WPI vs RPI ...

I’m not sure about PhD programs, but my experience with my D (who was a freshman on page 2 of this thread and is now a senior at WPI) has applied to several masters programs. She is a BME major with a biomechanics concentration and wants to get her masters in ME with a biomech concentration. Her MQP advisor helped her pick some excellent programs and she has been fortunate enough to get into all of them so far (interestingly she is still waiting to hear from WPI but she has gotten into Cornell, GA Tech, and a few other selective programs).

After reading a thread on the Parents Forum about seeder classes in engineering programs, I want to point out that on e of the positive aspects of WPI (and I think RPI too) is that if they accept you, they hope to keep you and provide resources to help students that are struggling with particular courses. My daughter has not experienced any “wedding out” of students because of over enrolled programs.

^^^above should read weeder courses in the 2nd paragraph. And weeding out (not wedding out). Aargh. Posting mobily with auto correct is not my strength.

What I meant about PhD programs is that RPI has a stronger culture of undergraduate research than WPI. PhD programs are small and take in very few students and generally look for undergrad research.

Most undergrads are looking for to go directly into industry or get a masters though. In this case, undergraduate research is not particularly important. Even at universities with a very strong research culture like Cornell or GA Tech, most undergraduates are not interested in (and don’t do) research.

WPI prepared me well for life after college. I think it was a good fit for me.

I did get the impression that WPI (along with Stevens and Northeastern) are better prep for working after undergrad, and RPI is more theoretical, which would be better prep for grad school. That said, my son may well end up at RPI,
for other reasons (athletic), we’ll know soon, I think both are great schools, going to be hard to say no to either.

@blevine

Agreed though I think RPI also bends towards applied, just not as much as WPI. At either school, your coursework can align to either theoretical or practical. I think there are advantages to more theoretical programs, even at the undergrad level. It depends on how you learn.

Northeastern is an excellent school with an excellent co-op program. The co-op is a great opportunity for students, as is the MQP. But you don’t get guidance from a faculty member and the experience may vary greatly.

@frontpage Yes I know a student at NU and they had 2 coops arleady, one being far superior to the other in terms of having substantive work to perform and learn. Guidance is hit and miss like any job with any manager. Left to the kid and how aggressive they are to deal with the usual workplace issues. That has it’s pros and cons.

One other thing which I forgot to mention is the 7 week term. This is great for “quick learners” but not so great for “slow learners”.

What I mean by slow learner is people who prefer having a bit longer to have the material sink in and prefer more depth. Most other schools do 4-6 semester long courses and this pattern is better suited to “slow learners”. Some schools like Caltech go into a lot of depth and also have a fast pased 10-week quarter system. This is not suitable for most people. WPI students take 6-7 courses that are 7 weeks long and the classes feel somewhat hurried and occasionally sacrifice some depth. I consider myself “slow” in this regard. It’s not bad to be either, but it’s better to go to a school that matches your learning style.

As an example, in my AI class, my professor wanted to cover all 26 chapters of Russell and Norvig’s AI book in a 7 week course. This was very stressful and while I got an A, I don’t feel I recall the material particularly well and some of the course projects felt superficial (though this is an issue at many semester schools as well).

If you identify with “quick” then WPI would be a good choice.

@frontpage Question about the AI course, is it mainly a theory course or does the course also involve implementing real-life practical intelligent systems?

It was primarily a theory course but we also implemented some simple intelligent agents for game playing and a CSP solver.

@GraniteStateMom can’t say about WPI, but my D is a freshman at RPI and said there are definitely some “weed out” courses in engineering

I would think some students would welcome the ability to focus on 3 courses, and have only 3 professors
competing for your time on homework, projects and test schedules. Yes faster pace, but more concentrated.
Having had an older son in a program where they took 5 courses in a traditional semester, the opposite extreme
can be stressful too. You still need to move fast, so you can move onto the other 4 classes demanding your time.
I am sure it’s different, but to say you can be slow when taking 5 full semester courses is not a true picture.
I think for most people the 4 courses in a full semester would truly be a bit slower a pace, but seems many colleges are forcing students to take five 3 credit classes instead of four 4 credit classes. I don’t care how many credits,
you need to read the text, usually complete some project/essay, and study for midterms/finals for each class.

@blevine

I wasn’t making a universal generalization that students have much more slack in semester school. Most schools use the semester system and some semester schools like UC Berkeley and Harvard are highly rigorous. I’m just saying that more courses with slightly more depth at a less hurried pace and is better for some people (including, I would think, myself). You get more time for concepts to sink in (though there are more courses competing for your time). But still, you have more time to sleep over specific concepts you’re learning and the professors get more time to go in depth on specific topics of their interest and assign longer projects.

WPI sometimes has a sequence of two (or three) 7-week courses for topics that need more depth. Ones that come off the top of my mind are the Advanced Calculus (Real Analysis) course and the Microelectronics courses.

The 7-week terms do work very well for many people. Some people would prefer to devote their complete attention to a smaller set of things rather than juggle their time between many different things.

I wasn’t not saying the volume of learning is vastly different but that the style is different. I think the semester system is better where concepts build on each other, as is the case in science courses.

That’s why I parenthesized “slow” and “fast”; I couldn’t think of a better term to communicate what I wanted to say.

