Guys, I got accepted to Hamilton college, Colgate university, and U of Rochester, they are all my top choices, I want to major in engineer, so which school would be the best for me to be in the field of engineering.( all three offered me vey generous financial package, so money is not a factor). Any advices would be hopeful for me ! I am a math and science, so my writing skill is pretty bad, but Hamilton college has a big emphasis on writing. I am not sure what Hamilton has to offer for math and science people like me, and for someone who wanted to be an engineer
Have you visited all 3 schools? I think they are all great options and you will get an excellent education at any of them, so it may come down to fit and feel. Where can you really picture yourself? Can you reach out and talk to some current students at each? This may help you finalize your decisions!
Hamilton and Colgate are smaller Liberal Arts colleges and U of Rochester is probably a bit larger, has twice the endowment and more of a diverse student population if that’s important to you. About 13% of students graduate with Engineering degrees at U of R and much less - (probably less that 2% - but don’t quote me on that) at the other two. Average salaries graduating from engineering from U of R are around 60-70K. I would probably lean toward U of R especially if you want to focus on science and math.
Another thing to consider is that sometimes you can get a little more personalized attention at a smaller liberal arts college. Either way, you have to try to focus and improve on your writing skills wherever you go. You will need to be able to effectively communicate to survive in today’s world and becoming a bit more well rounded can only help you!
Have you looked at the 3-2 program at Colgate? That could be a nice option depending on your post-grad plans. Though not sure if you had to apply into it to begin with.
@Smartisan5 From what I have read here at CC, many students who start at an LAC on a 3+2 plan end up staying the LAC and majoring in physics. If you are sure that you want to major in Engineering then go to U of R.
A quick internet search shows that Univ Rochester has 11000 students and an endowment of roughly $2.12 Billion.
In contrast, Hamilton has 1850 students and an endowment of $817 million. Colgate has 2927 students (so is quite a bit larger) and an endowment of $823 million.
You need to either visit all and/or assiduously study their course offerings, programs and “outcomes” via their websites and get specific answers from faculty and staff asap about what you believe your current interests are.
Good luck with your college search!
Thank you for everyone’s advise for me about which college I should attend next fall. However, I really liked the environment and student body of University of Rochester, and the different departments within the university. However, both Colgate and Hamilton are excellent LAC schools. However, I did know about the 3-2 programs in both liberal art schools, but you have to maintain a certain GPA (3.3 or above) in Hamilton or Colgate to enter the program. So, is entry to these program guaranteed ?? Also, any other advices on choosing which schools to attend for a math an science person like me. My parent loved Colgate due to the reputation and strong alumni network.
It’s nice you have a parent that went to Colgate, but all 3 choices have an excellent reputation and strong alum networks. I think all signs for you personally, are pointing to U of R. Liking the environment/student body can mean a lot and if engineering is your passion and math/science is your focus, both your gut and U of R’s stats for engineering are giving you your answer!
Hamilton appeals to students who are confident they would like a classic liberal arts and sciences experience in a small-college, exclusively undergraduate-focused environment. Since what you’ve written so far indicates that this would not apply to you, I’d recommend you choose URochester, an excellent school, or perhaps the also excellent Colgate.
In terms of your specific academic interests, however, Hamilton and URochester appear along with only 24 other schools in a Princeton Review sampling, “Great Colleges for Mathematics Majors,” and Hamilton, in addition to their 3-2 engineering programs, offers a, perhaps more desirable, 2-1-1-1 option with Dartmouth college: http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/academics/undergraduate/dual/
No.
In the past 10 years, only 14 students have attended Columbia or Dartmouth engineering.
http://physerver.hamilton.edu/engineering.html
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Thank you for everyone’s advice for me. However, both me and my parent care deeply about reputation of each school, especially RANKING. So which school among the three that I was accepted has a better ranking than the other two???. It hard for me to compare the rankings, because both Hamilton and Colgate are ranked under the category of “liberal art schools” and U of R is not ranked under that category, so how I compare U of R ranking to the two liberal art schools
@CrewDad only 14 students, so that’s mean it is highly competitive and very unlikely that I will be able to enter these 3-2 or 2-1-1- programs ??
