<p>^ Ok, thanks.</p>
<p>But finaid and rankings aside, which companies usually recruit from the following schools?
-CSM
-NMT
-OU
-TU
-LSU
-TAMU/UT
-UAF (already mentioned by alchemist007)</p>
<p>Or, which school would be the best for recruitment by:
-Shell
-Exxonmobil
-Chevron
-Halliburton
-Schlumberger
-Chesapeake
-ConocoPhillips
-Devon
-Aramco</p>
<p>UAF is having an Engineering Energy Fair in 3 weeks and the following companies are coming:</p>
<p>Shell
ConocoPhilips
Schlumberger
BP
ExxonMobil
Halliburton</p>
<p>And many other smaller companies that are from Alaska.</p>
<p>^Cool. I know I tried to move past financial aid, but how is financial aid there? I didn’t get too many helpful responses (at least not from anyone at UAF) on some thread I created about financial aid there.</p>
<p>I still want more info on post #21.</p>
<p>UAF is fairly cheap OOS, and you can easily establish Alaska residency after one year. With that said, your budget is low enough that I would be somewhat concerned nonetheless.</p>
<p>Anyway, for OU:
[OU</a> Career Services | Participating Organizations](<a href=“http://www.ou.edu/career/Events/ParticipatingEmployers/ListForCareerFair.html?cfid=2419]OU”>http://www.ou.edu/career/Events/ParticipatingEmployers/ListForCareerFair.html?cfid=2419)</p>
<p>Apache, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Devon, Encana, ExxonMobil, Marathon, and Shell all recruit at OU, as well as some more local companies and oilfield services firms such as Halliburton and Schlumberger.</p>
<p>Mines:
<a href=“Home - Career Center”>Home - Career Center;
<p>Still, this is all academic unless the financial situation works out.</p>
<p>Just wondering how will Penn State compare to these above mentioned colleges ? I’m mostly interested in ChemE but PetE is more specific and I guess I will enjoy it even more. So any idea guys?</p>
<p>I recently went through the whole PetE application process… I looked at every website I could find.</p>
<p>Generally, found the following-</p>
<p>Tier 1
Texas
TAMU</p>
<p>Tier 2
OU
Mines</p>
<p>Tier 3
Tulsa
TTech
Alaska
LSU</p>
<p>Tier 4
Everyone else</p>
<p>And that’s not to say there is a incredible difference between tiers, someone else could rank them a bit differently and not be wrong. Especially the difference between tier 2 and 3 and tier 3 and 4. The general consensus was UT and A&M being the top two schools.</p>
<p>I finally decided on School of Mines… I loved the location and the size of the school. Cost didn’t matter to me though(GI Bill) so I can’t speak to financial aid.</p>
<p>Would going to UAF pose a significant problem than, say, going to TAMU?</p>
<p>Will my starting salaries/job opportunities be harmed at all?</p>
<p>^No. I think BP’s HQ is in Alaska. UAF has the highest average starting salary (96k) but it’s Alaska. The cost of living there is very high, so the jobs also pay more. I think their job placement is like 96%, which is average for a lot of the schools you’ve listed. A lot of petroleum engineering schools have 100% job placement rates. There’s someone on CC who goes to UAF for petE (I think it was alchemist007), so maybe you can look around for him on the petE forums.</p>
<p>Why isn’t NMT on the list for Tier 3?</p>
<p>My husband is a Mines PetE alum and I worked in Mines admissions a very, very long time ago. Our son is applying at Mines as well. (He is interested in chemical engineering and is accepted at TAMU, auto admit at UT-Austin waiting on word from Cockrell and will probably submit common app to Duke and Stanford.)</p>
<p>Regarding location and jobs…</p>
<p>Most PetE majors will have excellent opportunities for summer employment in a variety of areas (at very good pay), so if you won’t really be locked into a certain location for employment if you attend Mines. My husband worked in the GOM on offshore platforms every summer and Christmas break. After 30 years in the industry, his operations have been in all corners of the world from deepwater GOM, to Bohai Bay, to Ecuador and Colombia onshore. </p>
<p>And I realize this is old info…but when he was at Mines, every major recruited there. He had a dozen offers for employment during his senior year. (I remember it well because I hand-typed all his letters declining those wonderful offers.) Again, I don’t know if the same is true today…but after the collapse of the o&g industry in the late 80s, engineering students avoided petroleum, geology and geophysical engineering for a long time. As a result there is a gap in the supply of petroleum engineers. (A good article on that: [New</a> Oil Crisis: An Engineer Shortage - TIME](<a href=“http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1686084,00.html]New”>http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1686084,00.html))</p>
<p>Mines is a great school. You cannot beat Golden…especially of you love access to ski resorts. 
