Montegut

There are lots of kids from the Illinois area at Bama. We just went for Parents Weekend and met at least five Chicago area families with kids in engineering. I'm not sure about scholarship opportunities for transfer students, but I know for incoming freshmen, kids that don't have the stats for full scholarships get pretty close to full tuition if they major in engineering, thanks to some very generous benefactors who provide additional scholarships to stack on top of partial tuition scholarships. As for engineering at Bama, we were amazed at the new engineering buildings on campus and the state of the art labs and classrooms. I would highly recommend applying there.

samdude3

I would love to go to a school like Bama but there are two problems...

1) I will be a transfer student. I have heard that transfer students do not get the same financial aid help as those who are entering as freshman.

2) I am a little weary of going to an out of state school because I am 24 (will be 25 at the time of application) and fear how I would fit in with the "younger" students.

Davisra

Boneh3ad: You've made some very valid points. We live in the Madison area and have a son looking at engineering schools. His heart is set on Purdue - he loves the campus and the overall "feel" but I worry that we can't afford the out-of-state tuition as we're already paying for daughter in nursing school. His GPA/ACT scores aren't stellar enough to get him much in the way of merit aid & we make too much to qualify for needs-based aid. I don't have the "hard facts" to back up the Platteville info - it's strictly what I've heard from a fellow hockey mom who works for the State of Wis. as an environmental engineer, a neighbor lady whose 2 nephews went there, loved it and are now working for Chicago-area engineering firms earning $100,000+/year, etc. Probably not enough for most people posting here to go on - just observations from a mom searching for options for my own kid. Of the many people I've spoken to I've heard nothing but positive things about the engineering program at Platteville. I admit I was surprised to hear the comparisons to Madison grads - most of the kids going there stick their noses up at those going to Platteville ("couldn't get into Madison, huh?"). Maybe that type of attitude makes the kids going to Platteville work harder and more appreciative of the opportunities they have. I do agree that the kids from Platteville aren't going to be recruited by the companies that want kids from MIT.