<p>Maybe not for the OP’s son since he’s looking for more of a campus feel, but I feel I must put NJIT on the list since it’s in NJ. Crappy location/campus, good engineering education.</p>
<p>ETA: School colors are Red, White and Black :D</p>
<p>A friend’s daughter did engineering at Tufts and loved it. She’s also gainfully employed - another plus! It’s a good choice for someone who would like to do engineering at a school that isn’t dominated by engineers and with a normal M/F ratio. I think it provides a good contrast to schools like WPI and RPI. Another school to consider might be Stevens Institute of Technology (Hoboken, NJ).</p>
<p>Traffic can be bad in Boston, but I’d be surprised if it ever took an hour to get from Tufts to Northeastern. I don’t think it’s ever taken me much more than an hour to get from Gloucester to Tufts even in rush hour.</p>
<p>My son wouldn’t consider BU because it has no campus feel.</p>
<p>" plus he hates Orange. (he’s one of those kids where school colors could be a deal breaker. His sister told him the fire hydrants were painted orange)."</p>
<p>Uh oh, is this serious, or is it a joke? Look, I understand if he has a mental problem where certain colors really bother him. On the off chance that you are serious, I advise you to not to pamper this as an important issue. If you keep repeating that you can’t look at schools because they have certain colors, he will feel validated that this is actually something to consider. Don’t do that. Take him to visit schools that you think he might like regardless of school colors, and let him make the decision. That is really trivial, and you are indulging him by actually taking that seriously. Yes, he will have to deal with people in life who wear orange shoelaces, and orange shirts…and there are actually school colors that are worse than orange. I do cut my kid’s apples in a certain ways, and make sure the fat is off of their meat, and pamper them like crazy, but when it comes to significant things that might change the course of their lives, I can tell the difference between what is real and what is silliness.</p>
<p>I recommend you consider Bucknell (great engineering program, though their colors are blue and orange, oh nooo!), and Lehigh is very well respected (though brown as a school color is pretty dang ugly). Plus Carnegie Mellon is extremely good in the engineering department (but their school color is plaid, maybe even worse than orange), and he’d have to work his butt off. Plenty of school colors are just plain ugly, and to base a school decision off that is just plain ridiculous. You must recognize that, even if he doesn’t. He just doesn’t have anything else to go off of, at this point.</p>
<p>I loved plaid as a school color! (But they seem to default to red most of the time.)</p>
<p>There is a HUGE thread on silly reasons schools weren’t considered and not liking the color orange isn’t that far of a stretch. </p>
<p>Tons of schools out there so if orange doesn’t work for you, then it doesn’t.</p>
<p>I thought plaid was cool too, and the bagpipers even better.</p>
<p>Very interested in this thread as D3 is looking at mech engineering programs as well and last February we visited RPI, Union, BU and Tufts, among others. Unfortunately, she ruled out 3 of them. She had no idea if she wanted a tech school or not as RPI was the first she visited. RPI was ruled out because she loves languages and is hoping to keep up with her Spanish (would have loved to take a second language but knows that’s unlikely as an engineer) and RPI discontinued it’s language program a few years ago. She also recognizes the value of a well-rounded education and the person leading the info session essentially communicated that he understood if the CR scores weren’t particularly good because, as engineers/technical majors, writing “wasn’t all that important”. That hit my D particularly hard and gave her a negative impression…she wouldn’t even tour the school after the info session.</p>
<p>Union was really lovely but D determined it was just too small. </p>
<p>D has a cousin in the eng dept at BU and we visited with him before the eng tour there. I really wanted it to be a fit for D3 and she did too but cousin, who’s doing okay but not having the easiest time academically, said that 40-50% of the kids who start in eng don’t continue. I couldn’t believe it was that high so asked during the tour and the two kids leading us glanced at one another and looked a little uncomfortable but acknowledged that that is an accurate statistic. They also, with prodding and more diplomacy, said that the first two years are really a grind and the classes are not particularly dynamic, confirming what cousin had said. We were so disappointed as it could have been a good fit for D. For us, it was crossed off the list.</p>
<p>D loved Tufts (a reach, unfortunately) and has a few other reaches on her list but we’re trying to find more matches so I really appreciate this thread. D also likes Bucknell (D2 is there and it’s been a fabulous experience) and Case Western is on her list although we haven’t visited/don’t know too much about it yet. (My D’s search isn’t limited to the northeast).</p>
