Background: our son applied to twelve colleges, all large with good sports programs (he cares), and so far he’s been accepted to six and still waiting to hear from six. I can already see the dilemma ahead of us: does he follow the money or go for a higher USNews ranking? He has pretty high stats, and I think there’s a decent or at least realistic chance that he’ll get into Maryland, NC State, Purdue, VaTech and a few others to join the ones that he’s already been accepted to (Delaware, Alabama, U South Carolina, Auburn, WVU and Tennessee). He’s been accepted into the engineering dept in all, track #1 engineering at WVU.
WVU, Alabama and South Carolina are coming forward with tremendous merit aid. All six we’ve heard from have offered at least $10k/yr, but those three are considerably more.
And to the question: our son is ready to pull the trigger on WVU. He’s already looking at housing. He visited twice and really likes it. Does anyone have any experience with the engineering group at WVU, or any insight into the pros and cons of going for large merit aid vs. a higher USN ranking? Any other thoughts on this? Neither my wife nor I are college grads, and we’d like to get some outside perspective on this.
WVU is highly regarded for engineering. I work for a company that hires software engineers and we have a lot of WVU grads. Of the schools he’s been accepted to, that seems like an excellent choice. The colleges he’s waiting to hear from are very good, but I wouldn’t pick one of them with no merit over WVU. They may be higher ranked, but Not enough higher to warrant dramatically higher price tags. Purdue may be the exception. I don’t know anything about Purdue.
Perdue has a really national level reputation in some of these fields and u Maryland cp not far behind . Auburn would be the most idyllic combination of a college campus school pride sports alumni network and solid academics in thr group imho. But this is personal preference in my part. However I have no connection to any of these schools. But I do have experience visiting and knowing grads from nearly all. Hear an awful lot of tremendous things about u of sc as well. WVU is excellent too in many ways.
Cost of attendence being equal and all seem like a good fit after visiting or in depth research. I personally would be Perdue auburn Maryland u of sc then wvu.
If money were not the same I would reorder the list according to that metric.
If the student would not feel like it was a good cultural or campus atmosphere. That’s would be a no go unless the money situation would t allow for anything else. And not out you in an any financial hole or rob from your retirement or require home equity loans etc. that would be a full stop no go. All the schools are excellent and it won’t matter that much long term for the students future employment etc.
The US News rankings mean very little. Look at how the rankings are produced and then decide if they really are a full measure.
Engineering, furthermore, is much “flatter” than many other majors. When you hire a poli-sci major at your consulting firm you are betting on a lot of intangibles so it makes sense to favor prestigious schools. Engineering is not the same.
Engineers at an ABET program take roughly the same classes no matter where they go. They learn skills easily assessable in interviews. So aside from a few elites like Caltech & MIT or the bottom range at colleges where just about anyone who applies is accepted, most engineering students fall into a wide middle basket and are viewed more or less the same. What will matter to your son is not the name on the diploma, it will be his grades and whether he found internships while in school.
The concern you should have, IMHO, isn’t the program ranking but whether your son will see the program thru. Nationally about 1/2 of all engineering students drop out of the major. It is tough work and kids see their friends having a lot more fun and free time. Has your son spoken with engineers, perhaps shadowed some, or done other things to know the career is really a fit? I think most kids admitted could have made it thru, they throw in the towel either because they find something else they’d prefer or never had a lot of motivation to become an engineer in the first place.
@MarylandDad64 Glad you posted this question. We are exactly in the same boat. Visited, applied, and accepted to Track 1 Engineering at WVU and offered $17k in annual scholarship plus admittance to the Honors College. Look forward to reading the thread.
Thank you Mikemac for the input and questions. Very helpful. Yes, my son has an engineering internship in high school and really enjoys the work. And I have discussed with him that not only does he have to stick with it in college but also that he has to maintain his scholarship GPA. He seems to be quite serious about it so I’m hopeful.
Spqr70nj- Interesting, isn’t it? We are on vacation At deep creek lake maryland and today took a quick trip over to WVU. It was my wife’s first visit. Interestingly, my son is talking more and more as if it is already his campus. We already rolled the dice and put a deposit on a room at the Evansdale campus since he does seem to be leaning this way.
One very cool thing about it is that you can walk to the stadium for football, and you can walk to the Coliseum for basketball. How awesome would that be on game today? It’s that close. And of course it’s right near most of the engineering classes although there would certainly be some freshman classes downtown. Please let us know what you decide to do.
@MarylandDad64 Definitely. My god-daughter attends now as a sophomore and we toured over the summer. Evansdale would definitely be the campus where I’d want him since most of his classes are there and for the other reasons you pointed out.