This is more of a philosophical question:
Assuming other factors are more or less equivalent, should student choose School A, where the student’s chosen major (Chemical Engineering) is top-ranked, but the school itself is less highly regarded overall, or School B, which is more highly regarded overall and may have better alternatives should the student decide to leave Chemical Engineering, but the ChemE program at school B is not at the level of School A?
Thoughts?
I know so few students who end up majoring in what they thought they’d major in that my vote would be choose the school, not the department. But obviously every year kids head off to college with a major in mind- and end up in that major- but none of my kids, nor their friends, nor the kids of my friends.
One of my kids was a physics major for two weeks. Literally two weeks. Cheerfully pivoted- love the college but being the top physics kid in your HS and being a physics major surrounded by the top physics kids in the world (like- half the Olympiad winners!) was not the same thing!
You could get better advice if you named the two schools.
How good are schools A and B in alternative majors that the student may choose if they switch out of chemical engineering?
Also, consider whether there is any secondary admission process or weed-out requirements for the chemical engineering major (and any alternative majors) at schools A and B.
https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018434.pdf has some information about college students changing their major. It says that 33% of bachelor’s degree students who declared their major change major within the first three years. However, this does not capture those who enter as undeclared and changed major intentions while still undeclared (or were blocked from declaring their first intended major by not passing a secondary admission process to their major).
It does say that 32% of those who initially declared engineering and engineering technology changed their majors in the first three years. Engineering majors may be somewhat more likely to be declared on entry (frosh admission to major), but that is not true at all colleges.
FWIW, I majored in chemical engineering at a top 20 school not known for engineering. In fact, I regularly see posts here saying not to go there for engineering, engineering there isn’t good etc. I can tell you that it never hurt me. I got a good paying job right of college, as did all my friends. IMO if you go to a school that is known for being a good school and having smart kids, and the program is accredited, it doesn’t matter if it’s a top ranked program.
Like many questions of this type, the answer is “it depends”. What extra options does school B offer that school A doesn’t? And more importantly, how likely are you going to exercise those extra options? Everything being equal, having more options is always better. How much better depends on the likelihood that you’ll exercise these extra options. If their “worth” is sufficient to offset the deficiency of school B’s program compared to school A, then B would be a better choice. Otherwise, choose school A.
How likely are you to change your major?
For an undergraduate student, changing your major is quite common. If this is likely to happen to you, the strength of the university and the breadth of programs offered by the university are important.
If you are sure what your major is going to be, then the strength of the program is more important. However, there are students who are sure what their major will be, but six months later have a different major.
For graduate school, the strength of the program is more important.
However, I agree with @happy1 that naming the schools would allow you to get better advice.
I believe the program is important. It’s where you will be earning your degree and from where employers will hire. Nobody goes to college for an “overall” degree.
My D is at a school that is T10 in her engineering discipline and outside USNews’ Top 50 “overall” rankings. Top engineering employers heavily recruit and she already has two very good full-time job offers. I suspect many of the other majors at the school don’t receive the same attention, but that doesn’t affect her.
Yes, “if you need to change” may be a consideration, but a fairly pessimistic consideration we never factored in. You can always transfer to another school if your major doesn’t work out.
Having said that, it depends on the relative programs’ strengths.
One of her HS classmates had an offer from a T10 engineering major/outside T50 overall engineering/barely T100 school and chose the T15 major/T10 engineering/just outside T50 overall program that my D chose. In that case, the gap between T10 and “only” T15 was swamped by the fall off in strengths outside the one program. (Delaware and Purdue, ChemE, those interested).
So yes, the particular schools would help us provide feedback beyond conceptual/philosophical.
(Edited to add - of course, a student’s comfort level and ability to succeed at a specific school, based on visits, discussion, etc., weigh very heavily against any “ranking”)
My D is at the same T10 for engineering as @RichInPitt’s student.
My D is a junior chem e. Knew she was going to be a chem e since junior year in HS. Lots of exposure at her STEM HS to engineering courses, shadowing, etc… she had more than a dozen friends go into engineering from HS. Only one has changed major.
She turned down higher ranked schools but not because of rankings, but because of opportunities that her school offered.
I agree that knowing the schools would be helpful.
I agree that you need to consider @RichInPitt 's ETA comment. Just because a college is “a better school” does not mean it’s the better one for that particular student.
My D had this “choice” (I say that in quotation marks as at the time it was a choice of where to apply ED). She chose the better overall school, though not just for that reason. As it turns out she is one of the many students who has decided to change her major, and it turns out the school she chose has a (significantly) better program for her new major than the alternative school was. I almost want to say though, it is partly because of that - she took an elective in that department and loved it so much it sparked a new direction for her - so she may not have decided to change her major at the alternative and been perfectly happy there, had she chosen that. There are very few schools I think where one course is so “superior” to the offerings of the school as a whole, that “what if they change their major” should be an overriding factor.
