I’ve been admitted to three of these schools. While I had applied and got in to the college of engineering at Purdue and Madison (applied and got into Mechanical Engineering bachelors), I have not been given admission to UCSD Jacobs school of engineering and my major is “undecided”. Which one of these would be the best option considering all the factors barring the financial issue. FYI I’ve been accepted at Roosevelt college of UCSD so that means a lot of GEs (?)
Money should always be at least somewhat of a factor, unless the net costs are all the same.
With that said, I always recommend direct admit programs over ones where you have to compete for a spot. That would leave UCSD out.
Any others on your list?
No that’s it, so what do you suggest between the 2 left over? @eyemgh
They are both similar in many regards. If you haven’t visited, sometimes that will seal the deal.
For me personally, and remember, this is MY perspective, what’s important to ME, I’d choose Wisconsin. First, Madison is an iconic college town. The engineering department has made strong efforts to improve the undergraduate experience. Their curriculum starts “real” engineering a little earlier, with statics planned for the first year (it’s second in the typical curriculum).
Purdue has a reputation of being a little hard core and has a history of grade deflation.
Again, my perspective, my bias applied to two programs that are very similar. Either way, if you work hard, you’ll have good job or graduate school prospects.
https://www.engr.wisc.edu/app/uploads/2016/07/Updated-ME-Flowchart-7.19.16.pdf
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ME/Academics/Undergraduate/ProgramMap
If you are not considering financial aids, you should look at your specific intended major, the campus, the town, and some other factors. Purdue and UW-Madison are very different in many aspect. Purdue is in the middle of corn field. The campus is not that big if you take out the airport. UW is by the water, in a city that you can see the state capitol from campus. Purdue may have better meal plan but that may have been changed as they cut the cost to keep a lower tuition rate. Nevertheless, Purdue’s own airport may be an advantage in certain field of study. Personally, I like UW-Madison’s campus more, particularly their student activity centers.
Purdue is known for weeding freshmen and have a lower return student rate. However, they do have more merit scholarships available.
For UCSD, it may be difficult to get into the ME major if you do not have direct admission.
http://maeweb.ucsd.edu/undergrad/ugadmissions
The web page does not indicate how difficult (GPA or otherwise) it is, so you may want to ask the ME department directly.
For Wisconsin, be aware that they directly admit more students to engineering majors than their departments’ capacities, then weed them out with progression requirements including GPAs as high as 3.5 to stay in the major. For ME for 2016-2017, the GPA to avoid being weeded out was 3.2 technical, 3.0 overall.
https://www.engr.wisc.edu/academics/student-services/academic-advising/first-year-undergraduate-students/progression-requirements/
For Purdue, you are presumably admitted to First Year Engineering. You have to compete for admission to your desired major. You may want to contact the ME to find out what kind of GPA thresholds have typically been required, since GPA thresholds are not listed on the web site.
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ENE/Academics/FirstYear/T2M
If majoring in ME is a priority, figure out which one is likely to have the lowest barrier to entry to the ME major. Otherwise, the risk is that you will need to be making transfer applications in your second year to try to go to some other school where you can do ME, or change to some other major that is not as selective after being weeded out.