TAMU vs Colorado School of Mines [for civil/environmental engineering, or chemical engineering]

College Search & Lists
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I’m likely majoring in civil/environmental engineering, or chemical engineering. I’m in state for TAMU so it would be about half the price of Mines. I hear that they both have strong networks but I am wondering if one school would give me a serious advantage to finding a job immediately after graduation. Also, would it be significantly harder to stand out through leadership opportunities/research at a big school like TAMU than it would be at Mines?

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Don’t think I’d worry about the network.

I do think I’d look at affordability - and then - do I want to be at a massive university - with lots of tradition, spirit, etc - or a small university, in a neat town, at the edge of the mountains with changing seasons and nature that is 180 degrees different than College Station.

Don’t forget, at A&M, without a 3.75 your first year, you may not get your major of choice although I don’t know the difficulty of the majors of interest. But they have secondary admission…not sure Mines does. You might research.

I don’t think it’s easier or harder to stand out at big vs. small - that’s up to you. But more popular clubs might “hold down” the earlier students.

If you truly want to know about jobs, ask each for their career outcome reports in the major.

Best of luck.

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Your success in finding engineering jobs after graduation is going to be a function of your gpa (some employers have minimums just to interview) and the next in importance will be whether you put in the work to find internships.

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According to the table in post #5 of ETAM - Freshman 2024 - #5 by ColdWombat , in spring 2023, civil and chemical engineering did not admit every applicant who put it as their first choice, but the admit rates for holistic review (i.e. <3.75 GPA) for those majors were 85.9% (116 out of 135) and 91.4% (96 out of 105) respectively. So they were not hypercompetitive like computer science, which admitted 7.9% (17 out of 215) applicants with <3.75 GPA.

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The main ETAM rejections at aTm are Comp Sci, Mech, and Aero. The niche fields of Nuclear, Petroleum and Materials are pretty easy to qualify for.

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