Help with Engineering decision [Ohio State vs NC State vs Minnesota Twin Cities vs Cincinnati]

S24 is blessed to have options. I know very little about Engineering. Top choices so far are Ohio State, NC State, Minnesota Twin Cities and Cincinnati (because of co-op program). Does any one of these programs stand out among the others? Would love to hear from any engineers if you are out there. Other acceptances that are less affordable are Wisconsin - Madison, Penn State, Rutgers & SUNY Buffalo.

All of those schools are great for engineering. Does your son know what specific major he wants yet?

Of your top 4 choices, are they all affordable without loans? Has he visited any of them? If so, what are his thoughts?

Undergrad enrollment is 46K at Ohio State (~10K engineering), 38K at Cincinnati (~5K engineering), 30K at Minnesota (5800 engineering), and 26K at NC State (>10K engineering). The total enrollments aren’t wildly different, but Cincinnati and Minnesota’s engineering programs are half the size of NC and Ohio (that would have been a pro for our kid, but would be a con for some).

There are lots of jobs for engineers. However, getting your foot in the door for your first engineering job can be tough. It’s much easier if you have some internships or co-ops. But getting your foot in the door for internships and co-ops can also be hard. Personally, I’d give a big bump to the schools with co-ops that are either mandatory or are very common and well-supported, because that was important to our kid (won’t be for everyone). My son was happy with his admissions outcomes but I wish we’d known about Cincinnati when he applied!

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Wow. He did fantastic. You want to go to a school that is a great fit, he feels comfortable and is affordable. You can play the rank game and look up what kind of engineering he wants to go into and go to that school. But if all are ABET certified their learning experience will be similar. He can look at opportunities, clubs, activities etc on campus that maybe one school offers vs another. All solid choices BTW.
My son graduated from Michigan a few years y+ago and works for an international company. They have kids from OSU, Michigan,Georgia Tech, Cincinnati, Penn State and many international from Sweden, Poland and Latvia…

So as you can see, once hired he most likely will be among others at schools that are higher and much lower ranked. They are all starting at the same level though. Hope that makes sense. If he just feels more comfortable at one school vs another then that is a great reason. If comfortable on campus the likelihood to succeed should be. higher. Look at things like if he needs to switch majors (it happens) within engineering is there a school that is much harder to do that at @ucbalumnus what did you find?

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Not always :slight_smile: Now you have to make decisions.

Kidding - those are three wonderful schools.

Most if not all schools allow a co op - including the three you list in the title. Co Ops are main stream now.

I think all three are great.

OSU is enormous. It doesn’t mean the part of the campus you’d necessarily utilize is huge - but when we visited the 2nd time (different kid), it was just…large. It’s in Columbus a few miles from down town but feels suburban.

UMN is in the city. Like - really in the city.

NC State - like OSU, a bit offset from the city. The main thing here is that you have a decent walk or bus ride to the engineering campus which is separated from the main campus.

As far as which is better - I’d say they’re all substitutional - as are more ABET schools. Some have specialties - for example, UMN is known for chemical.

But even with that - I don’t think it matters.

Three great choices.

Best of luck to your student.

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This to me is a large factor. Being able to get internships, co-ops and jobs shouldn’t be that difficult. Some schools have more support then others. Also how is the academic support at each school. Engineering is very tough. Most kids need some type of support academically and some schools do it better than others.

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For my aspiring engineer, an important factor was whether there were secondary admission requirements to his desired major. Do any of these engineering programs require freshmen to achieve a certain GPA in their first-year classes/pre-requisites or have other gating items limiting the number of students who can declare an engineering major? That was a big negative for my son since he didn’t like the uncertainty, and he felt it created a more competitive - rather than collaborative - environment.

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NCSU has competitive secondary admission to engineering majors.

Minnesota also, but 3.2 college GPA assures admission to any engineering major.

Ohio State has competitive secondary admission, and some majors require having been frosh admitted to the pre-major.

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This could change in the future for CS at UMN.

Meaning that secondary admission to CS at Minnesota will likely have a competitively determined threshold GPA higher than the 3.2 that was the historical automatic admission GPA for any major in the engineering division.

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The direct admit engineering majors at Ohio State are:

Direct-enrolled majors

Freshmen admitted to the Ohio State Columbus campus interested in the following programs will be directly enrolled in their major. No major application is required.

  • Aviation*
  • Chemical Engineering
  • Civil Engineering
  • Electrical and Computer Engineering
  • Engineering Physics
  • Environmental Engineering
  • Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering
  • Industrial & Systems Engineering
  • Materials Science and Engineering
  • Welding Engineering

Admitted freshmen interested in switching into any of the listed majors above have until May 15 to contact University Admissions to have their major updated.

*Direct enrollment into the Aviation Engineering major is available. However, the Professional Pilot Certification (PPC) continues to have limited space and students will need to request joining the specialization separately from enrolling in the Aviation Engineering Major. Please see Professional Pilot Specialization for additional information.

from New Students

Also from link above:

Pre-majors

Students interested in these programs must indicate one of the majors on the Common Application. Students will not have the ability to switch into one of the four pre-majors. Only students in these pre-majors may apply to their respective major. For example, only biomedical pre-majors are permitted to apply to the biomedical engineering major.

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Computer Science and Engineering (ENG) / Computer and Information Science (ASC)
  • Mechanical Engineering

Admitted freshmen interested in switching into any of the listed pre-majors above have until May 15 to contact University Admissions to have their major updated.

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What major is your student?

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Biomedical engineering

Yes, and Minnesota is the only one we haven’t been to yet. Planning to check out admitted students day there. But he liked all of them so far just fine. Are smaller engineering programs better because of faculty being able to provide more attention to individual students? I am definitely intrigued by the mandatory co-op program at UC.

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If you mean the specific type of engineering then yes. Otherwise he was direct admit to engineering

Check out co op at each of them. While not required at the others, it’s certainly an option as most colleges have co op.

Also are they any living situations - LLCs that might interest him ? You can look at those.

Finally career outcomes in the major…but best is what you’ve done - he visits and which feels best. Of course multiple schools can be good because there’s likely many where he can excel.

Schools should also have detailed career outcome reports. If not online, ask for them to send you. By major. By job, location and salary.

UMN has just basic info but to get an idea. Ask for details.

https://apps.oirp.ncsu.edu/pgem/index.cfm?action=main.summary

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Thank you. Yes, he put
BME on his common app. OSU shows that as his intended major.

FWIW (not much) my D22 has a friend doing Biomedical at NCState and she really likes it.

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Congratulations! So she’s in the dual enrollment for BME with UNC Chapel Hill? Can you share more about that? That’s one of my son’s key reasons for NSCU. I myself loved the feel of the engineering campus at NCSU on our visit and felt like it would be a great fit for him. But we didn’t tour main campus.

I can’t share more info unfortunately. I just saw her the other day when my D22 was home and asked her if she liked it and she said she did. She did one year at UNC-A in the 1+3 program.

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My D did BME at Ohio State. She thought it was challenging, but received a lot of support from faculty utilizing their office hours.

There are a lot of academic supports for students that seek them out. Academic Services

She was in a scholars program her freshman year with an advisor who provided career coaching. She had a four semester rotating co-op and enjoyed working. The semesters she was in school she picked up student jobs working in different labs on campus.

There seem to be a lot of opportunities to do undergraduate research. She participated in the Denman Undergraduate Research Forum (this year’s is March 5) and wrote an undergraduate thesis.

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