Need Admission Decision Counsel and Perspective

VeryLuckyParent
Mon, 11 Apr 2016 18:24:42 +0000

There’s really an important threshold question here: Does he want to be an engineer? Does he want his launching pad into the business world to be engineering expertise?

Ok. This answer is probably going to make some people roll their eyes, but * Wanting to be an engineer* is not necessarily connected to * studying engineering*.

Engineering is an analytical degree which lets you cultivate very useful analytical, problem-solving and creative skills. You can graduate with an engineering degree and go into all kinds of “non engineering professions” because other employers value those skills that you have perfected as an engineer.

You may even start off your first job as an engineer because the salary is not too bad and then move on to other things.

Engineering is one of the fields that my son feels he will be suited towards based on his temperament and analytical attitude, strength in math etc. So is computer science, Math, Stats and a number of other areas.

He will most probably use his engineering degree as a starting point to jump into business.

We are obviously not comparing Chicago to his other choices form an engineering perspective. We are comparing one analytical degree at a state school to another analytical degree from Chicago. Ultimately he is interested in getting an MBA and focusing on the world of business. The question is what is the most cost effective way to get into a highly ranked MBA school (and for an MBA degree ranking/prestige/reputation/recruiting strength matters, unlike Engineering where an ABET school is going to give you almost the same career trajectory)

The problem is data on this is hard to come by. If the top 7 Business schools let us see where their first year MBA’s got their undergraduate degrees from, it would be great, but they don’t So we have to speculate