Which school is better?
Can you rank them based on the questions below?
1.National Reputation
2. International Reputation
3. Engineering Reputation
4. Quality of Life
5. Your Choice
What kind of engineering?
materials science!
Some statistics can help with questions 1 - 3 so here they are from USNews, in case you don’t have them already
For Materials grad programs (indirectly indicates the quality of the undergrad):
UMTC: 18
OSU: 20
VaTech: 21
UVA: 33
(Guessing you want VaTech but provided both just in case)
Materials undergrad program:
OSU: 16
VaTech: 17
UMTC: no rank
UVA: no rank
Overall graduate engineering:
VaTech: 21
UMTC: 28
OSU: 32
UVA: 39
Overall undergraduate engineering:
VATech: 15
UMTC: 23
OSU: 27
UVA: 31
Overall as public institutions:
UVA: 3
OSU: 16
UMTC: 25
VaTech: 26
The @mamelot is very good. Here are some rankings from another source:
Materials Undergrad:
Va Tech 9
OSU 14
UM-TC 16
Undergrad all Eng:
Va Tech 9
OSU 11
UM-TC 15
This is from:
http://best-engineering-colleges.com/bachelor
Another to consider is Iowa State for Mat E (I am biased as I went there for Mat E): 10/19
@CyclonesGrad how is the engineering department at Iowa State compared to Minnesota. I got in there with a decent scholarship, but it doesn’t seem like a school that would compare well. Do you think the job opportunities out of college were good? Any thoughts on how the two compare?
@meepberd The engineering department is definitely as good as UMN. You have to remember that ISU is really an engineering/Ag school at it’s roots. They also have Ames lab which is funded by the federal government.
I graduated with a BS in Mat E and had a professor that worked on the material on the Space Shuttle back in the late 70s/early 80s.
Job opportunities were excellent when I went there. I had a job before graduation. ISU has the biggest job fair for engineering colleges and turns away potential companies. Link below has Career Fair info. You can see companies participating.
You can see salaries/placement of graduates on their site:
http://www.engineering.iastate.edu/ecs/salaries-demographics/
They are not shy about this because the numbers are really good.
What engineering major are you going into?
@CyclonesGrad I’m looking at chemical or materials science engineering. Chemical engineering initially made me look at Minnesota. But is Iowa state’s chemical and materials on par? Also idk if this is acurate, but it seems like minnesota’s engineering grads have higher salaries?
Chemical Engineering is higher ranked at UMN vs ISU, 3 vs. 29. Materials is higher at ISU, 10 vs. 16.
http://best-engineering-colleges.com/chemical-engineering/bachelor
Salaries:
UMN Chem E:$69.1K, Mat E $69.0K
ISU Chem E: $65.7K, Mat E $63.0K
https://cse.umn.edu/r/average-starting-salaries-for-cse-graduates/
ISU stats are way more detailed. UMN is very general so do not know how many grads are reporting, a couple of high salaries may be pulling up the average.
UMN is a very regional shool when it comes to hiring Over 70% of graduates end up working in Mn:
https://cse.umn.edu/r/where-cse-graduates-find-jobs/
I know that ISU is nationally known. That is because I have interacted with many ISU grads throughout the country.
It is a personal decision on where to go. Who is giving you the better deal monetarily? Are you international (going by user name)?
I’m actually very interested to know why so many UMN grads stay in MN and ISU grads tend to spread out a bit more. A couple of scenarios come to mind: 1) easier to find a job in Twin Cities vs. Ames so ISU graduates, understanding this, are more aggressive in reaching out to out-of-region employers; 2) more companies from out of the region visit the job fair at ISU vs. UMN; 3) UMN grads just expect to stay in MN (perhaps they are MN residents who also expected to go to school in MN . . . iow, it’s a MN thing).
@CyclonesGrad, do you have any insight as to the above?
@mamelot I would say that when you go to ISU you realize that you need to look nationally. Another thng is that half of the population in engineering at ISU is out of state so they are used to going a distance away from home. I was just looking at the data for UMN 2015 Freshman and over 60% is from Minnesota with 48% from Twin Cities Metro. The grads do not move out of their comfort zone. See below:
http://www.oir.umn.edu/student/enrollment/term/1159/trend/14821
Here is ISU demographics:
http://www.registrar.iastate.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/stats/gender/g-race-resf15.pdf
I remember that when I was interviewing Senior year I interviewed with US Steel (Philly), Timken (Canton, Iowa), US Gov’t (San Fran), UOP (Chicago). I know many of my engineering friends interviewing all over also.
Here is the list of Job Fair people at ISU, many large multi-site companies:
http://www.engineering.iastate.edu/ecs/career-fair/career-fair-employer-participants/
Another reason I think is that the Twin Cities has a high concentration of Fortune 500 companies so there are many jobs available. There is also a big BioMed industry in the Twin Cities (other is Boston).
@CyclonesGrad thanks this is actually enlightening. I wonder where the non-resident ISU engineering students come from? I believe U of IA is known for having a lot of IL students (about 30% of this year’s entering class university-wide) and guessing ISU attracts the IL kids as well for the reasons you have mentioned earlier w/r/t high in-state tuition for engineering students at UIUC.
The bulk of MN population is in the TC Metro so it doesn’t surprise me that a large % of MN representation would be from that part of the state. The advantage is that, unlike many of the large state universities in the midwest (most of them with equally excellent science and engineering programs), UMN is actually IN the metro area which allows those kids to opt to live at home and commute to school. I think this contributes to that “captive” audience we see in the stats, and also may help explain why in-state tuition is surprisingly high - something that had puzzled me for awhile. When you are saving on room and board, even tuition of $13,000 is a heckuva lot cheaper than going OOS, even considering merit aid for the latter.