Well. A close relative who graduated a T20 (ish…it is sometimes in the high teens and sometimes low 20s in the rankings) about 7 years ago got a job that had nothing to do with anything she studied (languages major, had switched from premed, job as a financial analyst at a large well known company). Said the interviewer literally said to her “excellent GPA from [school], you’ll easily be able to learn what you need to do the job”. I know this is just one anecdote, but I do think school matters. That said, as I already said before, I think it’s unusual to find a place where one specific program will so far outstrip the general reputation of the college to make the choice of program vs school a real issue, in terms of what it means for future prospects, in most instances. Your D’s example may be one of the exceptions. (Do you think this is more likely to happen in engineering vs humanities/social sciences, I wonder? - where the specific training you receive might be much more important than generally “learning how to write and research”?)
Thanks for all of the advice.
School A is the University of Delaware. School B is the University of Maryland - College Park.
We are Maryland residents, but DS can expect enough merit aid to make the price difference a fairly insignificant issue.
UMD has a very solid engineering program. Delaware has strong chem e ties to DuPont but I don’t think spending extra to go to U Del is worth it over UMD.
Also, the quality difference between ABET-accredited engineering programs is narrower than it may be in other majors due to the relatively high standards required for ABET accreditation.
This does not mean that all ABET-accredited programs in the same major are the same as is sometimes claimed. They may organize their curricula differently, some may have greater requirements that the minimum (that meets ABET accreditation) in technical subjects and/or humanities and social studies general education, and strength of subarea options within the major may differ between programs (as can be seen by looking at technical elective options within the major). These are all things that can affect how good an academic fit a given college’s program is for a given student, regardless of ranking.
This is in response to @RichInPitt:
So we are comparing UDel and UMD for ChemE. Not that we are placing that much stock in rankings, but ChemE at UDel is in the T10 while UMD comes in in the mid-30s.
Setting price aside for the moment, DS would have more current friends at UMD, and if he bails on ChemE but sticks with engineering, the other programs, as well as most non-engineering programs seem to be stronger at UMD. On the other hand, the campus at UDel seems to be more popular among commentators (we haven’t visited yet), the size seems to be more manageable, and the decent mountain biking is closer.
This isn’t necessarily a choice yet. He was admitted to ChemE at UDel, but no word of merit scholarship money thus far. (Enough is expected to put the annual costs within $10K of UMD, which would not be an issue.) He won’t hear from UMD until late January.
Ok, here is the update.
DS was granted a trustee’s scholarship along with honors college admission to UDel for ChemE. Better scholarship still a possibility, but not factored into discussion.
UMD (in-state) admitted him for Spring 2022 to “Letters & Science”, which means he would have to take the engineering pre-requisites before he is actually admitted to the College of Engineering. There is a program that would allow him to take classes in the Fall, but he would be last on the totem pole for requesting courses, unlike UDel, where he would have priority enrollment. His fall classes would all be after 3:30 p.m. No honors college. Tuition difference as of now is about $9K a year, which isn’t an issue. Since he wants to do ChemE and is admitted to the major at UDel, which is a T10 program, we are having a hard time figuring out why UMD would be a better choice. DS is concerned about rumors that the entire social scene at UDel revolves around getting blotto every Thursday to Sunday, which he wants no part of, and still thinks UMD has a better rep overall, but that’s about it. Thoughts?
Changing into an engineering major at UMD is subject to minimum grades and GPA followed by a competitive admission process (it appears that the minimum grades and GPA merely allow entering the competitive admission process, rather than assuring admission to the major, but ask directly to verify).
https://eng.umd.edu/transfer/internal
Note that since he was not admitted directly to the major, that means that those directly admitted had stronger high school credentials, so they may be tough competition in the grading curve in the beginning courses for the major that he needs to take and earn high grades in.
UMD grade distributions by course can be found here:
Going to Delaware with direct admission to chemical engineering is a lower risk choice if he is certain to want to major in chemical engineering.
Parent of 2 sons, one graduated and one in college now. S1 attended a college which heavily emphasized experiential learning with internships year round. Wanted to work in science museums. Created his own major, which was part of the educational framework at this college. Interned at multiple museums on both coasts happily throughout college. While he taught himself to program in high school, he never considered CS as a potential major. His college didn’t even have a major in CS. In his senior year, aiming to fill an elective, he took his first formal programming course offered by a visiting professor. Well, that year his final internship was at this visiting professors’ start-up, and some years later, S1 is now a senior engineer at Microsoft. S2 absolutely devoted to physics in high school. Made a thoughtful search of Uni’s with programs in chemical physics. Chose an R1 mid size Uni with strong physics program. Took a linguistics course to fulfill a writing requirement as a first year and is now heading toward a career in speech recognition/natural language processing. No more chemical physics. He’s fortunate the school he chose coincidentally had a good linguistics program with a computational focus, otherwise I’m not sure where he would have landed. In both cases, these 2 discovered a focus in college which overturned what they thought were committed directions. I was utterly surprised in both cases, and glad they landed in environments where their changing interests could be so well accommodated.