UCONN provided my daughter with a great opportunity and a lot of money in their STEM honors program.
D has also been accepted to schools like Michigan, Colgate, Richmond, UCLA, Case Western, Davidson. I have no idea where her mind is at right now. We are waiting for her to go through the process and then discuss with us.
Question - would the UCONN honors program compare to some of those better ranked schools for a very focused kid. In other words, would it be wiser to be a a select student at one university over just being one of many in a higher ranked university?
I don’t know what conclusions she is reaching right now and, frankly, I am also a bit confused by this question.
For the record, we can afford any of the above solutions but, clearly, $20K a year from UCONN is a nice option for a kid intent on going to medical school after college.
jhbof3 - Congratulations on your D being offered this honor at UCONN. My D is currently a high school junior and wants to stay closer to home than her sister who attended school in Virginia (we live in Mass.) She is interested in biological sciences and the UCONN STEM honors program has caught her eye. We plan on visiting the campus in the coming weeks. What does your D like about the school in general? the STEM program especially? We have looked at smaller schools like Clark, WPI, and Mount Holyoke but she’s amenable to checking out a larger school. She has visited U of Delaware, so she has that as a point of comparison.
byeretirement - Congrats on your D’s acceptances. All of the schools are great picks that will offer a tremendous undergrad experience in their own way, but I couldn’t help noting that they vary widely in size and location. I echo jhbof3’s comment about your D finding the school that is her best fit. However, there is no denying that a 20K merit award helps with the bottom line, especially with grad school costs looming in the future. I wish her luck as she makes her final selection.
@ChillDad
My daughter was looking at smaller schools
LAC colleges and applied as well. She went to an open house at UConn as a junior.
We are in state, she came home and was impressed with the research, ability to dual major, AP credits, etc.
She loved they had an honors program and honors dorms as well as the cost factor. She wants to go to med school. She applied to UConn and it was a nice surprise to be accepted into honors program
It has been so difficult to get in of late. She also get a stem scholars. Which was a nice scholarship. The extra bonus was being accepted into the BS/MD program.
Deposit was sent in this week.
Hope that helps.
Uconn is a fantastic school. Even though she wanted smaller originally, UConn didn’t feel overwhelming big like other state schools
After reading the post from byeretirement, I have to comment. He posted is it wiser to be a select student at one university meaning UCONN or to be one of many at another higher ranked school. Trust me she will be one of many at UCONN Storrs also. My son is an engineering student at Storrs and he is surrounded by BRILLIANCE. There are literally thousands and thousands of smart isn’t the word students!! You have no idea what is out there today unless you have a child in the Honors, Engineering, Sciences. Or just STEM in general.
@mrs806 I apologize my post didn’t come across at all as intended. Of course all students at UCONN are great students. The honors program they’re offering her sounded absolutely great, very focused, a lot of advantages including research opportunities, and, mainly, $20K a year. It feels like UCON is recruiting here whereas the other schools don’t know who she is, and quite possibly never will. That is my parental dilemma. Anyway, she’s choses Michigan so “Go Blue” I guess.
No worries! I really just wanted to share what I have learned and it is absolutely crazy what these STEM students go through. Honestly being around them and what they have accomplished so far is truly amazing and like you said the research opportunities is incredible. Also the honors program will always stand out more for these students and shouldn’t be taken lightly.The large STEM scholarship is also a great addition to a resume, however she has chosen a great school. Good luck to her.
"He posted is it wiser to be a select student at one university meaning UCONN or to be one of many at another higher ranked school. Trust me she will be one of many at UCONN Storrs also. "
From personal experience I’ll go a step further and say that the assumption the poster was making is backwards. The problem is that rankings are a terrible proxy for rigor. Undergraduate STEM at UConn Storrs (emphasis on STEM and Storrs) is a very humbling experience, some I am sure would argue even cruel… not sure where engineering attrition rates are at this day? years ago they were horrific.
My non-STEM son is also considering UCONN despite being more attracted to SLACs. Merit aid from UCONN puts the cost substantially lower than the SLACs he has been accepted to. If anyone feels like commenting on how easy or hard it is to find your niche at a big place like UCONN, I would be appreciative.
@notigering I could not agree more with your response. As a parent I would agree with some that it is on the lines of cruel. Like I had said earlier unless your child is in STEM or you have gone through it yourself at UCONN Storrs you can not just assume that a school that is ranked a little higher is a better choice or a better program. The rigor at Storrs Engineering is beyond grueling and that’s how they weed out if you are gonna make it or not. If you don’t belong there they want to know. Simple as that. You either have it or you don’t. In many ways it is better to find out earlier. I know many that squeaked by the first few years at some other schools and they are paying for it now. UConn slaps it on you right from the start.
