I have been accepted to Harvey Mudd, Cornell Engineering, and UPenn SEAS on full rides as a result of institutional aid and outside scholarships, so cost is not a factor. I recently visited Mudd for their PSP/ASP event and appreciate the intimate class sizes coupled with the breadth of the consortium and HASS requirements. Although Harvey Mudd has great job placement, ROI, and starting salaries, I have some reservations about the name. I know it sounds terrible, but I can’t help but look at Cornell and UPenn and not ignore the clout and visibility such names will give me in my future prospects. So Mudders, which schools did you give up for Mudd and why?
you can play with this, FWIW:
https://www.parchment.com/c/college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php?compare=Harvey+Mudd+College&with=Cornell+University
Just change the schools as you will.
My kid turned down UChicago, Swarthmore, and Carleton, and some other schools with good merit. She is super glad she picked Mudd. No regrets at all.
@monydad Interesting. So 50/50 HM/Cornell but 33/67 HM/UPenn. All three are great schools.
Parchment is a parlour game. There are no quality checks, people can put in anything they want. I wouldn’t consider it much use.
“There are no quality checks, people can put in anything they want.”
May well be the case, however same can be said for people posting anonymously on an internet forum.
At least Parchment gives a larger sample of GIGO than OP would get as responses to OP here. FWIW.
(Which, agreed, may be nothing).
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I’m not sure why it matters what others have given up to go to Mudd. (My son did ED, so I can’t really respond to that anyway). It appears that your real concern is the name recognition. Yes, the general population—the guy walking down the street–may not recognize the Harvey Mudd name. However, plenty of employers and grad schools do, and that is what is important.
Take a look at this document:
You’ll be able to view the many employees that come on campus, as well as all the employers and grad schools that Mudders headed off to last year. (Previous year reports can be found here: https://www.hmc.edu/diversity/oid-learning-outcomes/)
My son also applied ED, so he didn’t decline anyplace else (though in his mind, going ED meant that if he got into all the schools he applied to, HMC would still have been his first choice. He also applied to Rice, Princeton, Stanford, UVA, Haverford. HMC just felt like the best fit, both academically and socially). I agree that while many people don’t recognize the name, employers and grad schools do. The best part about less name recognition? Students aren’t picking it just for the name, which is one of the worst possible reasons to choose a school.
There are so many terrible reasons for picking schools, that “well-known name” doesn’t seem in the same league of badness. Choosing a college because your HS BF/GF will be attending comes to mind. At any rate, Harvey Mudd is a legitimate top school, so no excuses need be made for choosing it over one of the other top schools.
we are still debating among HMC, Cornell Engineering and CMU SCS, for now, the ranking order is like CMU SCS > HMC > Cornell Engineering
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Go to the registrar’s list of courses actually given in each area of possible interest, in each of the last wo semesters. Count the courses, including grad courses available to qualified undergrads, at each school. If they don’t offer it, you can’t learn it there.
The sub-area of engineering I wound up becoming interested in, and practiced for a while, is not offered at all at one of the three schools being discussed here. Not so much as a single course.
Of course that does not mean its students won’t go on to successful and lucrative careers. In the areas actually covered at their school.
Mudd only offers a general engineering degree. But it is an extremely rigorous STEM & general engineering degree, and their students do very well in the job market and grad school placement. The other Claremont schools are a great benefit, too. My kid took classes at the other campuses several semesters.