The school is small and the atmosphere intimate. Your professors will know you and you will develop solid connections with faculty.</p>
<p>^ Mines is my first choice but I have no idea how I’ll afford it. After UT-Austin, it is the most expensive petroleum engineering school you can go to. NMT is by far the cheapest.</p>
<p>I understand completely… husband really had to scramble to pay for it. Wrestling scholarship, worked offshore every single summer and every Christmas break, even slinging breakfast at 5 AM in the school cafeteria. And he had student loans. Fortunately, the summer wages were fantastic and his first job out of college paid very well, so we were able to retire the loan debt within a couple of years. But ideally, especially in this economy, leaving college without a lot of debt is hugely important.</p>
<p>The best petE school? The one that gets you the best job. </p>
<p>I know people are not ranking it on their lists, but UH should/will be a tier 2 program. If you get a wild hair, google “oil exploration” or something of the like in the Houston area. It’s laughable. Every one of their students had offers for internships. They also have a great geology program who is heavily recruited by oil companies.</p>
<p>I honestly don’t know of any bad petroleum engineering school where job opportunities are lackluster. Penn State isn’t too great because of it’s location. I wouldn’t be surprised if Marietta was the same.</p>
<p>bork, you can’t really go wrong with most of the schools listed on this thread.</p>
<p>FWIW, I’m a Texas Tech Pet E grad, and will argue for it being among the best programs in the country. And your SAT score qualifies you for $6000/yr in merit money there.</p>
<p>Also, it appears you are from New York. If you want to stay closer to home, do not dismiss Penn State and West Virginia. I’m not sure if Marietta still has a program, but they would be OK as well.</p>
<p>One of America’s biggest drilling “booms” is going on in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and New York (the Marcellus Shale). It will only get bigger over the next few years, which will provide excellent opportunities for employment.</p>
<p>Basically, if our industry is healthy, a Pet E degree from any of the accredited schools will suffice. It sounds to me like your primary issue is scholarship help. Find the place that makes the most sense economically and go for it. </p>
<p>Don’t get too caught up in perceptions and reputations of individual schools. The best engineers are the most practical ones. Here is a chance for you to make your first practical decision.</p>
<p>^ Thanks arrdad. Texas Tech also seems to grant OOS tuition waivers if you get any scholarship above $1k. I think it’s scholarship deadline is February 15th, so I’ll apply soon.</p>
<p>Do the have the same kind of system as Texas A&M where they quickly run out of petroleum engineering seats? If that’s the case, I might not apply.</p>
<p>bork, I don’t know if Tech has a limit on the number of students they will accept in Pet E. You should contact them and ask that question.</p>
<p>Either way, with your stats, you will be a desired recruit for Tech, so I would certainly apply ASAP.</p>
<p>On another topic, you mentioned that LSU and A&M had dry climates. Neither of those areas is dry by any definition. Tech is semi-arid with less than 20 inches of rain per year. Those other two have much higher yearly rainfall averages.</p>
<p>Can I suggest looking into the University of Louisiana at Lafayette? I’m not too familiar with the school, but it is less selective than LSU. And Lafayette has a lot of oil related industry that would be good for internships. (I’m from Louisiana).</p>
<p>^^LOL did I say Baton Rouge had a dry climate? I would expect it to vary a little from Florida’s climate. I’m kind of surprised that College Station isn’t dry, though. Well either way, both locations are MUCH warmer than NY. I don’t like the cold weather too much.</p>
<p>^I don’t know anything about ULL. I’ve never considered it, but I’ve heard about it. I’ve looked into TAMU, UT, LSU, Mines, NMT, Montana Tech, OU, UAF, and recently Texas Tech.</p>
<p>It seems that most students intend to work closely to where they get their PetE degree, so the ‘best’ PetE school would not be the one with the highest ranking, but instead it would be the one that more closely specialized in the intended work area. For example, UAF specializes in extraction in cold environments while other programs in the south of the US may not cover this due to their proximity to the gulf of mexico. Location seems to be one of if not the largest deciding factor in which school you should attend. </p>
<p>Another thing about location that I noticed concerns vulnerability. I noticed that due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the students graduating from PetE programs in the southern US were faced with a poor job market in the short term. This was noted in the ULL Student Chapter Annual Report:</p>
<p>“The most significant challenge our chapter faced this year was keeping the morale of our students high with the down turn of the oilfield. Because the oilfield was down we lost a lot of our industry support making it harder to run several of our events. Also with the down turn the job prospects looked bad for most of our seniors. This was the hardest to deal with; the top students in our class had no job offers at a time where a year before the industry seemed to be giving good high paying jobs away.”</p>
<p>^Wow this year must be hell for LSU and ULL.</p>
<p>You don’t hear too much about the following petroleum engineering colleges on CC:
-University of Kansas
-Marietta College
-Montana Tech
-Missouri S&T
-West Virginia University
-University of Wyoming</p>
<p>These colleges are only mentioned in lists of colleges with ABET-accredited petroleum engineering programs. And a lot of people seem to dismiss Penn State’s petE program, although it is mentioned.</p>
<p>I would really appreciate it if anyone could tell me more about these colleges.</p>
<p>@arrdad, I talked to someone from the petE dept at Tech, and they said that it was fine as long as I applied by February 1st. They don’t have limited seats like TAMU. So I’ll apply the sometime around the first week of 2011.</p>