We haven’t heard back yet from his top choices, but my son has gotten in to his 3 safety schools- University of Hartford, Quinnipiac, and Western New England. His ultimate goal is aerospace, and of the 3 only Uhart offers that. Wondering if anyone has thoughts/experience on any of their engineering programs. Thanks!
The good thing is you can do Aero from MechE. In fact my son wanted automotive and his two internships were but he was offered two aero jobs (one in Mass), a chemical industry job, food industry, and technical industry.
He just got a call from his internship of two summers finally ready to offer him a job but most firms recruit in fall and he already accepted.
The point - the major doesn’t necessarily limit your outcomes.
Are all three affordable? Which does he like best ? Are all three ABET ? That’s a must to get a job.
According to their websites are but UHA is not for aerospace. I would verify but if that’s correct then that’s a HUGE red flag and I wouldn’t major in it there. MechE yea but aero no. If he’s seeking smaller and solid aero, you can still apply to UAH and Florida Tech. They’re not in the Northeast but maybe you can find some there.
Good luck
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Visited all 3 and S attended Quinnipiac, started in civil, moved to mech, and is now taking a break. Covid hit freshman year and online school for a year and a half was disastrous for my ADHD social kid.
We weren’t very impressed with WNEU and it seems more of a suitcase school than the others. Plus no real sports scene.
UHart is on the border of a sketchy area but campus seems safe. Should get a large merit award there though.
Of the three, QU has the prettiest campus (beautiful state park across the street) and would provide the most traditional college experience. Insanely great hockey team! It’s a huge party school though and has a lot of very wealthy NY and NJ kids attending. My car obsessed S couldn’t believe the expensive cars that kids had at school. Lots of frat parties or kids head to the bars in New Haven with fake ids.
The engineering program seems top notch though. S was deciding between Clarkson and QU (I do wonder if we should’ve nudged him a bit—Clarkson is a fantastic school and weren’t as strict with the Covid measures) and I spoke to a lot of parents whose kids were already in the program. Many were engineers themselves and spoke very highly of the program. I was impressed with the professors and the Dean that spoke. It’s new and small but has 100% placement. QU is great at getting their grads in the workforce.
Food is bad, very bad, and expensive. It’s not on a swipe system. You get points and buy everything a la carte. Everyone complains about it. There’s a FB page for buying and selling points though. I had to purchase more points every semester. Girls would sell and boys would buy lol. The sushi is good quality but expensive. They struggle with enrollment (outside of the medical majors) so merit is good. We asked for and received add’l merit. I think he got $34 there? But still expensive.
Happy to answer any specific questions about QU. Best of luck to your S!
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Thanks! You’ve hit on a lot of what I picked up on, but wasn’t sure of. None of these are his top choices, but since he’s in we are looking at all options. We’re waiting to hear from Clarkson and RIT as well(and a few reaches), so fingers crossed.
University of Hartford is in very bad financial straits. I would steer clear.
Be aware that there is a poster on college confidential who has been engaged in a one man vendetta against U Hartford for many years. From his postings, he appears to have been a former employee who was let go by U Hartford. U Hartford has a nearly 200 million endowment. It isn’t going away any time soon. For engineering, of the three you have mentioned, U Hartford is a good choice. A nice campus (it is physically close to Hartford, but feels more contiguous with very safe West Hartford), so is a relatively safe campus. It is a full school with many departments. Is it MIT? Columbia? Stanford?. Of course not. But if he doesn’t get in any place better, it’s a good choice.
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I don’t know who that person is - but it’s well known UHa has financial issues. But financial issues alone doesn’t mean a school will disappear - but perhaps some programs or offerings will - but that would likely not be engineering.
In the case of aero, I think the bigger issue is that they are not ABET accredited - which is a red flag. But MechE is - and one can do Aero from MechE without issue.
Yes. That’s exactly my thought. Of the 3, I thought UHart was the best choice. Hopefully not needed though 
@tsbna44 yes, Aero is not because it’s only in its 3rd year. They are applying for abet for it once the first group graduates this year.
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UHart engineering is well regarded by the many engineering firms in the greater Hartford/Springfield area. If you want more info about this…send me a message.
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New program - not a good thing connections wise. But it may not matter if Collins/P&W as an example are already taking MechEs etc. and those forks take from all over. Even no names as long as abet.
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As they are established, I would seek the placement / outcome reports of all three.
Unless there is an assurance they will receive ABET I would not go there - but just for that major. But if in that case he can go back to MechE, then you’d be ok.
ABET is required for most large organizations and I wouldn’t take the risk.
But that’s me.
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You should have no problem getting an acceptance from Clarkson and that’d be my first choice for any engineering kid that liked it enough to apply. I know many grads… all happy, all successful. If your S is into outdoors, their outing club is very active. Good kids there. Also my S got the highest merit award from Clarkson. Net cost was higher than UHart but not by a lot.
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I’m not the person you refer to, but I do need to point out that a $200M endowment is peanuts. According to data from College Raptor, the college’s per-student endowment is $32,138. That ranks 487 out of 500 schools ranked on per-student endowment.
In the middle of the pack are schools like Drew university ($72k/student) and Susquehanna University ($70k/student). Just for kicks, Princeton ($3.3M/student), Lehigh Univ ($205K/student), and Lawrence University ($248K/student). Union College has an engineering program. Endowment is $235K/student (ranked 81).
There are 3000 or so colleges in this country. We are a little off topic here, but I’d be curious how UHart ranks among the 3000….
It probably has better endowment numbers than a lot of public colleges, but that is an apples and oranges comparison.
Hartford’s problems stem from a cycle of enrollment decline, tuition discounts, and substantial revenue loss that far exceeds whatever available cash there is from the endowment. I think it’s a very good idea to go in with eyes cautiously wide open.
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