<p>For the past eight years, U.S. News has ranked Rose-Hulman the #1 undergrad school in engineering in all fields. But the school is virtually unmentioned on CC and not even on CC's best colleges link. I was simplying wonderiing why that was?</p>
<p>Undergraduate engineering at schools for which the highest offered degree is a bachelor's or master's, if I'm not mistaken. That pool is of lesser quality than the pool of schools who offer PhDs.</p>
<p>Its really quite easy to get into if you have the grades</p>
<p>The reason is everyone is obsessed withe IVY league.</p>
<p>Also Rose-Hulman has only recently emerged as a top engineering school in the past several years. We didn't graduate a female until 1995. We had a president, Sam Hulbert, who was president from like 1970 to 2005, who really worked to transform Rose-Hulman into what it is today. I think the statistic is that something like 50% of living R-H alums have graduated since 1990. The school has gotten bigger recently and they're becoming more selective and gaining more prestige.</p>
<p>It's in a unique category with schools that don't offer PhD's, however I think that schools like R-H, Olin, and Harvey Mudd are becoming more popular and prominent as selective students are looking for something to differentiate themselves from the big degree-factory state universities.</p>
<p>That said, from everything I've heard or read, Rose-Hulman will not be growing any more (We've built two new large on campus housing buildings, each capable of lodging about 200 people in the past 5 years).</p>
<p>Another factor is geography. We're located in Central Indiana. There's quite literally nothing here for miles. No big cities, no population centers. It has problems catering to people not from the Midwest a lot I think.</p>
<p>That said we've got a special community down here. We're the only school in the nation that has a Sophomore adviser program, which I think is outstanding. All it is is you have two sophomores living on each freshman floor. They're basically there to facilitate fun and help you get adjusted to college. And those SA's are in addition to having a junior or senior RA on each floor. And the application process for those jobs is very competitive. I know they have more than double apply each year than they have spots for. We also have an Open Door policy that applies to life in the dorms and the professors. All my professors set up office hours, but it's nothing like what my friends at other universities describe because all my profs tell us their office hours, then they add that if they're in their office that they welcome you to stop in and I've never had a situation where a professor wouldn't talk to me if I sought them out, no matter the time of day.</p>
<p>Also the quarter system makes it much more difficult, but also better for us. It allows a lot more flexibility in scheduling. </p>
<p>For instance, I have a friend at Georgia Tech, we both got the same AP credit, but the math class he's taking this semester covers material that I did fall quarter. At most schools I would have to take 2 full semesters of physics, but here we can cram it all into 2 fast quarters, freeing up a spot in the third quarter for taking a different class. It's pretty good. It also means we get a good amount of breaks because we get a week at the end of each quarter and a 4 day weekend in fall, 2 weeks in winter, and a week in spring in the middle of each quarter.</p>
<p>I fully agree that Rose-Hulman is surprisingly unknown despite its chart-topping status. I'm getting so annoyed with all of my friends because I have to explain to all of them why I'm even considering going to Rose when I've been accepted to Northwestern, a school they all know. The other strange thing about Rose is that despite being such a top-rated school, they still have above a 70% acceptance rate. People can't seem to get it through their heads that the acceptance rate doesn't determine the quality of the school, it just shows what an unknown and hidden school this is amongst all the bigger engineering schools.</p>
<p>"Undergraduate engineering at schools for which the highest offered degree is a bachelor's or master's, if I'm not mistaken. That pool is of lesser quality than the pool of schools who offer PhDs."</p>
<p>Is that really true? Even so, I don't think that means Rose is of any lesser quality. I suspect that its underrating is just that it is in the middle of nowhere, and it is still on the rise in terms of non-engineering prestige. From what I hear it is certainly not underrated for people in the engineering field.</p>
<p>Below is the profile for the Freshman class not bad....IMO. Also, I believe that there is only 450 Freshman spots. Nic can probably confirm that. </p>
<p>Rose -Hulman 2006 Freshman profile:</p>
<p>3059 applications were received for admission for the 2006 freshman class </p>
<p>86% ranked in the top fifth of their high school classes (of schools that report rank) </p>
<p>20% ranked in the top three positions of their high school classes (of schools that report rank) </p>
<p>282 students were members of honor societies </p>
<p>273 participated in performing arts </p>
<p>169 participated on academic teams </p>
<p>25 were members of newspaper or yearbook staffs </p>
<p>254 played varsity sports </p>
<p>median SAT: 620 critical reading, 680 math </p>
<p>median ACT: 29 English, 30 math </p>
<p>24 students have scored an 800 on the mathematics portion of the SAT or a perfect 36 on the math ACT</p>
<p>I dunno, but I agree it's an amazing school. I have former employers who were all RH grads, and they are astoundly clueful and great people.</p>
<p>As a Rose grad I've been frustrated a few times explaining people that I went to school there, assuming they should say, wow you must be smart. Outside of engineering, Rose is kind of unheard of, ESPECIALLY outside of the midwest. If you are counting on bragging about your school to get you laid (which honestly, I'm not sure an MIT would help you in that respect), RoseHulman is not really going to be your thing. But rest assured it enjoys a great reputation in engineering circles and industry and its grads are top notch.</p>
<p>what about franklin w. olin college of engineering?</p>
<p>Because Rose Hulman sounds like somebody's aunt from NYC.</p>
<p>for an engineering degree, one only needs a bachelor's degree. You will get a high paying job if you only have a bachelor's, Therefore, Rose is good for someone who wants 4 years of school and then to go out into the real world. However, outside of engineers, most people want a graduate degree so thus Rose becomes underrated.</p>
<p>Expensive and doesn't provide a whole lot of financial aid... :-/</p>
<p>"... for an engineering degree, one only needs a bachelor's degree...."</p>
<p>True...if your objective is to just land a job. If you want an interesting job, at least in aerospace/defense, you are going to need an advanced degree. I suspect that is true of any engineering opportunity that is pushing to advance the state-of-the-art.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But the school is virtually unmentioned on CC
[/quote]
That's not true. People do mention it, just not as many times as you wish. Purdue has great engineering program too and it's not mentioned frequently either. </p>
<p>
[quote]
and not even on CC's best colleges link.
[/quote]
Two reasons:
1. it's not a LAC or "University".<br>
2. it's not selective enough</p>
<p>The reason US News and World Report distinguishes between schools that do and do not offer PhDs is that schools that offer higher degrees generally focus on those and sometimes neglect the undergraduate programs. The best professors spend most of their time doing research or teaching graduate level classes. At a school like Rose-Hulman, every lab you see, every professor you meet, everything we do is focused on undergraduate engineering education. I have several friends who were accepted to MIT but chose Rose because they felt the undergraduate program here is better than MIT.</p>