Purdue is definitely a top choice if you want to do a lot of specialized electives in engineering.
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I think this pleads for Purdue. Use your AP credits to take lots of cool-sounding HSA classes freshman&sophomore year alongside your STEM classes, then Jr year switch to advanced electives.
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My son was in your shoes AP wise. He took his first graduate level class third year. Having advanced status from AP credit opens up multiple opportunities. You can take a lighter load, take more technical classes, take more non-technical classes, or do a combination of the above. I think Purdue also has a 4+1 BS/MS program, where they dual count hours to both degrees. You’d be nicely setup to pursue that route.
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First, if, as I understand, you’ve been accepted to both, huge congratulations. But are top programs and both are very competitive.
Like any LAC, Harvey Mudd is an amazing place, IF you are the sort of person who enjoys a LAC type environment. However, and this is important, there is a reason that only around 5% of all undergraduates attend a LAC. My kid did her undergraduate at a LAC and wouldn’t change it for anything, but we also know a number of kids who simply did not find their place at a LAC.
My kid actually visited HMC, and had a personal tour of the classes and the dorms, and loved it, but they don’t have her major (we visited at the request of a colleague of my wife’s who teaches there).
I will also comment that the HMC is connected to the rest of the Claremont Colleges - they are all physically adjacent to one another and you can take courses in any of the other colleges as well. That also means that the social scene is far larger than suggested by the fewer than 1,000 students who attend HMC.
In short, I don’t really think that there is any difference in what is available in general.
That being said, Purdue has two distinct advantages. First is cost. Unless your parents are affluent enough that $268,000 will not affect what they will be able to provide you after college, that is huge consideration. The second is that, if you are interested in aerospace engineering, Purdue is one of the top 5 programs in the country.
If, however, finances aren’t a problem, and you are more interested in ME, then choose the one that appeals to you the most by way of character. Based on what you wrote, though, you seem to prefer Purdue, but are intrigued by HMC because it is different than the standard engineering program, and by th efact that it isn’t in your home state.
BTW, I really don’t see Purdue as really being “among the cornfields”. I did grad school at UIUC and we visited Purdue a couple of times. Now UIUC is REALLY among the cornfields. You cannot get away from them anywhere. The Lafayette area really doesn’t have that same feel. It seems to be a very nice place to spend four years.
To summarize, I think that Purdue definitely has the edge, based on what you wrote that you are looking for, because of your major, and because of finances, but only an edge.
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I like Mudd’s smaller school environment, big focus on collaboration, and expansion of choosing an HSA ‘concentration’ at other 5Cs, along with students who have a wide variety of interests beyond stem. However, I am not entirely sure that I will not be able to find these things at purdue as well (other than the small school thing)
I think you think wrongly.
You will find collaborative kids and dual majors/minors with English, history, science, math, and more - because those happen many places.
If you want to go to Mudd and your folks are willing to shell out the difference, nothing wrong with that.
But you are forcing arguments that aren’t true to justify it.
Did you get aid at Mudd? Because the COA is $93K - and if you just take tuition, room and board - it’s $91K - a lot more than $83K ($32K more - and they’ll have annual increases).
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Students base decisions on all sorts of different (and often random) criteria such as mascots, food, weather, cheapest, rooms, school color, etc. Your reasons seem well researched and relevant to your own priorities.
Assuming it’s affordable follow your gut. Your opinions, evaluations and priorities are all that matter versus us strangers who don’t know you.
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Congratulations on two fantastic options!
If your parents can afford the extra costs of HMC without being financially strained (a significant assumption) and if you are more excited than intimidated by what you have heard of HMC’s curriculum (also a big assumption), I think HMC would be a terrific choice for someone interested in mechanical or aerospace engineering and grad school. Of course, so would Purdue! I feel more has been written about Purdue above so I just thought I would share a few thoughts on HMC.
HMC’s engineeeing program is clearly designed to be broadly applicable. This is a good thing if you aren’t certain what area of engineering you want to go into. But even if you are 100% certain you want to pursue aerospace or mechanical engineering, a broad foundation at the college level might serve you well later in ways that aren’t so obvious right now. I noticed, for example, that you mentioned studying EE as a negative. Those mechanical engineers working on, say, electric cars might feel otherwise. With more microprocessors finding their way into more components, it’s not a bad idea to have some CE exposure too. For that matter, materials engineering is hugely relevant to aerospace, as that’s often key to designing more efficient aircraft. Things in tech and engineering change more quickly than in other areas of STEM, and a strong, general foundation can help future proof an education. As I go down the list of engineering courses at HMC and count how many would have (near) zero relevance to mechanical or aerospace engineering, it comes to maybe 10%. You shouldn’t take my word for this, but if you or your family know someone in either field, it might be worth asking them for their impression of relevance of HMC’s courses to fields you are considering.