I’m very curious to know what percentage of employers that come to the engineering job fairs at CSE are from OOS vs. the local guys (who are obviously well represented by the local F500’s and BioMed and related industries here). Also, I’m wondering whether a kid who graduates from CSE with an interest in going out of state for employment would have a harder time finding it than, say, an ISU grad with equivalent major and stats. In other words, does the local emphasis that UMN is known for actually hurt job candidates seeking employment out of the state. I would think not, given the reputation of the engineering program - but, on the other hand, if a business doesn’t have some sort of representation from UMN grads to begin with, I’m not sure what the incentive would be to show up on campus or give special consideration to a resume from CSE (vs a school they are used to hiring from). Corporate America might be even worse than the local MN kids at not moving out of the comfort zone!
@mamelot There are many students at ISU from IL. I was messaging with @Beaudreau because he was at the Experience Iowa State event a couple of weeks ago and he said there were a significant amount of Mn students there. The automatic merit aid for high stats at ISU makes it cheaper than IS UMN cost. Think that might be driver?
I looked at the list of companies that hire CSE grads. Many I know have local offices in the TC area. I do not see CAT, Deere, International Truck, AGCO who are big vehicle guys that hire a lot of ME grads. I do see the BioMed companies well represented.
I will honestly say that until I started really investigating I did not know how good UMN CSE school is. It just did not register with me down here in IL. Everyone in this area knows about Purdue, UIUC, UMich, ISU, Michigan State, OSU. UMN is not well advertised even though they are really good. CSE has not gotten good name recognition yet.
Agree that corporate America is very slow to change their recruiting philosophies/methods.
Thanks for all the great insight to CyclonesGrad and Mamelot. My son was accepted to both ISU and UMN and he is very interested in Computer Engineering. We know that both programs are good. It will come down to financial aid (we know that we will only get Merit aid) and where the fit is good for him (as of now ISU has given us 10K in scholarships and we are waiting to hear from UMN). We are planning on more in-depth visits so he can go to classes, get a better feel of campuses, and explore the music programs for jazz ensembles and marching band opportunities.
My one concern (or maybe it is not a concern) for ISU is that the school itself is not ranked as high as UMN. Does this matter? Both programs have good career services, study abroad experiences, and solid engineering schools. Rankings for Computer Engr are varied based on which ranking website you look at but they are not that far apart.
My son was drawn to UMN as he really liked the urban setting where the campus and there are things he can do on weekends (he is not drawn to partying but likes to go to events, see games, etc.) vs. ISU where there is not much of a city to do things. As a side note, my husband graduated from UW Madison and we spend lots of time there, so imagine going to Ames from that experience.
Will explore the data given with my son so he understands more of the career options upon graduation.
My twins are looking at both schools and we are visiting Experience Iowa State this weekend. Both are very good and you can not go wrong at either. It really depends on what you want for the town.
My D1 went to UMN for Child Psychology and loved every minute of it. I went to ISU and loved it. Really depends on what you want.
Two great choices! Good Luck!
Oh my - if that event at ISU was over our MEA** weekend (Oct 15, 16, 17, 18 this year) then yeah, the entire high school crowd (and their parents) heads to Chicago, Iowa, Wis. etc. on college visits. The Admissions rep. tends to start off with the question “Anyone here NOT from Minnesota?”
That being said we always see a few kids from our kids’ schools heading off to ISU. It’s a pretty typical “out of state” school for MN kids to attend.
**Minnesota Education Association holds conferences at this time. Extra-long weekend for everyone in the state, including kids in private elem/high school.
@mamelot Yes, the event at ISU that @beaudreau went to was 10/16. That explains the large Mn contingent.
@beaudreau That clears up the mystery of why so many Mn students at ISU when you were there.
Any recent grads or students that can give their insight on how the campus life is. UMN was awesome when I visited since it is so close to Minneapolis and it has a nice urban feel. What’s the atmosphere like for ISU?
Might want to ask for ISU on that site.
@meepberd As CyclonesGrad mentioned above, we recently visited ISU, with my third son. Because he went on all the college visits with our first two sons, this was his 19th college visit. We were all very impressed. Now, it may not be for you because it has hardly a “nice urban feel.” Rather, it is much more like Michigan State where I went to school - a very large, beautifully landscaped park setting, although more compact than MSU. My son likes that kind of campus, compared to say Georgia Tech, which is in downtown Atlanta, or Arizona State, which sprawls through Tempe (suburban Phoenix). (We have not visited Minnesota.) Ames is sized more like College Station/Bryant, where my older son goes, compared to Oxford, Ohio (Miami University), where my middle son goes, which is a tiny (but very charming) town. College Station and Oxford are also relatively hard to get to, compared to Ames, which is only 30 miles from Des Moines Airport, with direct flights from most places, including Phoenix, where we are. Purdue in West Lafayette is another similar campus/town.
Michigan in Ann Arbor (grad school for me) is more of an urban campus, as is Texas in Austin. Illinois would be more like ISU, although we thought ISU was much prettier and better maintained. And Champagne/Urbana is a long way from anywhere. Cal/Berkeley is more urban (huge homeless problem) and Stanford is more of a college town/park setting (beautiful).
I went on a bit so you could understand our perception more. Other schools visited: Harvey Mudd (dump) Caltech (very nice), Pomona (very nice), Santa Clara (gorgeous), Portland (very nice), Arizona (nice campus, but I don’t like Tucson), Rose Hulman (nice but almost nothing in walking distance to and 78% male!), Trinity (pretty campus in nice San Antonio neighborhood).