<p>Where are the best places to have a BSc in petE? It seems that LSU, UT Austin, and TAMU have the highest starting salaries (~83k). I don't know about Mines, but it is probably around there as well. For OU, the starting salary was surprisingly VERY low: $62,500. Payscale, however, says OKC has one of the highest starting salaries for petroleum engineers. Can anybody explain why this is so (how you can be so close to a city that has high salaries for petE, but make so low)?</p>
<p>Starting salaries do not indicate whether a college has a good or bad engineering program.</p>
<p>What’s the sample size?</p>
<p>$62,500 was the starting salary for 2003 graduates… And btw, payscale = useless</p>
<p>Maybe the people working in OKC went to… Tulsa for their education?</p>
<p>OU (ranked 4th in the nation) has 109 grads and undergrads… I realized that was data for 2003; just wanted to see what people would say and to see if anyone from OU could disprove it. You can’t delete a question once you create it… so you get the point. Tulsa is ranked 7th and has about the same starting salary as OU undergrads for 2003.</p>
<p>It depends on where you want to live. If you want to live in Alaska, then UAF is best. If you want to live in Texas, then UT and A&M are best. If you want to live in Colorado, then Mines is best.</p>
<p>But how many people actually completed the survey? We can’t assume everyone did.</p>
<p>I talked to OU PetE and last year’s grads had an avg starting salary around 75-80ish k, which isn’t bad. I know you shouldn’t judge solely based on starting salaries, and I did my research on OU. They apparently have a 100% job placement rate. 109 undergrads and grads is a pretty good number. They mail resume books like TAMU to about 100 companies per year. At OU, seniors are assigned a member of the department’s Advisory Board, who communicates with the students on projects, invites them to visit their offices, and follows the students into the first years of their careers. Like other petE schools, they have summer internships that I think are required.</p>
<p>It’s not bad at all for petE.</p>
<p>Ok let’s forget about OU.</p>
<p>What are the best schools for petE? From my research, I’d say Mines, TAMU, UT Austin, LSU, OU, and if you’re willing to go all the way to Alaska, UAF.</p>
<p>What about U Tulsa, Montana Tech, Texas Tech, and New Mexico Tech?</p>
<p>A&M by far (not bias at all)</p>
<p>^ Yea, definitely. No doubt about it. Imo, a lot better than UT. I’m just a little scared that they won’t offer me the best financial package for an OOS student, that’s why I’m looking into other schools.</p>
<p>**What about U Tulsa, Montana Tech, Texas Tech, and New Mexico Tech? **</p>
<p>It all depends on what you mean by best school… </p>
<p>For example penn state has a petroleum engineering program, which in my opinion gives you a great education… But it obviously won´t give you the same amount of opportunities as a school in texas/colorado/alaska/louisiana would(unless you want to work with shale gas) because of lower recruitment.</p>
<p>UAF for example is great, because the you will have many opportunities once you graduate, because it´s the only PETE school in Alaska. Obviously it´s hard for companies to recruit from schools that are as far away as colorado/texas, so UAF = great opportunities.</p>
<p>I´d say that most schools offer a quality education, but some schools are better recruited, hence higher starting salaries + higher placement rate. </p>
<p>You can´t go wrong with LSU, mines, UAF, TAMU, etc… Close to the industry = high recruitment + great education.</p>
<p>Generally when it comes to Petroleum Engineering where you go to college is where you will work for the next few years. For example, going to Alaska means you will likely work for BP, Connocophilips or ExxonMobil. You will work on the North Slope or in Anchorage. The Alaskan Petroleum Engineering program concentrates on technical problems associated with Arctic operations. Those working in Alaska may also have better opportunities in Northern Europe due to the similarity in environment. On the other hand a Texas graduate would work for Shell in Texas oil fields and specialize in oil extraction in dry, desert environments and have an easier time getting a job in a similar region such as the middle east.</p>
<p>So I think it really comes down to where you would like to work in the future?</p>
<p>Mines, A&M, UT-Austin, and to a lesser extent OU all have excellent PetE and other solid engineering programs as well.</p>
<p>UAF and Montana Tech are great for PetE/GeoE, but things drop off dramatically from there. Montana Tech has some crazy good placement rates.</p>
<p>New Mexico Tech has some strong pure science programs too. Make sure you visit before committing, because Socorro will not appeal to everyone.</p>
<p>U Tulsa seems to attract most of the big names, although you don’t hear much about it (perhaps because it’s so small?)</p>
<p>Be careful with starting salaries. Quite apart from the potential for inaccurate data, the cost of living in Anchorage is much higher than in OKC.</p>
