<p>Which do you think would be stronger in Chem.ical Engr... UMass Amherst or UMass Lowell?</p>
<p>By far UMass Amherst. UMass Amherst is a top quality nationally-recongized research university with world class faculty. UMass Lowell was created in 1975 when Lowell State and Lowell Tech merged. It's a good school with good faculty but it's a regional tech school. If you can get into UMass Amherst for engineering, go there. It's not even a close comparison.</p>
<p>I work in the field and am familiar with schools in the northeast. There is no comparison between Amherst and Lowell. Amherst has a national reputation (especially in the sciences) and Lowell is just a regional school. Chemical engineering is especially strong. The folks at Lowell talk it up a lot, but they misrepresent the strength of the school.</p>
<p>I work in the field as well and am very familiar with schools in the Northeast. Lowell has a national reputation actually (for the sciences) and Amherst is only a regional school. (most employers pass by Amherst as it is such a big party school. Not very serious with regards to your kid’s academics) The folks at Amherst always play up their school but are no way the academic strength or national reputation that Lowell has over them. (Lowell has far superior teachers and curriculum. Amherst is so commercial that they lead you to believe it is better) Actually, I have talked to many scholars in the field of colleges and universities and found that Umass Amherst is a lot worse for most of the academics than Umass Lowell is. Lowell is far superior because you will get something of a far superior education in Lowell. Amherst is basically 40-75 kids in a big room with nothing on their mind but partying. At Lowell you grow academically and have professors that are all mostly from Ivy League schools like Harvard etc. I don’t know where you guys are getting your info from but it’s time to stop listing to the teenagers and know that going to Amherst is just one big party and the degree you get from Lowell will be known throughout the country as superior. By the way your degree AT ALL UMASSES SAYS UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, SO THEY ARE ALL IDENTICAL DEGREES PHYSICALLY. As far as overall great education that employers around the country will recognize, LOWELL is far superior to Amherst by all means.</p>
<p>It’s gotten a lot harder to get into UMass-Amherst. The “ZooMass” reputation is not what it once was. Put 24K students on a campus, and the small percent that party all the time is magnified by the size of the student body (X % of a big number > X % of a small number).</p>
<p>Lots of kids at UMass-Amherst are serious students. The loud partiers make the most noise, so they get the most attention.</p>
<p>UMass-Amherst has a much better reputation outside the state than instate.</p>
<p>Frankly, dadconcned’s post (his first, BTW) contains outdated info.</p>
<p>Wayyyyy to many biased opinions in here</p>
<p>Sent from my LG-VM701 using CC</p>
<p>Is your son/daughter planning on going to grad school? Honestly engineering for mosts colleges is very similar (apart from MIT/CAL Tech and a few other exceptions) and they will likely be able to get a nice engineering job from either school. I don’t attend either, but have taken classes at Umass Lowell and thought they were decently challenging (Physics, Calculus) and professors certainly weren’t willing to curve or bail out students who didn’t understand the concepts. Umass Amherst is regarded as more “prestigious” by many just due to name recognition, but Umass Lowell does emphasize engineering and the school has majors such as Plastics engineering which could lead to a very good salary later on, but is not traditional and thus not offered by Umass Amherst. </p>
<p>Personally, I would choose which based upon whichever campus your son or daughter prefers. Amherst is social and more liberal arts focused, whereas Lowell is pre professional. Amherst is in a classic college town whereas Lowell’s campus is in different parts of the city which makes it primarily a commuter campus. Educationally speaking, Amherst might be better recognized but I will say that all of my professors at Umass Lowell were extremely helpful and really worked me hard over the summer (the accelerated calc class I took there made AP feel like a joke)</p>
<p>Also I do agree with the above posts saying that Amherst has more focused/intelligent kids. If being around “intellectuals” is of any importance to your son/daughter then I would pick Amherst hands down. Actually I would nearly always pick Amherst unless either there is a certain major offered by Lowell not offered by Amherst or if your son/daughter wasn’t really into partying/big school social life/being away from home</p>
<p>And LOL just realized that this thread was bumped from 2007, I wonder what Billy ultimately chose</p>