My daughter is considering two, well maybe three, colleges for the fall but is having a hard time deciding which would be best for her. She is interested in mechanical engineering and is primarily concerned that she will have good employment opportunities when she graduates. She was accepted to University of Illinois Urbana Champaign honors program and that is her first choice but they are unable to give her any financial aid so we are putting that choice to the side. (She would graduate with over 100k in debt.) The other two programs are Boston University and University of Rochester. She feels that Rochester is probably a better school but she’s not thrilled about the setting. BU is much more appealing as a place to spend the next four years but she doesn’t know if the program is good enough.
Can anyone on this list shed some light on these two programs in terms of the experience she might have and the opportunities they will each create once she graduates? Thanks.
BU has a very well known engineering program. If you look at rankings–BU’s engineering programs are consistently top 50. Boston is also an old school and has a very good, long lasting reputation. You don’t need to worry if the name will turn heads, because it will.
Academically, both schools are similar and well known across many fields.
If your daughter wants to have a more hands-on approach with internships (or possibly co-ops if offered), Boston will most likely have more options with larger corporations.
Boston is also much much larger, so if she does better in a small learning environment, you may need to take that into account.
p.s. I live near Rochester, and it’s not a bad little city, but there really isn’t much to do there. Where I live, most consider a smaller, worse version of Buffalo, so that says a lot. If she’s more outdoorsy and has a car, then it would be great as there are a lot of great camping areas around, as well as a lot to do on the lakes.