UMD vs UW Madison vs Case Western vs Northeastern [for Mech Engineering or Economics]

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We are from California and S24 has some CA options but he is not currently happy with them for various reasons so we are looking out of state.

For major he wants to do either Mech engineering or Economics. He says he likes both and would be happy doing either as of now.
One of his main consideration is location (direct flight from home, want to be close to a big city or in a City and weather).
The second consideration is that it has to be good in both engineering and economics and should be able to change majors.
Cost is a factor but not the most important one. We can pay for all the colleges without a loan. We have told S24 that if he wants to do masters then he is on his own if he chooses the a college above the 60K per year range.

  1. UMD (economics, 49k per year): Of all the colleges in this list he likes the location the best being close to DC, Not as cold as others, have family close by. He got admitted to economics here but I looked into changing to engineering if he wants and it is doable. He got the presidents award here.

  2. Case Western (Mech engineering, 60K Per year): Gives a lot of flexibility in terms of major. Got a decent merit. The main problem seems to be location for S24 with long winters and he has preference for east coast vs mid west in general. I love what I have read about the college but unable to convince S24 to move it up his list. Also if he decides to do economics is this a good option?

  3. UW-Madison (Mech engineering, 60k per year). Positives are not hard to change major and is good at both engineering and economics. Location wise no direct flight and long winter.

  4. Northeastern (CS+Econ, 90k per year) Most expensive and also first year in London. I am concerned about the first year in London when he is 18. Location wise this is long winter but direct flights and S24 likes Boston as a city. He also likes the Co-OP’s. But how different are co-op compared to say doing internships in the summer? Is it worth spending 120k or more?

Anything else we should consider. We have not visited the colleges yet and have only done virtual tours so far. we plan to visit in April but would like to cut down to 2 or 3 colleges to visit. It would be hard to visit all 4 so trying to do some research to see which colleges to attend. Appreciate your thoughts and what else we should consider.

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Congrats on the acceptances.

You say cost isn’t a factor - but do you have a budget? In essence you do if you’re telling him he’d be on his own if he chose a $60K per. Also, did you get merit or need aid - because merit aid doesn’t typically follow tuition increases - unlike need aid. So $60K today doesn’t mean $60K tomorrow.

Engineering is an LEP at UMD. Yes, on paper it shows it’s plausible to get there but I’d ask and triple check that it’s true in real life.

CWRU is the perfect school for the two majors as you noted. The school is smaller, there are direct flights, it’s easier access to the city than UMD (which isn’t brutally hard but until the light rail is running it’s not that easy). Yes, it’s 6-8 degrees colder than UMD - but the campus is also much smaller - which may or may not be a good thing but could keep you warm - and as a bonus, near Little Italy. I’d imagine, but don’t know, that the schools is a lot less bureacratic. Cleveland is vastly underrated - so much going on.

Wisconsin - the direct flight shouldn’t be too big a deal. It’s not like you are flying all the time. But it’s going to be cooooooolllld.

NEU - if $60K is too much to help fund grad school, not sure how you can consider it? It’s not even close - And the weather is Cleveland-esque in temp. Great city and school though. How does going to England impact the initial studies. I guess it depends on what you want - but CS is not engineering and $90K is not $60K or less.

So to me, if you have to eliminate one, this is easy - Northeastern - gone.

Know what else - there’s not a school out there for engineering that isn’t hoping their kids don’t do co-op. While reputationally NEU (and a few others) own the reputation (and for all majors), most every school in America has co ops in engineering. It’s the companies that actually want them and the schools are happy to comply.

So to me, I eliminate NEU.

Now if weather is truly an issue, then I eliminate Madison next (cold) and I focus on two schools - the smaller school with academic flexibility vs. the big flagship. DC is AWESOME but I’m not sure how often the kids go (others would have to answer) - but CWRU allows you to hit all your goals and Cleveland is incredible too.

Best of luck.

Co-op | Career Center | Case Western Reserve University

Internships & Co-ops | A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland (umd.edu)

Co-op and Internship – Engineering Career Services – UW–Madison (wisc.edu)

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Congrats to him on some great admits!

