My son has a vague interest in college selection. His criteria is "does it have a good engineering program, good food and no further than 4 hours from home. He also prefers snow. That is how I compiled the list. I have gathered more information than I ever thought I would on each of the 7 schools. In about 3 weeks, we are going to compare and contrast all of the information I gathered, visit any that we haven’t seen that he doesn’t eliminate first and then he’ll decide. He did tell me he keeps a list in his head for the tours: He’s looking for the following things:
Engineering program (status, prestige)
Food
Activities(personal and engineering related)
Dorm room
He also gets a feel from the campus. I thought he wouldn’t like a large campus but he has. He eliminated one after visiting and he said he just wasn’t feeling it.
Postmodern: only got one right!
ucbalumnus: I know exactly how much each will cost without merit scholarship. Some are offering and others I don’t know yet.
Case Western
RIT
Penn State
WVU (huge merit scholarship, honors)
Grove City College
Virginia Tech
Geneva (good scholarship)
Yes. Both Penn State and VT require a specific GPA to specify a major. Honestly though, if my son isn’t getting at least a 3.0 as a pre-engineer then he may have chosen the wrong field. He’s also a lover of Physics.
I will mention, as for Engineering as a major, I’ve heard from a few sources that as long as its ABET accredited he’ll get a good education. If that’s true then I’m thinking he should go for the one he likes that will have the least amount of debt when he is done. I’m not telling him that, yet.
@MSMead, ABET sets minimum standards but there are still variations in rigor among engineering programs. They don’t just look to meet minimum ABET standards at MIT and other elites/elite engineering schools, for instance. That said, all the schools you listed are fine for engineering (other than Grove City and Geneva, which I know nothing about so can’t comment on).
Thank you. Grove City College engineering is ranked with Hofstra, Messiah. Both Grove City and Geneva are more locally known colleges. I don’t think Geneva is high on his list because our research showed that a lot of students go home every weekend and the town isn’t great.
There are so many factors that go into selecting a college. Is it more important to have a great “college experience” or a challenging program? My husband is a CMU graduate (not in engineering) but my son did not apply there. Looking at student reviews and comments for CMU the one we liked the best in terms of rigor was: Choose three, Work, Sleep, Friends, Eat. No matter how you put the three together its missing something important.
blossom, I hate to p** in your corn flakes, but you couldn’t be more wrong. For the average student, it’s just simple math.
A large State University has 40k students, a student/teacher ratio of around 20+ to 1, several thousand grad students both competing for the Profs time and research projects, as well as likely helping the Profs teach several of the larger Gen Ed classes, and average class sizes that are 2-3 times that of smaller liberal Arts colleges.
A smaller liberal Arts college has 1500-2000 students, a student/Prof ratio of 10/1, no grad students at all to compete with, no teaching assistants at all, and class sizes of 15-20.
All of that doesn’t mean that some of the more aggressive and self motivated larger University undergrads won’t get quality Prof time and attention, but to suggest that for the average student there isn’t a huge difference between to the two models, is to attempt to argue that 2+2=5.
Finally, I would assume that there is a good reason to why so many of the larger Universities have recently created smaller “school within a school” honor colleges. Obviously, the larger Universities understand the math too. On the other hand, I challenge anyone to find an example of a smaller Liberal Arts college that is creating a larger University “school within a school” model.
The average student at a giant public flagship is going to be very different qualitatively from the average student at an elite LAC (though may be similar to the average student at a LAC that is more locally-known or one of the CTCL).
Also, how much experience do you have with a giant public, @JaxBlueman?
In fact, every single LAC that has a 3/2 program (for engineering, for example- the most common) has done exactly what you claim they don’t do- create a larger university School within a School model. Every single one. Provide an academic experience for their students which is simply impossible to replicate in a small LAC.
So I don’t have to look very far to come up with an example which counters your vociferous contention.
If you want to study Pre-Raphaelite poetry then at some point you need the seminar experience. No argument from me. Although even at a big university you are likely to end up in a 10 person seminar for that subject.
But you aren’t studying nanotechnology or learning lab techniques for creating new composite materials for prosthetic limbs at an LAC. You WILL be doing just that in a 15 person seminar (called a lab) at a research university, under the direction of a professor and with the assistance of several grad students.
There is no “competition” with grad students. They are there to teach, help, review. They don’t sit in a class or seminar and raise their hand to dominate the discussion- they are not getting paid their stipends to stifle the creativity or learning of the undergrads, they are getting paid to increase it.
LAC’s are wonderful places for some kids. Research U’s are wonderful places for some kids. To argue “better” is a fool’s errand. You cannot compare the resources or the experience at a large U for studying aero/astro engineering, so to say that an LAC is “better” is false. Most of them don’t even offer it- so how is it “better”?
So interesting to hear all the different perspectives. My D knew that the LAC learning environment would be best for her, so she never seriously considered a large university. I’m probably biased towards LACs as well, even though I went to a large state school myself, because looking back, I would have chosen differently if I had known more about LACs back then.
This is what I though of when I read what @MiddleburyDad2 said a few pages ago, I don’t have a direct quote but it was about the fact that some students who choose big unis don’t even know about LACs. I have found this is true to some extent. Many of D’s peers seem to assume that every college experience is like the ones you see in movies and on TV: large lecture halls, Greek life, big sports. Many of them seem to have never heard of any school that does not have “University” in its name. And many who have some awareness that small schools exist have many misconceptions about them, such as size and population being the only difference, or thinking that you can’t study science or math and that you major in some weird thing called “liberal arts”.
So I do wonder if there are kids who, if they knew more, would choose differently?
I know it’s hard for many of you “LACs represent the ideal in college education” folks to understand, but many students choose large research universities with full knowledge of the difference between the two types. My D, for example, visited LACs, large state schools, and what I refer to as a hybrid. She hated the LAC (I knew she would but wanted to be sure), didn’t like the hybrid, but loved the big research university experience. She sat in on classes at every school. She won’t have many large classes because she completed all or almost all gen eds and will dive right into her major. She wants the big sports and Greek life and there is a lot more to do at a big university than most LACs, especially the ones in small towns (and most are). And let’s not talk about the lack of diversity at most LACs that impact educational experience, especially for URMs.
What I left out of my above post about doe kids not being aware of LACs, is that I might be personally biased towards LACs but I understand that for many people, the large research university is the way to go. I can see plenty of benefits to both. My D’s best friend, a smart, thoughtful girl, chose a large university and she is confident she made the best choice for herself, and I wouldn’t think to disagree with her! I was just wondering if enough students make the very informed decision they should.
My kids visited enough of the small LAC’s to know what they were"missing".
And I think it’s charming that so many posters here assume that all LAC’s are filled with kids eagerly discussing Kant and Hegel at lunch. There are also lots of LAC’s for the partiers and the stoners and the kids majoring in beer pong- just like at large research U’s.