Rose Hulman Hype or Value?

Finnlet
Fri, 15 Mar 2013 14:23:37 +0000

This is a bit belated, but I’d like to add my $0.02 to this conversation. I’m not a student at Rose, but my best friend graduated with the class of 2012, so I have had ample opportunity to observe/study the school. If your child is passionate about his/her STEM field, Rose will almost certainly give the experience s/he wants: good practical facilities, excellent professors (not to mention strong English speakers, which I’ve come to recognize as something of a rarity at my own, large, research university), and true peers.

What truly makes me think that Rose is worth it, though, are my friend’s outcomes. As I said, he graduated in 2012; his degree is in computer science. His GPA was pretty lousy compared to that of his classmates, and he didn’t have the connections others had forged through professional societies, fraternities, etc. In spite of this, he managed to secure two solid summer internships, as well as interviews with high-profile companies that might have completely passed up his application if he came from a lesser school. Less than two weeks after graduation, he was hired as a software developer at a global firm with a salary of $60k. He’s now comfortably self-sufficient and making great progress toward paying back some hefty student loans. It was the superior education at Rose, as well as the respected name, that enabled him to get those positions. I am hesitant to say that the same would have been true of the other, albeit wonderful, tech schools to which he was admitted.

Is Rose a guarantee? Does it justify loans that equal your family’s total annual income? No, I should say not. No school provides a “yes” to those questions.

Is Rose the kind of school for which stretching finances a bit is worth it? Is it the kind of school that will establish loyalty on the part of its alumni? Is it the kind of school that truly earns its ranking? Yes. I would say all of those are absolutely true.

(As someone who was once playing the financial waiting game with Rose myself, I know the wait feels interminable-- best of luck to you, and I hope that your child ends up at a school that is a great fit)