Has your son looked at Industrial/Systems Engineering? This is one field in which engineering and econ intersect, so it could be a way for him to combine his interests. For example, check out the major at UW-Madison, which is a top program in the field: Industrial & Systems Engineering - College of Engineering - UW-Madison This would be a way for him to veer toward econ/finance without giving up engineering.

I’m not necessarily saying that he should start out in IE. But if this were my kid, I would prefer a school where he would have an IE option, rather than a stark choice between MechE (and little time for an econ focus) or a switch to Econ (and no engineering).

UW-Madison would be great in terms of having this option, as well as being strong in the other two majors.

Case currently has a Systems Engineering major, which is similar; but a young man on CC who applied for that major this year was notified that they are discontinuing that program. So CWRU won’t have this option, unless they are developing something else that I don’t know about.

UMD has a grad program in Systems Engineering but not an undergrad major.

Northeastern does have an undergrad IE program: Industrial Engineering, BSIE | Northeastern University Academic Catalog

As for the merits of Northeastern… as you note, they are great about major flexibility; and co-ops can be great for kids who want to test the waters in their field of interest - they can go into more depth and take on more responsibility during a co-op semester than a shorter summer internship. My kid and I visited NEU and liked it a lot. But is it worth an extra $120K over your other choices, plus the additional logistics involved in the London start? Seems dubious unless it is resonating far above and beyond the others for some reason, and you don’t seem to be saying that it is.

So in my mind, unless your son looks closely at IE and says nope, I’m sure I wouldn’t want that… I would seriously consider Wisconsin where all three majors are strong and accessible.

But OTOH, he’s got a great offer from UMD, likes the location, and has family nearby… so that one shouldn’t fall off the table easily, so long as switching into engineering is viable.

Good luck hashing out the options - there’s no bad choice here, apart from the cost gradient!

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Would UMD allow him to switch to Clark Engineering before orientation this summer?

Occasionally in past, there were a couple instances of Admissions allowing an incoming freshman to switch majors before orientation.

But, all engineering majors are LEP.
LEP require certain gateways to be met after one or two or three semesters.

Note that one must have a B- in math or physics gateways, or a C- in chem.
Of those three, only one may be attempted more than once.
Perhaps AP credit could satisfy these.

And an overall 3.0 is needed, and one may apply only once to Engineering.

Is he also admitted to a living learning program for his dormitory? Bc the strongest Clark Engineering frosh are often invited to a llp.

https://eng.umd.edu/facts-figures

https://eng.umd.edu/prospective-students/faqs

@STEMX

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I think Northeastern in London is sub-optimal for a kid who is going in to college already thinking he may change majors. Much better “tracking” and advising on the main campus, exposure to relevant EC’s, able to show up at a random symposium or hear a visiting lecturer, etc. So to me, dropping that is a no-brainer. He’d have his freshman year adjustment- and then do it all over again in Boston.

I think you guys need to figure out how important weather is to him. MD does get snow and cold; it won’t likely be as protracted as midwest winters, but with climate change and the wacky winters we’ve been having who knows?

What are the issues with the CA colleges?

Strictly speaking in academic terms- I think Case is a superb institution for either engineering or econ. Cleveland has terrific cultural options; if the money works I’d be putting that at the top of the list for a visit.

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Richard Thaler earned his undergrad at Case.

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In regards to the budget. We can pay the 90 or more for the 4 years. We can pay for masters also if needed but wanted S24 to have some accountability. I understand that fees will increase every year and can afford to pay. Like I said fortunately finance wise there is no constraint but we don’t want to pay 90 or more unless its perfect fit in everyway.

For UMD yes I have checked the LEP requirements and the math and Physics he can meet the requirement with credit for AP’s (AP calc BC and AP Physics C). So the only course he would have to do is Chem. Also if he really has trouble getting the B- in the core classes I am not sure if he should be doing engineering as he may struggle as he goes to the upper level classes.

I do agree with on NEU it may be the easiest to remove.

