My D (OOS CA) is a current FYE at Purdue. She selected it over other acceptances such as in-state public schools (UC Davis, Berkeley, Cal Poly SLO) and UMN and UW-Madison. She intends on majoring in ChemE. It took careful consideration to turn down cheaper in-state options where she would be admitted directly to her major to instead accept Purdue’s FYE system.
She visited all the campuses but Berkeley. And chose the one that spoke to her. So far it has delivered the college experience she wanted. She learned she preferred a large school but in a smaller city. So UMN was out. She was also concerned about her perceived lack of opportunities away from MN for UMN graduates based on information she received during her visit. Davis was her second choice but it didn’t give the campus feel she wanted. Parts of campus feel like a neighborhood. Purdue has the landmarks, school spirit and support for sporting events she wanted to go along with a top notch engineering program with a global opportunities. The campus isn’t too large and she is able to walk everywhere within 15-20 minutes.
She recently applied to her major and should hear soon. From research we did earlier 90% of students with a first year GPA of 2.7 or higher gain acceptance to their major. She enjoyed being exposed to all 16 disciplines in her Engineering class. So she’s now more confident than before that ChemE is for her. Someone above mentioned the outstanding work CO-OP program. Another great opportunity is the GEARE program. She was just accepted into that and is very excited. You can read about both programs here:
https://opp.purdue.edu/programs/index.html