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Chiming in as a “normal” WashU engineering student. WashU accepts a ton of 3-2 students from a variety of LAC’s, so I know a good handful of people who have done this.</p>
<p>For some people, it’s a great opportunity. However, none of the people I know had the chance to do more than one internship, which has already been mentioned as a problem.</p>
<p>Also of note: when you do this, you’re taking a HUGE risk. I know people that got math/physics BA’s at their 3 school… only to learn after year 1 of the 2 that they hate engineering. One person I know got a math BA … and is now getting a second math BA at WashU because of this. 5 years for 2 BA’s in the same thing? That’s crazy.</p>
<p>It would have been much better for him to have gone to a school that had an engineering program and find out much earlier that engineering wasn’t for him.</p>
<p>Another fun tidbit - a lot of students come to WashU from these LAC’s and cannot handle the work load. In some (not all) cases their LAC’s simply weren’t as demanding and they seriously struggle when they get here (I’d imagine it’d be similar with Columbia, etc). </p>
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Agreeing with Banjo for sure. No degree is going to make up for lack of experience, at least according to the people I’ve worked for. They’ve all said they’d rather take a low-tier state school student with a track record of good experience over a top-school student with 0 experience.</p>
<p>edit: heh. didn’t realize how old this was. Either way the top part of my post is still applicable I guess.</p>