<p>My S has narrowed down his choices to WPI and Lafayette, each for different reasons. WPI for the excellent engineering program and the variety of engineering degrees available. Lafayette because of the very close knit community there as well as really liking the teachers he met there. He likes the campus there a little bit better as well. FA is $10,000 more at Lafayette.</p>
<p>We are down to the wire here but any feedback or thoughts you might have would be greatly appreciated. He is torn because he thinks he will get a much better engineering education at WPI but he really likes Lafayette's close knit engineering community. Five days to decide!</p>
<p>Lafayette was under in consideration for my son also. He loved the size of the school and the beautiful campus and the tight-knit community there as well. So he was deciding between a small liberal arts school with engineering (Lafayette) and a small engineering school (WPI).</p>
<p>He decided he wants to pursue computer science rather than EE. When he started analyzing the course offerings and the list of professors, that’s when he decided on WPI.
The CS department is much larger, and has much broader set of course offerings and areas of specialization at WPI. Lafayette has only a few kids in the CS program and only 5 professors. It seemed a little too small.
My son chose WPI because it is small enough to feel comfortable to him, and yet has a great range of engineering programs, professors and facilities.
WPI is a geekier school to be sure, no one majoring in liberal arts(!) so it depends on what kind of students your son wants to be with. My son preferred the geekier vibe at WPI. Hopefully, you have visited both?</p>
<p>Thanks BeanTownGirl. Sounds like you in the Boston area. We are in Southern NH… Anyway, your S sounds a lot like mine. Those are the exact reasons my S was considering Lafayette. He really likes the campus there and really likes the engineering faculty. But his personality definitely fits in more with WPI. He loves to build things and stay up all night working on a project and just does not want to be in a school where the people around him don’t care about learning. He is a little worried that the rest of the student body at Lafayette may not be as dedicated. He had enough of that in high school…</p>
<p>He wants to do the same thing though - compare the course offerings. I think once he does that he will pick WPI as well. He just is a little taken back by the the smaller campus at WPI, feeling it is more congested, and the housing situation there. But everyone at WPI seems happy with their choice (we have visited both campuses several times…) and I think he would fit in very well. He is considering ME with a minor in Robotics (if he goes to WPI)…</p>
<p>Your S and my S should meet. They sound very similar : )</p>
<p>If he is at all into robotics, then WPI wins hands-down. We asked a professor at Lafayette and he admitted that there is very little going on there in that area. It’s an expensive field to invest in.</p>
<p>WPI, on the other hand, was the first school to offer a B.S degree in robotics engineering, and now has a master’s and I think a PhD degree as well. Lots of interesting robotics projects and competitions going on, cool robotics lab etc. Also, an advisory board that includes leaders from local robotics companies such as iRobot. </p>
Based on WHAT does he think students at Lafayette don’t care about learning? because there not all engineers? Lafayette is a very good school. It’s interesting because it’s really more like a Liberal Arts College but which also has an engineering school… a rare combo. The male/female ratio is much better than WPI, and the diversity of the students (wrt to majors, not race… liberal arts and techie majors) would make the experience more interesting IMO. </p>
<p>If anything I’d bet WPI has more slackers given there “no-fail” policy for grading.</p>
<p>WPI is a good school, if that’s what you want then go there, no need to justify it by denegrating Laf.</p>
<p>Sorry, did not mean to offend anyone. This is an important decision between two great schools and the financial aid does not compare between the two, but we are not focusing on that. My son has done a lot of project work with kids in high school that don’t show up to do their share and he doesn’t want that in college. He was trying to gauge the level of dedication among the students at each school. We are looking under every stone to find info to make this decision. Thanks for your reply. He likes project work and thinking outside the box. If you can share anything else about Lafayette we would appreciate it.
Thanks.</p>
<p>I personally have been slightly disappointed by some of my teams I’ve had so far at WPI. I’ve had two or three projects (out of 9 or so) where I had at least one slacker in my group.</p>
<p>It might not be as bad as highschool, but don’t be expecting to always have reliable teammates.</p>
<p>I’m not a graduate of either Lafayette or WPI, but I recruit senior executives for a living now. I evaluate people 15 to 30 years after college.</p>
<p>First of all, I see many people who major in one thing and wind up doing something completeley different in their careers. To look at my college roommates 30 years out, a chemical engineer, psychology major and a political economy major became Wall Streeters. A history major wound up in medical devices, an anthropology major wound up running a nonprofit that rebuilds slummy neighborhoods and a geology major is a project manager for a waste removal company (he’s the only one who wound up doing something close to what he majored in).</p>
<p>I see very good people coming out of both WPI and Lafayette. The two schools are both very strong. WPI has more engineering courses; Lafayette has liberal arts options in addition to engineering. So many kids change their minds on what they want to do in the first year or two that I think it is not prudent to choose a school because they have a great robotics program. I went to Princeton, and saw numerous engineers change to any number of other non-technical degrees. Because Princeton, like Lafayette, has a full set of liberal arts majors, those kids didn’t have to transfer, and somethign like 97% of those who entered graduated from Princeton. Engineering schools have a lower graduation rate, in part because a lot of kids wash out of engineering and in part because they change their mind and decide upon a different major.</p>
<p>Lafayette has an advantage in endowment per student, and that is actually a fairly meaninful figure.</p>
<p>I would lean towards Lafayette if they are giving him $10,000 more.</p>
<p>However, the most important factor is which school he likes the best. Which school is in the preferred location for him? Which school has kids that he feels more comfortable with? Will he like a school iwth mostly guys like WPI? He’s going to be able to get a top education at either school. It’s not like he’s choosing between a large state university, Northeast Nowhere State and WPI. Both schools are small and known for their small classes, and have roughly similar academic reputations.</p>