My daughter is pursuing industrial engineering as a major. She has already been accepted to Florida State, and been offered a substantial scholarship, and may receive more. She has also applied to Va. Tech. Tech is rated much higher, but is unlikely to offer any scholarships.
What’s the right thing to do? How do employers look at this? Is it better to save the money and go to grad school with it?
Our family’s decision is to attend the school with the merit $$. My oldest ds is a chemE who attend a small lower ranked public university. When he co-oped during college, he co-oped alongside kids from VT, GT, NCSU, and other higher ranked publics. At graduation, only he and one other of his co-op(ees) were offered jobs by that corp. He ended up with multiple job offers and now has a great career with a different corporation. (he did not accept the co-op company’s offer.)
Our current college student is attending Bama on full scholarship. He was accepted by top schools, but the cost differential was huge. He loves Bama. He is making the most of his opportunities there.
If your dd likes FSU, she should not feel compelled to attend VT.
Thanks! Love to hear many opinions and stories. Our concern was that the lower ranking may mean less job potential. We just didn’t know.
VT has fairly extensive post-graduation survey data:
http://www.career.vt.edu/scripts/PostGrad2006/Report/PostGraduationReportWelcome.asp?Cohort=2013-2014
Florida State has some post-graduation survey data:
http://www.career.fsu.edu/Resources/Salary-and-Hiring-Data
What is the college GPA needed to renew the scholarship at FSU? If it is high (meaning a high risk of losing the scholarship), how would FSU’s price compare without the scholarship?
In general, between two schools with ABET accredited engineering degree programs in the desired major (which the student is directly admitted to or can declare easily without having to face a high GPA or secondary admissions hurdle), that the price difference you may be referring to (especially if VT is out-of-state) is unlikely to be worth the money.
Thanks!
We have an emotional tie to VT and are trying to think through the same type of scenario (though our son wants to do computer science).
ETA: Are you guys from Florida?
@20112parent which scholarship did your daughter receive?
FSU
Three “Huge” Positives; Cost; FSU offers the standard IES courses/curriculum; students enjoy their time at FSU (something you see when you take the tour/meet some current students)
Some Negatives: Not as well recruited for ISE or engineering in general (a lot more ISE’s and engineers at VT, which leads to a significant amount of on-campus recruiting), She’ll need to put in extra effort to land an ISE related internship/co-op. It’s very doable, but be prepared to do the work.
It doesn’t have the breath in course offerings, as does VT or other large ISE programs. If she’s, like most ISE’s, is interested in manufacturing systems and/or supply chain management, it’s not a problem. If she’s interested in the more “esoteric” fields, like financial engineering, energy/water distribution systems and information/communications systems, she may not find them supported at FSU.
Since FSU’s engineering program is fairly small, compared to VT’s, she’ll find fewer engineering related clubs, design teams, and ECs. They have them, she will simply not have as large of a selection to choose from…
If VT’s cost was in the ballpark with FSU, it’s an easy choice, VT. However, OOS tuition at VT is $28,000+ a year, and if your daughter isn’t paying Tuition at FSU…that’s a lot of money. 
A harder choice will be between FSU and UF (I believe you mentioned on another thread that she also applied to UF). UF"s program is comparable to VT’s.
A side note, UCF also has a very strong ISE program, much stronger than FSU’s (IMHO). UCF has a decent engineering program, and ISE may be it’s strongest major.
Congrats on the scholarship!
Employers won’t care and won’t likely even know which one is “ranked higher”. And, employers will NOT pay the VT grad more.
If you ended up paying for VT, how would you feel if when your DD started her first job and her fellow new-hire was from FSU and went there on scholarship…and was now being paid the SAME as your DD?
how would you feel? Think about that. This will likely happen. Maybe the other school won’t be FSU, but it could be another similar school offering merit.
Agree with mom2collegekids. I have a Masters in IE, and have no clue where VT’s and FSU’s IE programs are ranked, It’s not that important.
I personally rate VT higher of the two, but FSU is a very good and respectable university. I’d take that full ride and run with it!!
I agree with @LBad96. Virginia Tech is ranked higher, but FSU is still a great school and a full scholarship is an opportunity that needs to be seriously considered.
@20112parent What ranking are you looking at? Grad school ranking?? If so, then why this thread? If the ranking is undergrad, what is the difference in ranking? (I didn’t think undergrad E disciplines were ranked beyond the top few).
Anyway, I think you’re worried about nothing. There would be virtually no notable difference in the two undergrad programs. Unless you’re wealthy and can throw away $120k+ and never miss it, then then the idea of going to VT for undergrad over some “who cares” grad school ranking is wasteful.
More to the point…many engineering majors end up changing their majors…sometimes to another E discipline, often to a completely different major. How would you feel if your DD gave up the FSU award, went to VT because you’re concerned over ranking of its grad school IE program, and then your DD changed her major??
After 40 years in engineering with most of that in management I can declare that one’s choice of college generally does not matter. Enjoy mentoring nieces and nephews. Only wish I learned to type instead of block print!
The crowd is right. VT is a better school for engineering, but not worth $100K+ more than FSU.
Husband is an IE from a small school in the midwest NO one recognizes. He works right along engineers from all over…Purdue, Columbia, etc. etc. Guess what? Through the years they all make the same $$ and pretty much all do the same work. He calls some of them boss and some of them have called him boss and report to him. He had very very little student debt when he graduated.
It is more important for her to obtain internships in the next few years and extra certifications like Six Sigma Black Belt, etc. Take the $$ and run!
FSU all the way.
However, it’s not unreasonable to ask if it’s worth the additional $ to attend one engineering school over another. It turns into a judgement call. In this case, it’s a fairly easy (for many of us) call, since the $ gap is so large.
Only the top 10-20 Engineering disciplines/ majors are ranked by US news, but VT’s ISE program is one of those ranked. It’s currently ranked #5, tied with Stanford and Northwestern.
From VT’s ISE website:
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However, it’s not unreasonable to ask if it’s worth the additional $ to attend one engineering school over another. It turns into a judgement call. In this case, it’s a fairly easy (for many of us) call, since the $ gap is so large.
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Absolutely…because the gap is so large.
And, people need to keep in mind…rankings are not an indication of “who has the best classroom instruction,” which I think many people assume.
And, for eng’g, it’s really not hard for a large, established private or state univ to have a very good program. This country and the 50 states have a vested interest in having LOTS of strong eng’g programs (The state of Calif alone has over 25 schools with very good eng’g programs). For anyone to think that only some top 20 ranked program can provide an excellent eng’g education is just not seeing the “whole picture.” Seriously, anything in the top 150 is certainly very good.
As to the question of whether it’s worth paying a smaller amount more (not this huge amount) for one school over another, I think many of us have gone down that road. My eng’g son was accepted to at least 2 schools with fine eng’g that would have been a little bit cheaper than the school he chose. The difference wasn’t huge, and we could easily afford the difference. The school he chose was a better fit for him…he’s very social and loves sports, so a rah rah school was better for him.
Just a heads up the major merit program at FSU is the Presidential Scholars program.
It is very competitive and requires an additional application and interview.
Along with an admissions offer, top candidates are invited to apply for the Presidential.
No one has been awarded or interviewed on campus yet for this award.
If the student in question has not actually gotten the FSU full ride, she can still see if she can lock it down through FAMU (automatic full ride with 3.5 GPA and 29 ACT (27 in state)). Same engineering, arbitrage opportunity.