@newenglandjane It is not hard to find your niche. By the time my son moved in that night there were four students from across the hall in my son’s room. They could not get over his gaming computer and two years later they meet every night at 6:30 for dinner and they never eat without one another. Three of them are engineering students and one is a business major. They joined intermural basketball together and when one of them was really sick they took turns checking on him and bringing him soup.
mrs806 and notigering - My junior D has a great work ethic, is taking challenging courses (AP CHEM, AP SEMINAR/RESEARCH, and AP LIT. COMP) and will be interning at a college lab this summer. She is no stranger to rigor, but how would you characterize the learning environment at UCONN? I get the winnowing process inherent in a pre-med track (for the record, my daughter wants a research career - no aspirations for med school). When you say UCONN’s STEM environment is grueling can you supply some anecdotes? Are you saying that it is a more of a “cutthroat” vs. collaborative environment? Are professors engaged in undergraduate teaching or are grad students lording over the classroom? No doubt the introductory classes are held in massive lecture halls, but are there smaller classes/labs in the honors program?
This conversation is so interesting. My son was admitted to UCONN Stem Honors. As a high school student, my son was doing research in a UCONN labs and recently presented his research at an international conference. He has found the professors very accessible. My dh is a professor at UCONN and he teaches his classes and spends a lot of time with students. If your student takes initiative there are endless opportunities at UCONN. On the flip side, my dh had reached out to struggling students as well. We have a few friends with kids in Stem at UCONN…they have all said that the classes were more manageable than the ECE classes in high school bc of direct interactions with the professors. I think how hard the classes are is relative to the preparation they received in high school.
It is a very tough program that will prepare her for sure. For every big lecture there is a discussion following the next day that is held in small groups. It is not cutthroat just a difficult program. UCONN has put billions into their campus and millions in their STEM program and they want to be on top. If she is interested in research opportunities that’s what they love. A good student that want’s to do research is what they strive for everyday. Professors are very engaged and email them back immediately when they have questions. The professors are there to help and even join them in late night study. Office hours for any tutoring needed is at your finger tips, you just walk in and the next straight A brilliant senior is there to help you. The food is fantastic the school spirit is unmatched and they grow up real quick. My son never had to study and nailed everyone of his AP classes graduated with a weighted GPA of 4.83 on a 5 scale and he studies about 5 hours a night. He and his fellow students in his room and across the hall say they take it one day at a time and that they are just trying to survive.
Okay, i’m seeing a whole lot of cognitive dissonance here. The difference between world renowned research universities and UCONN is not minor as one suggested above. The nature of the question wasnt to debate that.
I graduated from UConn engineering many years ago and have a brother, two cousins and several close friends that simultaneously attended other schools: RPI, Syracuse, Villanova, Georgia Tech and UMichigan. At different points we were taking the same classes and would compare notes and even tests and would always find out that UConn was tougher.
Like My5Kiddos said high school preparation is key here but I found out the hard way that not everything is how one thinks it is. I knew plenty top high school students that struggled and dropped out of engineering or science (mostly pre-med… oh boy…) altogether probably because the high schools in which they excelled at were not nearly as good as they thought. I similarly struggled but lucky for me I realized that I was not prepared and adjusted by making use of resources (yes they were plentiful and excellent) including doing lots of library reading on learning skills… One of my best friends at the time graduated from Choate Rosemary and was the only person I knew that found things manageable. He was elected university scholar (dual English-engineering major with A average, very rare at least back then…) and recruited me for this mentorship position to work with kids from the inner city that had an interest in engineering. It was sad in that I immediately knew that most, if not all, had no chance at doing engineering at UCONN but were being told otherwise. In that program we had access to statistical information and I clearly remember that overall only around 30% survived the first two years of engineering, for the kids we were serving I don’t remember the exact number except that it was lower than 8%.
My first roomate transferred over from West Hartford’s satellite campus with a good GPA but had to drop out because he couldn’t cope. That was typical back then. Others were in this 3-2 (or 2-2? not sure) UCONN had with Fairfield U and they all were shocked at how much tougher it was. I also knew some kids that transferred out, including one to one of the UCs (not UCLA or Berkeley but higher ranked for UConn, don’t remember exactly…) and came back to visit saying it was so much easier over there. This kid was doing ok at UConn grade wise (NO not A average, not even close) but was burning out in the process. Over in California his GPA shot up to 3.8 or thereabouts. Another went from Cs and Ds to straight As after he transferred to a non-competitive school and eventually became a doctor.
Last anecdote… I took a linear algebra with a visiting UCLA professor after he just arrived at UCONN. On the first exam everyone on the class got an A and he just couldn’t believe it. He kept telling us he thought we were outliers but we all knew that wasn’t the case.
He is responding to my comment, because I said you can’t assume that a program is better because a university is ranked a little higher. Okay maybe it is more than a little but we are not talking Harvard Here. Us News ranking has Michigan number 4 for public universities and UCONN at 18 / Nationally Michigan at 28 and UCONN 56.