How selective is the Texas A&M College Station General Engineering program?

FriscoDad
Mon, 04 Apr 2022 17:29:38 +0000

Those are very good questions. Especially many good students get multiple offers and high cost is at stake.

1. GT ranking in science and technology shot up so fast because their curriculum got updated frequently. Hence most employers found their graduates were able to quickly adapt into their new jobs. For instance, GT computer science has 8 “threads” (like tracks in other colleges) all are very trendy area and GT allows students mix different threads to develop more specialize skill set. Most other colleges are traditional (old school), requiring a number of fundamental science classes. However, many of these colleges are now catching up this GT model. They are now publishing new degree plans every year. Traditional colleges (like UIUC and TAMU) usually have an easier freshmen year but the learning curve becomes very steep starting junior year.

2. Top private universities are all good and most offer financial aid (discounts) to families with income less than $100K. So for out of state applicants, at times the cost is only a little higher than out-of-state public universities. To better compare them with top public universities (UCB, UIUC, UM, UT, Purdue, GT, TAMU), you need to look at their degree plans. For instance, if CMU has a track a student wants but not UIUC, then even CMU’s cost of attendance is slightly higher, CMU is still worth it. As for the ultimate goal (getting a good job), top private and top public universities are about the same (for top quarter students).