Help! My son has been accepted to Rutgers (engineering), UDel (engineering), USD (engineering) and FSU (engineering). We haven’t heard yet from UMD or UF. Assuming he has all of these options, does anyone have advice on how to make the best choice for an engineering student? We don’t know how heavily where you go weighs in future employment, specifically in engineering. He thinks he wants mechanical but is open to different disciplines. Any ideas?
Sorry- I meant USF, not USD.
Is money a factor?
40 years in the business. It doesn’t matter what engineering college. Chose lowest price and best intern/co-op program.
Net price at each?
If he applied to FSU engineering, did he also apply to FAMU engineering? Same engineering, but may be less expensive.
Note the summer session requirement at Florida publics that may be an unanticipated extra cost (and interference with summer job plans).
It always is, but Rutgers is 35k per year. I think he might get scholarships that bring any other school into that range.
Thanks, @Burgermeister. All of the colleges seem to have solid programs. I’ll have to look into internship opportunities. It’s a hard decision! We don’t personally know many engineers, so advice is hard to come by.
Think too about LinkedIn searches. View the fates of engineers from each college. My kids used this to identify cold calls for internships. This engineer used it to screen liberal arts colleges that my children attended. My wife and I are techies and we could not fathom sending our kids to liberal arts schools. Linked in showed that graduates of LACs found great careers. Whew! All is well but is would have been nice to have at least one kid to discuss entropy with.
Physics and chemistry are liberal arts and usually found at liberal arts colleges.
@Burgermeister my LAC physics grad (now doing a PhD) would be happy to discuss entropy with you- it’s our favorite law of thermodynamics 
Engineering education is pretty standardized due to ABET. Sure they push the kids harder at places like Caltech or MIT but nobody gets a degree from an acredited program without learning a lot.
Your son’s future is on his shoulder, not the school’s. Does he work hard (and we’re talking 10 hours or so in each class per week) to get good grades? Get to know some profs in case he wants to go to grad school? Or even job leads (former students often contact an old prof looking for a hire)? Does he take part in engineering related clubs so that he gets advice from kids ahead of him in things like job search, internships, etc? Does he get internships and work hard to impress those future employers on what are essentially a trial hire?
I would consider retention rates and graduation rates.
Engineering salaries are not going to be very different by school, but those don’t matter if you don’t graduate.
Retention and graduation rates are mostly related to admission selectivity (stronger incoming students are more likely to graduate).
However, a wrinkle at some colleges is a secondary admission process to get into an engineering major, depending on high college GPA and sometimes essays, due to the major being capacity limited. This can result in being unable to graduate in the desired major.
My daughter is at a STEM school in engineering. The retention rate is not that high, and the 4 year grad rate is not that high (but 5 and 6 year are fine, and many students do co-ops). However, I knew my daughter would finish in 4 years because she’s just that type of kid, and because we didn’t have the money to go an extra semester (all her financial aid awards are for 8 semesters). I’d look at your own kid rather than the retention or grad rates when determining if finishing in 4 is going to happen.
You have several Florida schools on your list. Are you from Florida? You can’t beat the FA with bright futures and other local scholarships. If he likes all the schools the same, go with the best deal. Plenty of opportunities for co-ops and summer jobs. The Florida summer session is so easy to do as some start in May and you are done by June 1 to start summer jobs.
I’m going to buck the trend a bit and say that it could, of course, matter which school they pick. You’ll find advantages and disadvantages at each.
Here’s a link that can give you a basic overview of each engineering program:
If you’re a Florida resident; Bright Futures and the low in-state tuition rate, and the solid engineering programs at UF, USF, etc, makes it difficult to pick one of the out of state schools.
Next, consider the major. All of these programs will offer Mechanical engineering. However, some of the other choices in major may only be offered at a few of these schools. The larger and more comprehensive the program, the more choices will be available. For example, UF and UMD-CB have very good Aerospace engineering, but that major isn’t offered at most of the other schools on your list. Materials Sciences and Engineering is also only offered at a few of the schools. You can see what majors are offered in the above link.
While a graduate at any of these schools can apply for jobs across the country, much of the job recruiting will be regional. It’s easier to find a job in the Northeast, by living in the northeast. Some of the above schools are more heavily recruited nationally (UF and UMD-CB for example), and you can see that by looking at which companies attend the job fairs and recruit on campus. For example, here’s a listing of the participates at the 2017 UF Career Showcase.
https://ufl-csm.symplicity.com/events/students.php?mode=list&cf=CSFall17
Here is one for USF (their Spring career fair):
https://usf.joinhandshake.com/career_fairs/2045/employers_list?logged_out_view=student_preview
Good Luck!
really useful post, @Gator88NE
This is so helpful @Gator88NE. I was not familiar with the ASEE profiles. Thank you. My thought is that if he gets into UF, he goes to UF simply because it is the most highly ranked college on his list. He just got his acceptance to UMD (his second most highly ranked choice) today, so I am hopeful that he will get into UF as well.
He is not a Florida resident, however, we have purchased a home in Florida and are in the process of moving. I’d like my kids to go to a Florida college if possible in hopes that they will stay in the area. Even without in-state tuition, Florida schools are competitively priced, and I would imagine he will get in-state for sophomore-senior years.
@twoinanddone “I’d look at your own kid rather than the retention or grad rates when determining if finishing in 4 is going to happen.”
Your kid’s grades, test scores and personality are important factors, but should be considered in addition to success rates at the school. There are a number of things about schools do that impact 4-year graduation rates: access to tutoring, quality of tutoring, ability to enroll in required courses, quality of teaching, co-op programs, willingness to give AP credit, credits required to graduate, ability to change majors within engineering, availability of various engineering majors, etc.
@danielle6849 If he is currently leaning toward mechanical, but may have other interests, that is important to be sure that the schools offer the “other interests”.
Historically, when people thought about engineering, they thought of Mechanical, Chemical, Electrical, and Civil engineers. Now there are many more. Other common types are bioengineers, environmental engineers, aerospace engineers, material science engineers, computer engineers, systems engineers, industrial engineers, nuclear engineers, petroleum engineers, and computer science engineers. There are also many more types than I have listed here. Which engineering majors a school offers can vary significantly, so consider which schools offer more types that are of interest to your student can be helpful.
For example, D2 is a Materials Science engineer, and those are not offered at some schools. My daughter says she likes material science engineering because, “It turns out that most things are made out of stuff.” Bad engineering joke. lol
@Much2learn Great info. Thanks! I am looking at schools that have comprehensive engineering programs. I believe they are all fairly well-developed. FSU looks to have the least variety of the schools he is considering. UF has many, but we still don’t know if he was accepted there. UMD has many as well, but I believe it is out of our price range. This is the hardest decision ever.
@danielle6849
Another quirk about engineering schools is that at some the applicant is admitted to a specific major. At others, they are admitted to engineering generally, and have to apply to a specific engineering major after a year. If they don’t get accepted to the major they want, they have to choose a different type of engineering or transfer. Each school does this a bit differently. You want to understand the details up front, in order to avoid surprises later. Usually, admission to a specific engineering major is heavily based on GPA. If there are specific levels it is good to know what they are at the beginning. Maybe a freshman needs a 3.2 GPA for Mech e or a 3.3 for Chem e, etc. If so, be sure to also ask what the average freshman GPA is. 3.2 and 3.3 hurdles may sound harder if the average freshman engineer at that particular school only has a 2.7 GPA, for example, than if the average is 3.2.