>Northeastern is really in the city - Tufts is not - she decided she wanted the city. She got into the honors program at NU and felt she would prefer being a top fish (also the honors dorms were so much nicer than anything at Tufts.). My daughter entering as undeclared, also felt that the advising at Northeastern would be better. She did not feel any connection with the Tufts kids that she met on campus (including former high school acquaintances) and felt she was more like the kids on the NU campus. </p>
<p>Ultimately, for her it was a matter of fit - which school do you think you fit better in?</p>
If Tufts engineering is not “rigorous”, that’s news to me, and my body would like to ask for a refund for all those all-nighters, those weeks wherein I slept for four hours a night, that finals period wherein I was studying for 20 hours a day.</p>
<p>But please don’t tell any employers, because they all seem to be in the dark about this ease (and non-“top” nature) of Tufts engineering. </p>
<p>To cut down on the sarcasm a bit: I cannot speak to UIUC, since I am not familiar with it, but I will point out that almost every Tufts engineer was a standout math/science student at his high school - your average Tufts engineer was in the top 5% of his graduating high school class (if a public school), took and aced a lot of math and science APs, and got a perfect or near-perfect math SAT score.</p>
<p>Then the engineering school scales its classes to a B-/C+ average, so that top-5%, 760 math SAT kid winds up with a C+ in a bunch of classes. You learn the same material anywhere, but a school like Tufts will force students to work harder than they would elsewhere - someone who might be in the top of a class at another school would be average for Tufts, and “average” means “welcome to the B- or C+ that you’ve never gotten in your entire life.”</p>
<p>Huh? I’m not disputing that the engineering program is hard, it definitely is, but I’ve been at Tufts for ten years, most of my best friends at Tufts are engineers, and I’ve never heard a Tufts engineer despite grades (or grading) the way you just did, ariesathena. </p>
<p>If it is at all possible, come visit both NEU and Tufts. We are at almost opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of culture and pedagogical emphasis. Rather than make an argument about the quality and/or rigor of one program or another (I’m sure you can find partisans on both sides who can do this), I’m going to point out that the stark differences between us can create a powerful argument for why Tufts is worth some additional cost, if you decide you prefer what we offer. Of course, what ‘additional’ cost is reasonable for your family is something you’ll have to consider carefully. </p>
<p>I’ll point to big differences between UIUC and Tufts, too. Size alone will completely change your experience. They have twice as many students persuing one major, Electrical Engineering, as Tufts has in the entire engineering school. Our largest engineering major, mechanical, has just 50 students or so in each year, meaning if you are a MechE, taking a MechE class, the largest possible size is 50 students. You’ll know every professor in the department by the time you graduate and they will know you. Even if you assume identical quality of program constant, those are big, big differences. </p>
<p>If it’ll help, send me an email and I can connect you with some Tufts engineers either in general, or studying what you’re thinking about doing. But, if you can, come visit. It’ll help a lot.</p>
<p>Back on my day, most of my tests were curved to a B-/C+, Dan. some professors would add in a grade for homework or problem sets, but the curve on most tests was to an 79 or 80 median. My roommate said that Bio 13 was put to the same curve, and ws curved after the withdrawal period. </p>
<p>I have NEVER heard of anything else, Dan. It was such at Tufts and most engineering schools I know of. I have spoken with recruiters and grad school admissions people who have said that they take people with GPAs in the 2s “all the time”. One of the Tufts deans said that the median engineering GPA (at least when I was there) was less than a 3.0.</p>
<p>You’re hurting your credibility, Dan, by claiming otherwise.</p>
<p>While this may not be the best source, it is worth noting that 42% of nationwide engineering grads get between a 2.75 and a 3.25. That factors in upper level courses and liberal arts courses, project and lab grades, and problem set grades. Unless Tufts massively grade-inflates engineering relative to most other engineering schools, the test average in most classes is in the B- range. </p>
<p>This is valuable information for any engineering admit, IMHO.</p>
<p>Again, I’m not saying that it isn’t hard. Just that I don’t believe Tufts engineers, in the culture as it exists now, discuss grades in the context you just did. If it hurts my credibility to say that, so be it. (typo in the post above, the word “despite” should have been “describe” - perhaps that changes your reading of the post).</p>
<p>In either event, I don’t think potential grades are the salient issue here; culture and pedagogy count for a lot in an engineering program, and the OP is, in some ways, lucky. There’s clear contrasts between the schools.</p>
<p>Also, as a total aside, immediately after I posted, the lady who brought me my pear juice in the hotel lobby in Shanghai where I was working turned out to be an NEU student on a co-op for the hospitality industry in China, which I think is pretty amazing.</p>
<p>That they do not describe grades in the context I just did doesn’t mean that what I said is inaccurate. </p>
<p>Some of my 100-level classes were graded differently - As and Bs were more common - but the vast majority of my UG level classes in math, science, and engineering were scaled to a B-/C+. An asymmetrical bell curve can result in more than half the class getting at least a B- by the end, as can adding points for problem sets, homework, etc. </p>
<p>I will also add that engineers tend to not discuss grades that much, period; it’s the equivalent of the med school slogan, P = MD (pass equals doctor). But if you’re at a school wherein very talented people routinely pull low Bs and high Cs, you’re going to work hard. To describe that enviroment as “not rigorous” strikes me as entirely misguided.</p>
<p>Note: I am speaking about Tufts, not about Tufts vis-a-vis UIUC or any specific engineering school.</p>
<p>Engineering is hard at any good school. period. The material is conceptually hard and you need more courses to graduate. And you are in amongst the best and the brightest students.
What we looked for with my son was a school where there was a sense of “We want you to be successful” coming from the faculty and the university as a whole. He also wanted an environment where the students were all highly motivated but not cut-throat. We saw both of those traits in spades at Tufts. We visited some schools that were more old-school in their approach, more of a sink-or-swim mindset that was typical of engineering education (everywhere) years ago.
He was originally reluctant to consider Tufts because he didn’t want to go where his parents went to school, but at the end, Tufts was one of his top two picks.</p>
<p>I think the OP is comparing three excellent schools, but overall experience will be very different at these three. And it sounds like cost is a variable too since NEU offers merit aid.</p>
<p>Thank you guys for all your insights! I will definitely make an effort to re-visit all these institutions. In all honesty, my heart is with Tufts right now, as I think I would fit in best there, yet my parents remain skeptical (which they claim is realistic) as they are unsure about job placement/company recruitment after graduation. Could anyone comment on that?</p>
Just want to add that there were 2 sections of most ME classes, so the class sizes were generally in the 20’s for undergraduate classes, sometimes into the 30’s for more popular graduate level or interdisciplinary classes.</p>
<p>And I tend to agree with Dan regarding the curving you describe, ariesathena. I certainly never experienced a professor curving the class downward and not many of the exams I took were difficult to warrant averages in the C’s (although there were some here and there). I think I was also lucky to be in the easier section of some classes.</p>
<p>Regarding job placement - almost everyone I know who’s graduated from the Tufts School of Engineering in the last several years is either employed or in grad school. The only people I know who are unemployed or underemployed either took time off and haven’t been looking hard or have had jobs but lost them due to down-sizing.</p>
<p>I will say that companies aren’t knocking down doors to higher Tufts grads in the way that they do for students at places like MIT and Stanford, but with a good mix of relevant EC’s, research, and internships then a degree from Tufts will typically help you get a good job.</p>