<p>Thanks to the OP – I hope more people will continue to post schools. Thank you for the link to ASEE.org. We started with the list found on abet.org as we were told D should only consider abet accredited programs.</p>
<p>collage1, you might want to check into Univ of Rochester. The curriculum there is flexible so your daughter could minor in Spanish if she wants and I believe they do a study abroad for engineering students in Madrid so her Spanish would come in handy.</p>
<p>Lakemom, you are the 4th person to mention Rochester in the last 3 days! Will definitely look at it with D–thank you.</p>
<p>University of Rochester is an excellent school. At the time we visited several years ago, there was no core curriculum, and as a result many many kids were double-majoring or even triple-majoring.</p>
<p>If your kid is into music, they are tied into Eastman.</p>
<p>The big drawback is the weather. Some kids don’t care, but for some kids, the prospect of months of grey skies and 10’s of feet of snow every year is a big turnoff. They were very proud of their underground tunnel system that let you get between buildings without having to go outside. That should tell you something…</p>
<p>If you go to Rochester, you should check out RIT while you are there. It is a co-op school, so will take an extra year for most kids. I personally found the campus to be one of the least attractive of any school we visited, DS didn’t care.</p>
<p>As a UofRochester parent, I have only good things to say about it. Engineering has grown rapidly there, though of course the definitions of what constitutes engineering have as well. It is an absolutely terrific school with tremendous research opportunities for undergrads.</p>
<p>Also agree that you should look at Bucknell. Look at it’s rankings for undergraduate engineering schools.</p>
<p>Is Rowan on the list? Look at the “college” boards and read Rowan’s postings. There is some discussion of engineering there, especially as compared to other schools. It is a good program and worth considering, especially considering the in-state tuition. Don’t just go for the “name” brands…</p>
<p>“Northeastern is a co-op school, meaning it takes most kids 5 years to graduate because you work for one year (you only pay for 4 years). It’s an urban campus, and doesn’t have much in the way of a campus-y” </p>
<p>The Northeastern co-op program is a great thing for the right student. All students go into co-op mode, with many of them still living on campus. The campus is in an urban location, but the core is surprisingly “campus-y”. </p>
<p>In contrast, to us (admittedly only on drive-by) BU seemed like a strip-mall campus layout.</p>
<p>this is why I love CC! thanks for the suggestions. We will do PA in September, since we can’t leave until the morning (hadn’t told S1 about the planned 6am departure time to get to Troy for the 9:30am tour) and Lehigh is a quick 1 hour drive. We will save the Boston trip until the November teachers convention break.</p>
<p>I didn’t notice a traffic problem when we visited WPI. It’s a small campus on a hill. Maybe you’re speaking of WPI buildings that are adjacent to but not directly on the main campus.</p>
<p>Back to the theme of this thread.</p>
<p>Is UPenn Engineering not on the OP’s radar? It is costly but it’s probably the second best engineering program in the Ivy League next to Cornell. Also, if you drive a bit further south into the MidAtlantic area, take a look at UMaryland Baltimore County. Really solid engineering and a fine all-around undergraduate environment.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You never mentioned his grades or why he wants engineering. That stat may have come from BU, but it applies to most schools to some extent. Engineering is the most difficult major. Many kids think they want it, then bail out when they can’t handle it or don’t like it. Your opinion that MIT and Olin are beyond reach tells me he might be someone who could struggle with engineering. My point is, you should focus on the schools’ overall fit, just in case he does change majors.</p>
<p>Geez Chardo, I am positive that there are plenty of engineers out there who were able to hack the classes without being Olin or MIT candidates. </p>
<p>Hard to believe but both of my kids never considered either school or any ivy and successfully were able to get into an engineering program, succeed and found jobs.</p>
<p>I think “tech schools” also tend to have lower attrition rates from engineering programs. At CMU within my major we only lost one (out of ~18) students from our engineering major. Some people were kind of expecting it since he was first string on the football team. He decided he could only hack it in pure math. ;)</p>
<p>^^ Of course there are, Deb, that’s why I asked about his grades. When OP says MIT and Olin are “beyond reach”, what does she mean? Is that because he is a B student? Is he strong in math (and does he like it)? Without more info, I’m just suggesting a focus on the overall fit, not just the engineering programs.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wouldn’t that be Princeton? In any event, if Olin is beyond his reach I would imagine the Ivies are as well.</p>