* WPI RD Class of 2019 Discussion *

@NorthernMom61

As a WPI alum, I was secretly hoping that she would go to WPI. I know that she loved the feel of WPI, but my daughter is practical and she knows that we are concerned with the cost.

Unless something changes, like you, I think we are also leaning more and more toward UCONN (although she still has to visit GT and get her financial aid info). We are very lucky to live in a state with a strong engineering public university. Wouldn’t it be funny if our girls are friends and in the same dorm 5 months from now!

I hope your daughter gets a great package from WPI so that cost isn’t the primary decision criteria. My husband was WL by WPI years ago but when he was pulled from the WL he got decent aid, so you never know.

@CrazyMomof3 We will see if any scholarships are offered. We are unlikely to get any financial aid except loans.

So most likely UCONN, and my daughter is happy about it. She wants to be in New England. That would be great if our daughters end up being friends. What does you daughter intend to major in? Mine is planning to study Biomedical Engineering.

@Northernmom61 You might be pleasantly surprised. WPI was more generous than RPI for us. In our case there is still a large gap between the cost and what we feel comfortable committing to plus we have 2 younger children to consider. We have not made a final decision.

My daughter is planning on majoring in engineering but is undecided on which type at this point. Because admission to uconn engineering is so competitive, I am wondering if a large portion of the honors program is engineering majors.

@CrazyMomof3 We won’t do any enrollment deposit until we see the letter from WPI. Hopefully it will get here by the weekend.

I don’t know the answer to your question regarding the portion of honors students at UCONN who are engineering majors, but like you I would guess it is significant. We only have the one child, but we are older parents and we hope to be able to retire from these overseas jobs in about 5 years, then work part-time after we move back to the US, so we are trying to keep college costs reasonable and also factor in that they are likely to continue to go up by a couple thousand each year.

Interestingly, the new head of the BME department at UCONN recently left his faculty position at WPI for the job at UCONN and he was a UCONN undergrad. As time has gone on this year, my daughter has become more and more interested in being at a larger university as compared to a tech school. She wants to participate in music if she can. Like your daughter, she is very practical, and I do appreciate that about her.