<p>HI,
I recently received my acceptances from each of these schools. RPI and WPI are comparable in price, and Uconn is about half of that price for me. I am interested in Aerospace Engineering, and I had a 4.2 GPA in high school with a 32 ACT and a 2160 SAT. I am interested in sports, namely track, and I would be interested in joining the team at RPI or WPI. What makes RPI stand out from these schools specifically? What type of employers have been known to frequent RPI upon graduation? Can anyone comment on the openness of astronautics in their Aerospace program? Is there a strong social scene (not necessarily parties) outside of the Fraternities? I have a month to make my decision, and your help is greatly needed.
Thanks!</p>
<p>PS if any of you can comment on the social life at Uconn compared to that of WPI or RPI i would be appreciative. Also, how do RPI's academics, social life, etc compare to those of WPI? Thanks again!</p>
<p>I hope you are going to the admitted students days. DS has a similar question, different schools, different major. Good luck.</p>
<p>We have a one nearly full ride, two 50% rides, and one instate. </p>
<p>When my DD was looking at northeastern boarding schools a few years back the admissions director of Exeter Academy (top three boarding school) said the following.</p>
<p>The new game is not getting into an ivy but to attend a school where you will thrive and they will pay the bill. Graduate with as little debt as possible and be near the top of your class. Prestige only really counts for graduate school. Take a look where HBS graduates attended undergaduate. You are a much better candidate if you have As from little known college than B&Cs from an ivy. Recently a friend asked an admissions officer at Stanford’s graduate engineering school about the new pool of accepted students. He said the striking stat was how many were from schools you have never heard of. </p>
<p>An acquaintence’s son attended Princeton for crew. He had a hell of a time dropping out twice. He finally graduated but having a hard time getting into the graduate school of choice because of his lower grades. </p>
<p>Go where you a get a good education, good grades, and low tuition.</p>
<p>I am definitely going to their admitted students days, but when I visited these campuses the last time, WPI was the only one to put on a sales pitch, and a recent statistic that I heard about the school being “20th happiest school in the nation” backed up this pitch. However, RPI’s reputation over that of WPI for its academics and its reputation in the Aerospace field is much stronger. Uconn’s low tuition is its main draw.</p>
<p>Hello rocketman1! I am a current Aerospace and Mechanical engineering freshman at RPI and I do track and field here as well! I love it here. RPI is a hiring ground by Boeing, literally we use the same engineering design software boeing does. (NX) If you look here: RPI’s highest employers are Lockweed martin and Boeing (<a href=“Home | Career and Professional Development”>Home | Career and Professional Development)
The thing with RPI’s aerospace program is that you can choose to concentrate on Fluid Dynamics/Aerodynamics,Advanced Structures/Materials,Optimization,Space, and Combustion/Propulsion. When you take the first aero class (fundamentals of flight, which you take second semester freshman year). You can ask the professor for research opportunies in the following areas.
You will find a strong social scene with the track team. Besides my fraternity, the people in my floor, and the people I know from classes the track team is very tight. We eat together and I am even rooming with a teammate of mine next year. Despite what you may have heard, the social scene at RPI is pretty good!!! The only people who complain about it are the people who just sit in their room all day and do nothing so then they go on college rating websites and write about why they hate RPI. But if you talk to people, you will enjoy this place very much.
Both WPI and RPI are fantastic schools. You will not go wrong with either one. But if you look here: [The</a> World’s Best Engineering Schools - Business Insider](<a href=“The World's Best Engineering Schools”>The World's Best Engineering Schools), and even US News, we are ranked as better engineering schools than WPI and UConn.
I would like to talk to you more on fb. Please join the class of 2017 forum:
<a href=“https://www.facebook.com/groups/389072001182180/[/url]”>https://www.facebook.com/groups/389072001182180/</a></p>
<p>cortana431, Are you speaking to the growing college town at Uconn? Because neither surrounding area (RPI or WPI) seems that good. Uconn’s campus didn’t seem especially warm though, and RPI and WPI’s campuses felt warmer even with their rough neighborhoods.</p>
<p>I visited both WPI and RPI with my daughter. She and I felt that the campus and reputation of RPI were clearly a cut above WPI. Beyond that, my daughter is a athlete and the athletic facilities and department seem top notch at RPI; better that the Division 1 programs she looked at, with the added benefit of being Division 3, so the academics come first.</p>
<p>As far as the social scene, my daughter’s idea of a good time is playing sports and building things like boats and cars with other like minded young people. No shortage of those opportunities at RPI.</p>
<p>deerpathdave, I had the same feeling about the reputation and the campuses, but can you pick out what exactly about the campuses was different, excluding their sizes of course? Also, I didn’t have an opportunity to see the athletic fields/equipment at WPI as it was under construction when I visited.</p>
<p>Well we did the standard tour of both WPI and RPI at first and the facilities are generally newer overall at RPI. Something about a huge anonymous donation several years ago that poured alot of money into the facilities.</p>
<p>We went back to RPI during the Open House when they had the labs open and students manning displays. The labs are fantastic. Machine Shop, Robotics Lab, Wind tunnel just to name a few. More importantly, there were multiple opportunities to talk to students one on one and I would say just about every one seemed great in one way or another. This is what really sold her.</p>
<p>The same day we went and met a coach and got a tour of the athletic facilities. I can’t say I have ever seen a nicer weight room.</p>
<p>As far as reputation, I compared all the numbers I could find on a number of the schools. I put alot of stock in comparing average SAT scores of incoming freshman. This goes directly to how selective they are. By this measure, I had Lehigh, Bucknell, Lafayette and RPI as roughly the same. The Ivy’s are a step above and WPI and Stevens come in a step below. I wanted my daughter to be in a competitive environment, but not in over her head. Her test scores are right at the RPI average, so we felt it was a good fit for her. Don’t get me wrong. WPI and Stevens are very good schools as well. I really don’t think she would have gone wrong with any of the schools discussed here.</p>