<p>Your question prompted me to make an account! I’m sure your son made the right decision. I recently graduated from UD ChemE a couple years ago and am now in graduate school, but I was also considering between UD and UMBC. I agree with most of what sofrustrating said, but I just want to give a more recent perspective for next years group of UD applicants:</p>
<p>UD used to be a lot more affordable, but recently decided to raise tuition for out of staters to keep in-state low, which is a shame for ChemE since most of its students were out of state. It looks like their merit awards must have shrunk as well, which is also a shame. If I was applying today, UD definitely isn’t as affordable as it used to be, so it would be a much tougher decision. Either way, it was a great experience. The freshman class starts with around 120 to 150 students. No chemE courses are taken the first semester, but I recall around 20-30 people (mainly premeds) dropped right after the first semester due to the other core courses. By second semester, you take Cheg112 which is the main sink or swim chemE course. It is not necessarily challenging as most people tend to drop it because they simply are not interested in it. The ones who “fail” it (i.e. get less than a C-) either partied too hard, had their parents forcing them to be in it, or weren’t confident in their math background. Either way, by the end of the second semester, the class size is down to around 70-80 mostly by choice, with the others generally happy about their new major (and >95% still graduated on time).</p>
<p>As for sticking with ChemE, I highly recommend it. Everyone from my class was employed within six months after graduation earning over 60k a year. If you are in the top half, you can pretty much get into any top 25 PhD program with funding. Some people went into finance, law, medical school, etc. You pretty much do whatever you want. The classes are all curved so the average is around a B/B- (the curve gets progressively less harsh as you go up in year with essentially no one failing any classes junior year and everyone getting an A or B senior year). I ended up graduating with over a 3.9, and I still drank like a champion most weekends, so it is definitely possible to do well. You are on a very rigid schedule, so everyone graduates in 4 years (except one person my year who failed a junior year class and took 5 years)</p>
<p>The 50% cut rumor stems from the behemoth course known as j-lab taken spring semester junior year. They used to only be able to have 50 students taking it at once, but they have since expanded, so there are no more forced failings. After sophomore year, all the classes have ~25-30 students per section. The professors know all the students by name and wave to you in the hallways. You can do summer research even after freshman year making ~$3500 a summer. I ended up a co-author on multiple publications. All you do is ask a prof you are interested in, and they will almost certainly say yes. By sophomore and junior years, most people get internships (great for networking). Mine paid roughly ~$12000 during my sophomore and junior year summers. Those are also a great morale boost since industry is generally less stressful and math free.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for UMBC, but I did meet someone from ChemE there at an internship who is now in a PhD program at Hopkins, and he really liked it. </p>
<p>Some final general ChemE advice: When in doubt, make sure your units work out!</p>