@insanedreamer - interesting. I guess, in a way, all schools do since my D knows plenty of students at WPI who changed their major from engineering because they couldn’t handle the rigor of some of the science and math courses during their first (or sometimes second) year.

That said, my point was referring back to another thread about schools that purposefully accept more students into engineering than they intend to graduate and, therefore, curve classes so that a certain percentage fail. This is not the case at WPI and unless things have changed greatly at RPI since my daughter was accepted (or the things she was told weren’t true), this isn’t the case there either. Between pre-admisdion visits, accepted student days, and visits with coaches, she was told that RPI offers many resources to help students be successful academically including someone in the freshman dorms that monitor grades, a tutoring center, and mandatory study halls for athletes. She was told by one of deans that the school sees the potential in all of the students it accepts and provides the resources to help the students it admits be academically successful. That also seems to be the philosophy at WPI (and many other schools). Certainly there are students that can’t handle the rigor or pace at both schools - an engineering curriculum is very challenging - but that’s far different from schools that actively seek to lower their numbers.

@GraniteStateMom I haven’t visited but I don’t get the impression from what my D (an engineering major) has told me that RPI is actively trying to weed students out, just that some courses are known to be especially tough and only the strongest survive them.

@GraniteStateMom

This is the feeling that I got at WPI as well. Though there were some students who didn’t make it through engineering and switched to the management minor.

But there were times where I felt that the weaker students held back faculty from assigning projects that would challenge the strongest students. This was not the case with the MQP though. In the PL course, there was an option where taking an easier project would cap your grade to a “B”. I think that sort of system balances the needs of weaker and stronger students.

As far as weeding out, my older son is at a large highly competitive univ, where there is a high level of rigor in many majors, and of course engineering (where majority of freshman came in with 800 Math SAT). He is taking those freshman and soph “weed out” math/science courses now. His friend got 40/100 on his first soph level calc class test.
Prof immediately emailed the student to come in and see him for help. My own son started off in business/liberal arts, he decided to change to pursue eng. The school has made every effort to help him with this difficult transition.
Both the colleges within the univ he is transferring from and to have advisors who are very helpful.
While I get the feeling they truly want these very bright kids to succeed, there certainly are some very difficult course
and SAT scores can’t predict fully your ability much less your effort level. My son realized for the first time he
has to work harder than in HS, to do well in his Chem 101 (hates Chem but required of course). After getting a bad
grade on 1st Chem test he said, there are resources and I have to work harder. Not all 18-19 year old kids will
take responsibility in that way. I don’t care what school you attend, you need to work hard and take advantage of help in courses you find difficult. The one negative I do see at his large univ is some grad students are not willing resources for help, and profs are busier with more students. But the college of engineering at that large U is still smaller than
the engineering school within RPI and WPI, so I am assuming you have access to similar levels of personal attention at any of these. WPI is a bit smaller avg class size, I would assume slightly better support. Everyone will have a story about a bad prof or TA but heard more good things about happy WPI students. Also don’t underestimate the value of peer resources. Very smart kids at both schools, and I hear willing to help each other.

@blevine

Agreed that SAT scores are not a good predictor of college preparation. Especially if you slack off since think you will have an easier time because you are above the 75th percentile… It’s not a particularly strong indicator of ability either, but is necessary to normalize the performance of students from high schools with varying levels of rigor…

I think weed out is eliminating students who don’t understand the basics. WPI in my opinion should be doing this more. These students in my opinion slow everyone else down, though they can (and should) be encouraged to study better. Math especially is the language of engineering and all engineering students should understand linear algebra and differential equations cold. State space representations, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, Markov chains. Ideally a more theoretical follow up course as well.

M.A.S.H is a great resource at WPI. If you’re not doing well in your intro science or math classes. It’s possible you’re doing poorly since you don’t know how to study rather than you are not capable. Many including myself learned how to study in college.

WPI is good in this aspect, to learn how to study, as the environment isn’t too competitive. But you should make sure you are understanding what you are learning. And it’s also OK to go deeper in the material or learn more than what you need for the exam if you enjoy the material and are inclined to do this. But make sure you understand the basics well. Everything builds on the basics. Being able to distill what is basic or fundamental to the topic is one of the most important things I learned from of my education. And if you understand the basics very well, the exam will not be hard.

WPI and RPI have similar retention rates from freshman to sophomore year, indicating similar “weed out” rates.

WPI does have the NR system, which seems on the surface to make it easier to get through freshman year. What it also means, though, is anything less than a C is unacceptable, whereas other schools will accept a D. I actually like this aspect of the NR policy. NR’ing is not uncommon - my freshman daughter knows quite a few who have NR’d basic classes, like calc, physics, and chem. If you don’t know the material well enough to earn a C, then you have to repeat it. The gentle side of the policy is the 1.0 doesn’t show up in your GPA, and the curriculum has 3 NR’s built-in. So, 3 or fewer NR’s and one can theoretically still graduate on time. Merit awards are impacted by NR’s, but I don’t know how that works. I believe, that more than 3 NR’s puts a students enrollment in jeopardy, but not sure about that either.

I agree with @frontpage, there is plenty of help at WPI, and students do need to make use all the available resources. They also need to learn that fundamental understanding matters. This can be a hard lesson for some.

Both came in at similar net cost to us, leaning towards RPI due to athletic opportunity.
Loved both schools, glad my S has option of both. Home stretch, have to send in deposit soon!

RPI