Tufts Engineering vs Tandon vs UW Madison Engineering

Mastadon
Thu, 12 Apr 2018 19:36:16 +0000

Tandon was a standalone polytechnic university before it merged with NYU in 2014. I would tend to use that mental model to evaluate it. Tandon is about twice the size of Tufts School of Engineering. Tufts Engineering used to be embedded in the School of Liberal Arts (which is about four times its size). Fairly recently, it became a separate, but tightly coupled school. Tufts is going to feel like an “engineering LAC” which is very different than the feel of a polytechnic school or the engineering school of a large public university. UW engineering is 6-7 times the size of Tufts engineering. The engineering school at Tufts is quite selective (about 10% of applicants are admitted) partly due to its smaller size. Verbal SAT scores are going to be more balanced with Math SAT scores at Tufts. There will be more female faculty and students in engineering and the campus gender ratio will be 50/50 because of the larger liberal arts school. Tufts will tend to have smaller classes and easier access to research due to the low student teacher ratio, but it will tend to have fewer types of class offerings and fewer types of research due to the smaller array of faculty. Tufts will tend to have more of an emphasis on teaching and inclusion due to its liberal arts roots and the fact that STEM education is a primary area of research (which is unusual). Tufts pioneered the female friendly engineering curriculum/culture in the 80’s and 90’s and has a net zero attrition rate (the average for engineering schools is over 50%).

A student can get a good education at all of these schools, but depending on the student’s personality and learning style one or the other may make it more likely that the student will thrive.

My bias is toward a smaller, more “liberal artsy” school for undergrad and a larger more specialized program for graduate work. I have found that the liberal arts exposure pays dividends for people oriented engineering jobs or crossing over to the management track later in life. For some personality types though, full immersion in a technical domain/culture is a better fit.

You have not told us much about your son, but assuming that he can be satisfied with Somerville/Cambridge/Boston and that Tufts supports the particular engineering sub-discipline/specialty in which he is interested, I would lean that way. New York is a 4 hour bus ride away, and the more adventurous Tufts students (such as my daughter, who now lives in New York) do make the trip. The bus ticket is not that expensive, but lodging is. Some will go without sleep until the bus ride back. It would be great to be young and crazy again.

Best of luck.