Looking for thoughts from aerospace grads from Penn State. Son was accepted here, Perdue, Illinois, WPI, Virginia Tech. From a ranking perspective it comes up a little short but not sure how much stock I put in them and would appreciate actual experiences with the program and thoughts. For the sake of this conversation leave cost thoughts out of it and just looking for program feedback.
I appreciate not wanting to consider costs, because you’re trying to find “the best.” There are so few ABET aerospace programs that even grads from far lesser known programs do just fine. Earnings for grads of all of them are quite similar, and will be based on geographic location and not on the school name. So if he likes Penn State I wouldn’t hesitate to send him there. If it’s cheaper, all the better. I certainly wouldn’t overpay for AE.
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PSU, VT, and Purdue have secondary admission, though the auto-admit GPAs for aerospace engineering are not super-high (2.9, 3.0, 3.2 respectively; PSU varies by major here). UIUC has direct admission, but can be very difficult to change major into some more popular majors (like mechanical engineering or computer science).
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To throw a wrench in here go to Purdue. Think it’s ranked #3 undergraduate Aero and usually at a lower cost then most instate.
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Rankings really don’t mean much, especially for aerospace. I’d look into things like class size, placement, and price, and put very little emphasis on ranking.
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I know but it seemed they needed something to hold on to plus it’s a great program. Plus it’s usually cheaper then some instate programs.
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