I would also say that HMC not taking APs isn’t necessarily a negative. The fact is, almost everyone entering there already has, so the depth and pace of their coursework will already assume some very basic exposure. The accelerated nature of their program is why their engineers are so sought after in both academia and industry alike.
You might want to consult outcomes measures. Payscale’s mid career earnings shows about a 50k/yr advantage for HMC, but that’s not really fair as not all Purdue majors will enter STEM. PhD outcomes, perhaps a partial proxy for MS placement as well, will show about an 800% advantage for HMC for engineering, but at least some of that again will be attributable to different major profiles amongst the students. Overall only Caltech has a higher PhD placement rate than HMC.
One thing I was surprised not to see above was mention of HMC’s fabulous and unique clinic program. (Perhaps I missed?) HMC students get hands-on work experience with companies in the LA area that often leads to job offers before graduating. Btw, LA is considered by some to be the #1 city for aerospace.
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/cities-with-aerospace-jobs
The Claremont Colleges are pretty unique. Imo, they are the closest thing to the “best of both worlds” situation where a student has the benefits of their own small liberal arts college but the broader community and resources approaching that of a university.
I don’t mean to come off as arguing that HMC is a better choice than Purdue, just that it might be a better choice for your interests than certain above comments implied. I hope that’s taken as the good news it’s meant to be! Congratulations once more!
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I’m in no way saying HMC is not the better option, but there are things here that need to be explained.
Geography and percentage of tech majors influence the Payscale data more than anything else. Worse yet, it’s all self reported. I never infer anything from Payscale.
According to College Scorecard the differential is about $18k. That can be attributed to the fact that the majority of Purdue grads stay in the Midwest where salaries, but also the cost of living are lower. The bulk of HMCs grads stay in CA.
PhD placement is partially based on the mission of the institution and thus the students they attract, but also partially based on the fact that they won’t have a full complement of tech classes in any given discipline. That’s not a strength or a weakness. It’s a philosophy.
Again, not saying one or the other are better. The data presented can be misinterpreted though without a deeper understanding.
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I think you are comparing CollegeScorecard data for general engineering (HMC) to aerospace (Purdue). Please note that in that case the data collection is 4 years out from graduation, not the mid-career point PayScale attempts to capture. Also, if comparing mecahnical engineering from Purdue to general engineering at HMC the difference is approx 19k at the 4 year mark.
Either way, I think the 4 year mark is a pretty limited collection point, particularly with a school like HMC where so many go to grad school. What percentage of their top students from a given class are enrolled at a grad school at that four year mark would be a matter of conjecture, but my guess is that it’s higher than from anywhere else other than Caltech.
It’s interesting that CollegeScorecard overall (all majors combined) earnings is taken 6 years out while major specific data is taken at the 4 year mark. Fwiw, at 6 years the difference with all majors is 50k with CollegeScorecard.
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I used ME at Purdue and GE at HMC. The difference is just over $18k. I corrected it above.
Cal, UCLA, Cal Poly, and Cal State Maritime MEs are all within a couple thousand dollars of HMC GEs. Are they all that much better than Purdue grads?
HMC GEs don’t just do ME though. Some do CompE. UCLA and Cal Poly CompEs out earn HMC GEs by $20k.
Again, my point is not to denigrate HMC. It’s a fine school. Pay data is influenced by many more things than undergraduate school. Comparing across whole institutions or trying to compare between two different majors is essentially a fruitless exercise. HMC doesn’t have a college of agriculture. They don’t teach early childhood education or art history. They offer a handful of STEM majors.
Payscale is self reported. College Scorecard isn’t. It’s limited to those who received federally subsidized grants and/or loans though.
People, let us keep the responses relevant to the OPs request for advice.
I definitely appreciate that they teach all those different subjects (including upper level chem and bio freshman year), I was stating ap credit to be a con for mudd bc it would infer that I will still have to take a year and a half of bio/chem at mudd, whereas at purdue i would only probably have to take one sem (or even none) of chem, and I’m not really a big fan of either. As for the diff types of engineering, I also understand how helpful it can be in the aerospace/mech field. However, personally, I don’t know if I necessarily want to take ee, compe, and cheme classes as I am not really interested in them. comparatively, Purdue only really has one ee course (a basic e&m class) and a wide variety of technical electives (while mudd only offers 3). I will take your advice on asking those in the field if it is really that useful to take so many different engineering principles, especially as someone who may not be super interested in multiple types of engineering.
