D16 liked Santa Clara (not for engineering) because of its size, location and lack of pressure.
Does he want big or small? Snowy or sunny or rainy? How long will it take him to come home? How long will it take him to get to snowboarding and how often is he likely to do so? Do any of them have a long winter break so that he could get in lots of snowboarding between terms?
@eyemgh Stanford only has half of its engineering programs ABET accredited so I guess they don’t either.
Here is a little blurb from Caltech on ABET.
“Chemical Engineering at Caltech will no longer pursue ABET accreditation
The undergraduate program in Chemical Engineering at Caltech is widely regarded as one of the most rigorous in the world. In our efforts to maintain that rigor in light of the rapid pace of change in this discipline, Caltech’s Chemical Engineering faculty have concluded that the process of engineering accreditation by ABET limits our ability to offer the best possible education to Caltech’s remarkable cadre of students. Consequently, we will not pursue continued ABET accreditation.”
So if you want to be an average student at an average program make sure its ABET accredited. Fast pace programs leave ABET behind.
It is one thing for a school with a top-end reputation in engineering to drop ABET accreditation because it does not want to deal with it. It is another for a school with no previous engineering programs to forego ABET accreditation from the very start.
In any case, Chicago does not really have the traditional types of engineering programs (civil, electrical, mechanical, etc.), so it is unlikely that a student wanting to study one of the traditional types of engineering found at the other schools would find Chicago’s molecular engineering to be a good fit.
Santa Clara has an engineering physics major if I recall correctly. Good school for what it is but very little name recognition outside of the immediate Bay Area.
For pure Physics, UChicago is the best of the schools, but as another poster noted, CU, Chicago, UW, SCU, and School of Mines all are different. How does the OP’s son feel about fit?
Not at all when your dealing with new fields like quantum engineering, no need for ABET. Also if you are a top school in math and science you aren’t going to be weak in engineering from the start. That’s just ridiculous.
UChicago’s Engineering programs are pretty new, if I’m not mistaken. It might take a while to garner ABET accreditation. But it’s UChicago; if they had a Basket Weaving major, you can bet it’d be top-notch.
But it sounds like he might not be the type of student who is right for UChicago – it is by reputation incredibly rigorous and intellectual. And while Engineering is probably hard anywhere, he’ll take half of his classes in other subjects. Those are probably all going to be rigorous at UChicago too. You can have fun in Chicago, of course, but it doesn’t have the rah-rah sports or huge party scene of a CU or a Washington – it is not yet known for that type of environment, and it may never be. If he chose Chicago, he’d have to be ready to buckle down and work. There would still be fun times, just probably not as often as at the others.
But they would not have admitted him if they didn’t think he could handle it.
@CU123, The Chicago major is molecular biology. The boundaries are a little blurrier than they were when I was in the field, with some cell biology, tissue biology, and molecular biology now morphing into BME departments when they used to be, and still are at most schools, within the purview of biology, biochemistry and agronomy. The Chicago program though is not engineering in the classical sense. It is in no way analogous to the programs mentioned above that chose to forego ABET accreditation. It is engineering in the very most derivative way. To suggest that Chicago has engineering based on this major, is a HUGE stretch.
From the Chicago web site
“Molecular engineering is rooted in the concept of translating molecular-level science in physics, chemistry, and biology into new technologies and solutions to societal problems of global significance, and to continually inspire creative applications of molecular-level science. This new approach to engineering research and education combines skill sets across disciplines, emphasizing problem solving and disciplinary integration.”
^^^ sounds like a very interesting major. But I wouldn’t want to drive over the bridge they built
No…its molecular engineering with emphasis in biological science, chemistry and quantum physics. There are so many opinions on CC that just aren’t based in reality. If you want to be a mech/electrical/aero engineer UChicago is not for you. The other concept here is this idea that engineering is significantly different from pure science… I have known more Chief Engineers that had science degrees than engineering degrees. Once you hit the real world the only people who are interested in the words engineering and ABET is the government…and yes my degree is in EECS from an ABET accredited university.
Well, that’s a list of very different schools… big, small, party, and intense
My son attended a 6-week astrophysics camp at CU Boulder and really enjoyed both the campus and the physics faculty members he met there. (Plus the food, recreation facilities, and the surroundings.) Although it has a reputation as a party school, I hear wonderful things about the physics program there. I expect that the engineering programs are similarly strong.
Snowboarding would be a lot easier to get to from Boulder than from Santa Clara. We have relatives in Colorado, and there are less expensive passes that locals know how to get.
Physics is pretty theoretical at UChicago. We have a friend there now as an undergrad. Unless he is happy about a physics major instead of an engineering major, I’d probably pass on UChicago.
Mines doesn’t have a lot of other choices if he decides engineering isn’t for him. Just as with Caltech, Mines seems to be an awesome fit for a subset of kids. The question is whether the intensity of the curriculum is what attracts him to Mines.
Wow, just now checked back in. Thank you all for your insights. I’ll share this with my son when he gets home from soccer.