Before I begin, I would like to say, for the Great people who have ever walked on this earth and accomplished their goals, has allowed me to truly believe that greatness is amongst so many people. As a low-income student, I have faced so many challenges. I would first like to say while I was in high school, I applied for the Gates scholarship and unfortunately I lost. At that moment, my hopes and dreams were crushed. But it did not stop me because PAIN IS TEMPORARY, my friend! So my next alternative was to attend a CC. By attending a CC, I am proud to say that this was the best thing that has ever happened to me. It allowed me to choose the right major for myself and meet so many people, whom I cherish. So, now I have graduated from my CC! I will receive my Associate in Science degree and it will be marked as awarded in two weeks. Because I have applied to several national scholarships that are only intended for students that will attend college in the Fall of 2016, I will take up two additional courses at my CC because i do not want to sit a semester out. Therefore once I go off to a university I will have 80 credit hours. Don’t worry i have already researched the schools in my list to make certain that the schools will accept my credits.
According to my list of schools as of right now, which university or college would you choose. I am ultimately going to decide which school to attend in the Fall of 2016 once I receive my financial aid award package. So these are the schools:
Purdue University - Accepted into the Mechanical Engineering program
The University of Iowa - Accepted into the Honors Mechanical Engineering program
Northwestern - TBA
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - TBA
Cornell University - TBA
Another question, if you graduated from a university, what other great schools do you have in mind that I should definitely apply for?
Side note: Although I want to apply to affordable schools that offer a lot of aid and will limit my loans, My dream and goal is to attend a prestigious school.
You are going to get a lot of biased answers here, particularly because there really is no correct answer as to which program is the best. That being said, my totally biased answer here would be UIUC. Of course, the reason for that is that my undergraduate degree is from the MechSE department at UIUC and I loved it there and don’t regret a thing.
They’re all good. Visit if you can. If push came to shove, I’d probably put UIUC, Cornell and Purdue a notch above. The bottom line is, none of them are worth going into deep debt for versus the rest.
The best program is the program that fits you and let’s you attend without financial hardship. Oh, and which is ABET accredited. Seriously, all those programs are fine but you might get better financial aid at one of the less selective [url="<a href=“http://theaitu.org%22%5DAITU%5B/url”>http://theaitu.org"]AITU[/url] schools, which all have very good Mechanical Engineering programs.
Others have brought it up, but I’ll say it more directly. Of those you have listed, the lowest cost option would be perfectly fine. Other factors may influence your decision, but don’t feel like low cost=low quality.
There is really no “best program” if you are looking within the top 20 or so programs. “Best program” is very subjective. You should look beyond how programs are ranked in US News. There is a chance that you may become interested in a different major after freshman year, so you need to take that into account. Other than the strengths of your programs of interest, factors such as “will I be happy here for the next four years” are also important.
Another general point for the various readers of this thread… often reputations are based on a school’s grad program. Do your research because the undergrad program strengths may be different.
Okay thank you everyone. I was looking at Purdue for a while and in my cceptance letter it mentioned that with West, Lafayette and Calumet combined it is turning into Purdue Northwest. Any idea why? Will it still be prestigious? If not my second choice is University of Iowa because I was accepted into their honoring M.E program. My uncle who is also an engineer told me it’s better to go to University of Iowa compared to UIUC.
Purdue will still be a strong brand; don’t worry. And did your uncle give any reasoning for why he thought Iowa was better or was he just blowing smoke?
Now that I think about it he didnt give me a valid reason but he told me not to go to that school for a reason. Maybe its because of the graduation rate in engineering. I am going to ask him. On the other hand, on US News UIUC is ranked higher than University of Iowa. But I also asked a lady I met in a speed networking event, who is an electrical engineer about Univeristy of Iowa and she told me she got her masters degree. She mentioned even though it was tough and she had to retake many classes she stuck through with it. I just want to make the right decision for my future. I know future employers will not only look at your major and GPA but the type of school you graduated from. How do you check the graduation and retention rate for engineering for each of these schools. Is there a website or app I can go to? I think looking at those key factors in a school are important because ultimately when it comes down to it I have to make the decision on what school to go to and it would help if I research on it a little more. Thanks guys.
If you look at pretty much any public school with a reputation for a good engineering program, it is likely to have a high drop rate. That’s not necessarily because the school is doing something wrong, but generally has more to do with the fact that the state schools have requirements placed on their admission procedures and statistics by their states and often have to admit a relatively large number of students who are only borderline or worse into their more rigorous engineering programs. That leads to a higher drop-out rate compared to private schools that have no such state mandates. I find it interesting that this argument was used against UIUC but not Purdue, which suffers the same problem.
Of course, I am not trying to tell you that Iowa is somehow not going to give you good career opportunities. I was just wondering what your uncle’s reasoning was considering UIUC is pretty widely considered to be the better school.
Graduation rates can be affected by curricula too. Some engineering plans are more hours than the average undergraduate degree. At Cal Poly for instance, nearly every degree is 180 hours (quarters). Mechanical Engineering is 198-202 depending on specialization. This you’d expect fewer to graduate in 4 years since it isn’t technically a 4 year program.
“Purdue has a very rigorous program (which is one reason it has such a good reputation), but it’s also fairly flexible with the students it admits to the program. It’s a combination of the two that would lead to the average GPA. Two colleges may have different average GPA’s, but your daughter could find that the two programs have the same level of rigor, and she would earn the earn the same GPA at both.”
I will receive my Associate in Science degree and it will be marked as awarded in two weeks. Because I have applied to several national scholarships that are only intended for students that will attend college in the Fall of 2016, I will take up two additional courses at my CC because i do not want to sit a semester out. Therefore once I go off to a university I will have 80 credit hours. Don’t worry i have already researched the schools in my list to make certain that the schools will accept my credits.