<p>One thing to remember though is that most companies in northern europe require you to have a masters degree. You won´t get to do much more than grunt work without one.</p>
<p>I guess I’ll apply to Mines, A&M, OU, and LSU. I’ll see which one offers the best financial aid. All of them seem to be in the South, except Mines. So I’m guessing that for international petE program (based on what alchemist007 said), Aramco would hire in the South. I know that they have their HQ in Houston, TX. And it’s not too hard to navigate from Norman, College Station, or Austin to get there.</p>
<p>**Out of those four (Mines, OU, LSU, and A&M), which would offer the best financial aid? What companies would recruit at these schools? ** </p>
<p>Mines (in the mountains) is kind of expensive, but I heard they offer 9-12k in merit scholarships to some students. They probably offer the biggest workload (which I wouldn’t mind). Golden is a really nice town with very temperate weather (perhaps the best out of any ABET-accredited petE school). </p>
<p>OU has unpredictable but generally dry weather. I still have some doubts about their petE, but they have a good program for getting a Petroleum MBA. I heard they are extremely stingy (kind of like UT) with financial aid if you are OOS and a non-NMF (both of which I am). I hope I can get significant merit aid. From what I’ve heard, you really have to pester them a LOT about your scholarships and financial aid. In terms of financial aid, they really won’t give much at all. They might give $500-1000, but that’s it. Overall, I can’t predict what I will get from this school.</p>
<p>LSU is very much a party school. They close down sometimes because of hurricane season. But it’s also somewhat dry there. They are actually very good with merit aid, but they took away the Golden Oaks scholarship, so that can prove to be a problem for me. </p>
<p>A&M is dry when it comes to the weather. It’s also very conservative, which is a problem for some. As long as they aren’t aggressive and all (which they aren’t; they have a rep for chivalry), it’s fine with me. They offer an out-of-state tuition waiver if you can get a merit scholarship of $1k+. Nevertheless, I’m a bit nervous about how I’m going to pay in-state tuition. But it’s the best petE school and has a better variety of petE programs (I like their IPM best) than any other college I’ve seen.</p>
<p>I think in general there are two engineering career fairs on campus one in the fall and one in the spring. I also think there is something for petroleum engineers for particular at A&M but I’m not 100% sure and would have to look into it again. </p>
<p>To see some of the companies recruiting Petroleum Engineers at the fair for this fall visit this website
[SEC</a> < Students < Company Search](<a href=“SEC”>http://sec.tamu.edu/Students/CareerFair/Search.aspx)</p>
<p>Search for Petroleum Engineer and then scroll down.</p>
<p>The biggest merit scholarship at Mines is $12k. I don’t know if OU gives non-NMF merit aid, but on the plus side it is one of the cheapest OOS schools in the country.</p>
<p>I believe LSU has pretty good merit aid.</p>
<p>How much can you actually afford to pay?</p>
<p>Very little. I would say at most 2.5k.</p>
<p>OU: <a href=“http://www.ou.edu/content/dam/recruitment/Downloads/2010.11%20FR%20Scholarship%20Descriptions.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ou.edu/content/dam/recruitment/Downloads/2010.11%20FR%20Scholarship%20Descriptions.pdf</a></p>
<p>Those academic scholarships,from what I’ve understood when I spoke to an admissions representative, are automatic. If that’s the case, then I should get 5k a year. They have this MEP scholarship for engineering that reduces your tuition to in-state. I don’t know if I can get that. For petroleum engineering, if you have above a 3.91 GPA, you get 3k a year. If you are a really competitive candidate for petE, then that’s 4k a year for the Mewbourne Leadership Scholarship. Since I have an EFC of 0, the max (they usually give lower, I think) that I can get is the Pell ($5550) plus the ACG ($750). The institute itself only gives $500-1k in need-based grants to OOS students. </p>
<p>This is all the research I’ve done on OU, but from what I’ve heard they are stingy and erratic with the aid, and you usually get little or no aid at all from them if you are OOS and non-NMF. Perhaps 85% of all the scholarship money is exclusively for in-state and NMF students. Sometimes they’ll offer scholarships one year and not the other. So idk.</p>
<p>LSU: Unfortunately, I didn’t do too well on the SAT’s (2180, 1430 CR & M combined). 2x on stupid math questions dropped me 60 pts. (on the harsh side of the already harsh curve for the math portion). LSU gives 13k (and a 2k internship, so about 15k) to 1440 and above (CoA: ~$22k). The petE dept gives $750 if you have about a 3.0 GPA and 1170 (somewhere around there). If I had that 1440 I would have been set. So I’ll have to retake it in October, before the 11/15 deadline.</p>
<p>You need to retake the SAT and score above the 1440. That’s the only solution I see here.</p>