I believe what @tsbna44 and I were discussing was more centered on job placement. My son doesn’t consider median salary by school to be a significant factor and I agree with him. My niece went to a school with a very strong co-op program but has been unable to secure a job for over a year and a half despite having good experience. Placement rate is significant albeit less so for engineering, but we also don’t know how the next 4 years will turn out.
Statistically seems promising. I doubt it’ll excite my son once he sees the ranking. Counselor suggested as a safety and he took it off his list for this reason (not a T50).
My son’s doing his own research. He asked me to help him compare T20s with decent engineering programs to other schools with top engineering programs. He prefers smaller class sizes (as opposed to the large pool, small fish) and strong faculty connections, so he’s not too hyped about the large state schools. For our current financial situation, the T20s may deliver more value. Neither of us are excited about the prospect of CoA like UMich for a public university with less resources. These schools are excellent but may be more limited in undergrad research?
Regardless, I’ve never sat down and compared the engineering programs at T20s to T10 engineering programs, if that makes sense.
He’s conflicted. Tight-knit EE programs with generally good academics and renowned faculty or large programs with course variety and clubs aligned to his interests.
Some of the T20s he’s interested in for EE: CORNELL, PRINCETON, UPenn, Columbia, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Duke, potentially Rice, Harvard, Yale
Engineering schools: UMich, UIUC, Purdue, GT, UT Austin, Performing research on regional schools (not necessarily our region; just good in EE)
MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Berkeley are high reach.
At Caltech the graduate assistants: create the tests, administer the tests, and grade the tests.
The professors lecture and return immediately to their research.
As for strong faculty connections, they appeared for classes and it was publish or perish there.
our middle daughter attended Davis had a number of friends and roommates in electrical engineering and computer software departments.
Those kids were always hanging around in the professors offices -they had one to one relationships with their professors.
My daughter attended one of the professors Home parties with her friends. That’s a large public University of California school.
It’s not just at small elite schools.
Open to suggestions and hope to get an answer from someone who understands the intricate differences in EE programs between these two types of schools.
Caltech’s heavily research-focused so I’m not stunned, but that is a surprise - my son expected Caltech to be perhaps even better than MIT because of how small it is.
I do get that faculty connections can be formed anywhere, but classes of 100+ vs. classes under 30 is a potential disadvantage.
This is part of our concern actually. At the T20s with small EE programs, are the academics really good or are the faculty too occupied with research? They’re small departments with research focus.
He can have both. It’s a fallacy that large schools aren’t close knit - that’s what living learning communities do so well - they make a large school feel smaller. And the big engineering powerhouses have those renowned faculty members too.
My daughter’s experience at Purdue started with weekend dinners, movie nights, coffee chats, and hiking with her professors. She was on a first name basis with the honors engineering dean. Profs held regular office hours, review sessions, exams sessions and were very accessible. Any large class has a mandatory small group recitation so even the big lectures have a lot of personalization.
My D got hand written letters from professors congratulating her on class performance after freshman year, was invited to be a course grader and tutor, and was able to take graduate level courses as a junior. When she was ready to do research, she walked into the offices of four profs and had three offers within the week.
When I went for honors ceremony she had random professors giving hugs and congratulations on the sidewalk. One professor asked to meet me and spent over an hour chatting with me.
My D had way more connections with her profs than I had when I was a student at Cornell.
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Thanks a lot for this insight. Have you heard anything about the other state schools? GT, etc.
How are merit scholarships at Purdue? Would you recommend applying to the honors program? What are the main factors considered for scholarships?
UMich is one of the top research universities in the nation, and it’s ranked in the top 10 for electrical engineering programs (so, higher than some of the other elite schoolsk on your list)
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Check its financial status as well. Clarkson has had an uptick in admissions with their putting greater emphasis on STEM and generous tuition discounting, but they have cut back or cut out programs in The humanities and for at least a year didn’t contribute to their employee 403b. Employer pension contributions at Clarkson halted for a year to address budget deficit - North Country Now
I can’t speak for GT as my daughter didn’t want to go “that far south” but UMD has a similar living learning set up as Purdue.
Merit scholarships are hard to come by at Purdue because the university has focused on keeping costs down across the board but it’s not impossible. There is a holistic review so it’s hard to pinpoint what they are looking for. The out of state cost of attendance is $46K.
My daughter had a great experience with honors college. Dedicated honors advisors, special honors classes which included engineering design, guaranteed research, leadership opportunities, honors specific study abroad, etc…
For a student to be considered for honors college and merit they have to apply before 11/1, which is the early action deadline.
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Agreed. U Michigan was one of the best resourced schools we visited for engineering. Their engineering specific tour was incredibly impressive.
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Let me ask you this - what exactly is a top 50?
There’s no such thing.
US News?? Popularity contest.
Linkedin ?? Who knows more about jobs then them? Amherst and Williams - great names - right? Not engineering. Williams is 48. Amherst isn’t. Better LACs? Bucknell at 16 overall, Trinity 36 and Lafayette 46 - all have engineering.
I told you my kid’s story - turned down Bama for Purdue. He got invited back to his internship.