^^
Is it your idea to major in engineering or your parents? What branch engineering are you interested in?
Were you admitted to Hamilton through the HEOP program?
By entering statistical factors (SAT and ACT scores), Hamilton (#38 nationally), Colgate (#50) and URochester (#60) appear below:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-smartest-colleges-in-america-2016-10
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-610-smartest-colleges-in-america-2015-9
That said, if you would like a guaranteed engineering program, choose URochester.
Sigh…The Business Insider ranking is very misleading because at a minimum 20% of Hamilton’s first year students didn’t submit test scores wereas 100% of the Colgate students did. Nor did all of the enrolled University of Rochester students submit test scores.
Actually, over 80% of Hamilton students arrived there through a submission of either the SAT 1 or the ACT. All were required to have submitted standardized testing in some form as per Hamilton policy.
As to assumptions about what might be misleading, a simple analysis appears to offer a counter-intuitive result. Even with an average-deflating premise that non-submitters scored 60 points below Hamilton’s reported 25th percentile score (CR + M), the impact on Hamilton’s actual average would be a seemingly slight 27 points.
In any event, the BI article, however imperfect, appears to be one of the few that analyze LACs and universities together, and was introduced as a response to the OP’s question on that topic.
Per common data set 48 % submitted SAT scores and 33% ACT scores. Okay, total 81%. I rounded. 
However, there were students who submitted the ACT and SAT, thus reducing the 81% to <80%
So? Hamilton doesn’t include the scores of > 20% who didn’t submit scores for admission consideration in the reported statistics.
The ‘slight’ 27 point reduction would place Hamilton at #52 and behind Middlebury. I consider that significant. 
I may have made an error. Because a student submitted both tests doesn’t necessarily mean the college used both test scores when reporting test data. Regardless, that doesn’t change the facts.
First, I should state that, after a math check, the correct differential (post #13) should be 28 points.
Hamilton reports the number of students who enroll after having used the 3-test option as 91/475 (19%):
https://www.hamilton.edu/admission/apply/standardized-testing-distribution-of-scores
(The CDS, even under valiant analysis, appears to be confounding for the above determination.)
Middlebury’s testing policy is materially equivalent to Hamilton’s, so the schools would be likely to maintain their relative positions after analysis.
Note that Colgate and URochester have been footnoted for incomplete data in one of the BI articles.
The reason I mentioned that Hamilton requires standardized testing from all applicants was because it tends to create a statistical contrast between Hamilton and totally test optional schools that could indicate the actual strength of the scores for non-submitters.
An area in which we reach common ground in this discussion, @CrewDad, would be with respect to whether 28 points could be significant in certain comparisons. As you illustrated, it very well may be significant along certain points of the distribution curve. However, I calculated the 28 points under a fairly stringent assumption. If the assumption were changed to a level at the 25th percentile for non-submitters, then the differential would be (descriptive adjective omitted) 25 points (CR + M).
University of Rochester is a top national uni and highly rated in Engineering.
Here are rankings for Undergraduate Engineering for colleges that do offer Doctorate Level: You can find U of Rochester on this list.
https://premium.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate
And rankings for Undergrad Engineering at colleges that do not offer a Doctorate level:
https://premium.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-no-doctorate
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I realized after the fact that assigning Hamilton more or less same # ranking as Midd was an error for the reason you mentioned. I was going to post such, but I knew you’d do it for me. I should have said that after recalibrating the SAT average, Hamilton would be listed ~#51-53 and left it at that.
Not necessarily.
Colgate recorded the scores for 100% of the students in their Common Data Set, which USNWR could have very easily found. The reasons for a (3) footnote is that the school did not supply all students it has scores for, [or] did not tell U.S. News if it had.
Apparently, Colgate overlooked notifying USNWR if they had supplied all the test scores, hence the (3) footnote.
UR may have received the footnote for the same reason.