@blevine Congratulations to your son! It’s a great decision to have to make. For us, it literally came down to the last few hours before decisions were due following a final trip to each school. Best of luck to him regardless of where he ends up.
Thanks !
I’m glad the two schools ended up similar financially. He has two great choices. Is his sport not available at WPI?
Coaches showed more interest at RPI. Got larger scholarships from Stevens and RPI than WPI, but nothing from NU.
As a parent I loved all 4 schools, for different reasons, but of course cost knocked out NU. Was up to my son to pick among the others, and he picked RPI. His love of robotics and proximity to Boston would have made WPI as great choice as well, but you can only pick one. Good luck to those who are going to WPI.
I suspect that the average test score of 40/100 in a first year university/college class is not a new game. In most challenging schools their is a need to establish/introduce new students to a higher level of understanding than they experienced in secondary school. When all freshmen are wearing their HS honor pins and feeling, rightfully proud, of their HS accomplishments arrive into an entire class of high achieving students, the bar needs to be raised to set a better understanding of the new goals. The purpose is not to intimidate, but to help the new students to reach higher.
In my first year physics class at WPI in 1963 (long time ago), the average test score on the first exam was 35/100. The exam was proctored by a German physics refugees with a heavy accent… it was right out of the WWII epoch movies! The same professor ate in the students dinning hall and was trying to eat lunch while I ranted on excitedly about the linear accelerator I had built in a HS science project. He listened politely and simply noted that I still had a long way to go before I would become a physicist. This delivered a mixed message to the new freshman who loved physics but married economics!
Teaching well is a remarkably challenging job no matter how the student has been prepared because a good teacher always wants the student to reach a little higher (and I don’t mean SAT scores).