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The biggest difference is choice. You will do more EE related things at Purdue than you’re anticipating though. The whole controls path (shown below in blue) is EE related. You could do even more should you find mechatronics interesting.
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We can agree to disagree about whether Payscale should be summarily disregarded in all instances as perhaps you suggest, but hopefully we can agree both it and College Scorecard have significant limitations. The good news is there’s a source for initial earnings not limited to just federal grant recipients, namely the colleges themselves. Interestingly, they show a differential about halfway between Payscale and College Scorecard, but it’s right out of the gate with first jobs. This may suggest an even larger differential than Payscale at the mid career mark.
Purdue has a nifty tool on their site that can be used to select the colleges of interest for earnings data. So it’s possible to select just Engineering and Science to see an average starting salary of 80k for 2022. Note you can also see the number of respondents, which appears to be 1017. From their degrees conferred page, there were 3,213 earners yielding a survey response rate of 31% if I’m not mistaken.
HMC has senior outcomes pages. For the same year (‘22) the median base starting salary was 117k plus 27k in bonuses. That page says the college had a 92% survey response rate.
So, disregarding the bonuses, the difference is about 37K. You are very right to point out cost of living differences, something I’ve done myself before. But I think it’s not the case every Purdue alum from ‘22 lives in a below average in cost of living state and every HMC in one of the most expensive. So imo a 46% bump in median salary would not completely disappear after adjusting for cost of living, though it would be much lower.
It’s possible both schools send similar percentages of their top students straight into grad school and therefore out of the earnings picture, but it seems likely HMC sends more given their second in nation PhD production rate (and what that implies for MS degrees). So I wouldn’t be surprised if the HMC median at year 1 were more negatively impacted (but made up for later when the cohorts finish grad school).
As an aside to the OP and others contemplating HMC then grad school, the last four years of HMC senior outcomes show a 100% success rate in matriculating into grad programs (142/142 in 2020-23, but only including a given year’s grads not all alumni in the period.)
It’s possible that the 60% lower survey reporting for Purdue has no significant bearing on median values, but it seems more likely to me that if 100% were included for both schools, the Purdue value would go down more than HMC’s, because my understanding is those still searching or under-employed tend to be less likely to respond to such surveys.
It’s also possible that comparing all HMC majors to all Purdue Engineering and Science majors skews the picture if HMC’s general engineering students earned notably less than their other students. But knowing what I do about HMC, I think that’s unlikely, especially for a college student interested in pursuing aerospace after HMC vs doing the same from Purdue, given the history of aerospace in LA.
BUT… if my child were choosing between these two schools and decided they preferred Purdue, I would be wholeheartedly in support of their decision! I think both schools are amazing, and certainly Purdue does have its own advantages above and beyond lower cost for residents. Even though I think earnings data is a fair input, I absolutely wouldn’t recommend prioritizing it above all else when choosing a college, even if higher earnings were a student’s primary objective — there’s just too much variability at the level of an individual. I usually recommend picking the school where a student feels they will be able to learn the most, assuming cost isn’t an issue. I think for many that choice between these two very reasonably would be Purdue. I simply felt OP might benefit from hearing more about HMC than it seemed they might’ve so far on the thread. I’d rather not find myself in a debate I never intended to start, so I would prefer not to dwell further on the interesting but noisy and messy topic of earnings.
You’re missing the point, and this is important for the OP to know. HMC grads overwhelmingly live in CA. Purdue grads, again, overwhelmingly…don’t. The only meaningful comparison is an HMC grad and and a Purdue grad DOING THE SAME JOB IN THE SAME STATE. I guarantee they’d make very similar money. Your references DO NOT capture that.
Now, respectfully, I’m done with this discussion. I think the OP has enough information to move on from this tangent.
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I was actually trying to acknowledge that point above when I agreed with it while also noting there’s of course some geographic dispersal post graduation. I haven’t seen data on that dispersal. The closest thing would be the common data set reporting approximately 50% of HMC students come from out of state. I would imagine more than 50% remain, but “overwhelming majority” sounds a bit strong to me given available data. If curious, Purdue’s CDS also shows about 50% from out of state.
Could the two posters debating potential earnings please take it to PM? Both points have been made. Let’s get back on-topic for the OP. Thank you.
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