WSJ - has a different top 50. Would you consider Loyola of Maryland a top 20? No I’m sure - but they do.
There’s no top anything. People come out with a metric system and where stuff falls, it does.
Clarkson is kicking a$$. Alabama is kicking a$$. Ga Tech is a great school but for whatever reason, a lot aren’t finding jobs - their reporting, not mine. At Pitt they are. At Purdue they are.
In the end, you have a budget. You have to go where someone will allow you to study for where you can afford.
In the real world - look at my company - we have two data scientists. A Ga Tech works for a Kennesaw grad.
I have an MBA as do some of my counterparts. My boss has an undergrad. W Georgia. I hadn’t heard of it either.
We have a Harvard Law working for a Fairleigh Dickinson - til they retired.
It doesn’t work like - what US News or whoever says is tops - that the person going there will always do better than the next person who goes to one blow.
You have a budget - you need to build for the budget. That’s the most important thing.
Kids turn down reaches for safeties each and every day.
Want to go to Michigan but can’t afford $85K.
UMN is $45K? Great sub, etc.
Anyway, you have a mindset but I have a feeling it’s going to cost a lot of money.
I hope your son finds the right place for him.
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First off, large schools don’t mean large classes. Cornell has large classes but when you get in the majors, not necessarily. You can check on that - don’t assume.
It sounds to me - except for the rank and the famous faculty (not sure how that’s helping) that, given the costs and really good outcomes, in addition to Clarkson, you want a UAH, Missouri Science & Tech, Michigan Tech, Florida Tech type.
Why? They’ll bust $50K - and you’ll have all you want. With UAH and Florida Tech, you might end up in an aero type company.
Maybe over $50K or maybe not - Rose Hulman - and no PhDs to fit with, etc.
Unless they’re lying, their kids are getting great jobs.
Can you share some of your kids stats - GPA, test - courses taken.
You’d be amazed at how many parents here are awfully liberal with their chancing so we can at least make sure you’re in the right ball park.
For class size, as an example, from 10-19 kids, Missouri Science and Tech has 232 of 771 overall. Ga Tech has 474 of 2193, a much higher %.
If you want research, who are the top feeders to PhD per capita (in engineering, not a specific discipline), per college transitions:
Cal Tech yeah but RPI #6, RHIT #7, New Mexico Mining #10, Clarkson #11, Missouri Science & Tech #12, WPI #17. Ga Tech is 16 and Purdue is 50.
There’s so many great names out there - you can dismiss, but the “top 50” is flawed to me because there’s no such thing.
NM Mining, by the way, offers 243 classes. Over 150 of them are 2-19 students.
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Outside of the state of Wisconsin, UW can be ambiguous, since W can mean other things like Washington or Wyoming.
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Just some perspective from a parent who went through this last year - not electrical, but engineering. We didn’t bother with Purdue, UIUC, Michigan, UTA, GTech because we knew they’d never hit our budget. So, S26 applied to all the best private engineering schools that he liked on paper. He also applied to schools like Alabama, Iowa State, FSU etc. that had great scholarships to get into our price range.
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I echo everyone’s suggestion of running NPC’s everywhere your child is interested in attending. I was meticulous with the info I entered into the formula. One interesting thing we found is that all schools S26 was accepted to gave better financial aid than the NPC’s spit out. ESPECIALLY the ones in regular decision. YMMV on this phenomenon. I’m sure that’s not the case for everyone.
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I saw you automatically discount some top programs but then include some others. I would say don’t do that. If you can get into somewhere like Northwestern or Vandy, Duke, etc. you can get into Cornell for example. I think MIT/Cal Tech is a different animal. I’d compare your kiddo’s stats and activities to many of the folks on here that have been generous with sharing their kids profiles and results. This site is a treasure trove of data to help you figure out what is realistic. We found S26 hit a certain level and got in almost everywhere he applied at that level, but hit a ceiling and got shut out everywhere above that ceiling. Again YMMV on this.
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I also echo everyone’s suggestion to try an talk to your kid about what environment is best for them. We tried our best to do visits when our busy schedules allowed. Even if it was local/close by schools, they allow your student to find out what they do and don’t like about a certain school and can apply that to what they learn about the places you can’t visit. I think fit is way more important than some people realize.
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Take a look at each school’s process to gain entry to the engineering school. Some places put you in pre-engineering to start. Just something to think about. My kid picked a school where he’s considered an engineering student from day one. That was important to him.
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Be wary of some of those top schools and what their engineering grads do post grad. Vandy for instance sent a lot of their engineers into consulting vs. into pure engineering roles. I’d venture a guess that’s true at other schools that aren’t known for their engineering programs, but are considered overall tippy-top schools.
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I also agree that both state schools and privates will give you access to faculty if you seek that out and want that relationship. Some of the places we visited made that very apparent. S26 is at Cornell right now, they assigned him a professor in his field day one to be a mentor. When we visited a big state school, they made sure we knew he’d have the same type of setup there.
Sorry for the long reply. Best of luck to you and your child. It’s an exciting time!
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Amen! 
U Dub and Wyoming is mentioned 0 of 100 times UW is mentioned 