I was somehow under the impression Cleveland was much colder than Maryland. I need to look into this. I have visited Ohio only once before and that was in summer so have no real idea of the weather. Being from CA almost everything will be colder :slight_smile:

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I agree with this, especially if one of the possible majors is an engineering major.

My kid was accepted to Northeastern last year with NUin, and because of the limited course selection available in the programs abroad, he would not have been able to make any progress on his major in his first semester and possibly the entire first year. He was already coming in with AP credit that would duplicate the very basic STEM courses available in the NUin campuses (so he would have been taking nothing but breadth electives), and then when he would have gotten back to the Boston campus, he would have missed the start of year long course sequences in his major.

So I would definitely look very very closely at the courses available before picking this option.

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6-8 degrees each month during the winter.

Cleveland average is 34 in December, 29 in January, 30 in Feb and 38 in March (average, not high)

College Park is 40, in December, 36 in January, 38 in February, and 46 in March.

I used the weatherspark website.

Again, I would reach out on the LEP major transfer and not go by what’s on paper - to ensure it’s ensured.

But yes while Cleveland is colder, in theory at least, there’s less far to walk.

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Thanks for the great info on industrial/Systems engineering and we will look into. UW-Madison is one I like also but some how unable to make him excited about it so far. But lets see if this info on industrial engineering moves the needle.

In regards to the UMD LEP requirement he will meet the math and physics with the AP’s. Chem is one he would have to take. I am not that worried about LEP as even in Wisconsin where he is admitted into Mech directly to continue after first year in Mech he has to have a 3.2 GPA in engineering core subjects. So in fact this is harder than the UMP LEP requirement. Having said that I don’t know how easy it is to get this GPA in UMD or Wisconsin.

For NEU you are right it is not something I can say is resonating above the other choices. If he had all 4 years in Boston we would be ranking this higher. The only reason its in the list now is he likes Boston.

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Well you were looking to eliminate one and maybe two - so it sounds like NEU is that easy to eliminate one - from visit consideration !!

So perhaps mission accomplished?

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I’m not sure how great a plan this is if S24 doesn’t start in engineering. It’s always easy to switch out of engineering to the liberal arts but the reverse direction is usually more difficult.

Engineering programs are very structured so if you look at a sample 4-year program such as the one from UMD at https://eng.umd.edu/sites/clark.umd.edu/files/resource_documents/Mechanical-4year-plan-Fall-2021-gw_0.pdf you’ll see that there isn’t a lot of room for electives. Which means if S24 wants to finish college in 4 years then he’ll not have room for Econ classes. Or if he does take a few Econ classes and as many on the engineering plan that fit and then decides on engineering it’s going to take more than 4 years to finish, assuming he is actually able to switch majors since it’s usually competitive.

Going out on a limb I’d say he should just shelve the idea of being an engineer. Nationwide about half the kids that start in engineering drop the major. You have to really want to do it, the kids see their friends in other majors having a lot less work and a lot more fun in college. Just about all those switching had the ability to do the work, they just decided they didn’t want to. With your son’s desire to take advantage of the city near his college and interest in other topics I just don’t see the single-mindedness that gets someone thru a ME major.

Most kids go home at Thanksgiving and the end of the school year. Is it really worth ruling out a college because of a few hours of inconvenience once or twice a year?

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Thanks on the details on UMD. We have not looked into changing into engineering before orientation. I will talk to him to see if he wants to try this.

I have looked at the LEP requirements and I am think he will need to do only chem as he has already done AP Cal C and is currently doing AP Physics C mech. So if I understand the LEP requirements as long as he does the Chem with a C- grade or above and get a overall UMD GPA of 3.0 before he applies for LEP he should be ok correct?

He was invited to LLC. He was invited to Carllion LLC.

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That’s a good point you bring about advising if he is in London Campus vs Boston. I think the more I read and put my thoughts on paper I think Northeastern needs to come of the list.

In regards to Case yes I love this option If I can convince him of it. We are ok with the budget especially as it will be around 60k instead of the 88k (they have given him 30k merit per year). I think we visit this and hopefully that will convince him.

In regards to CA he got into UCSC, UCR, SJSU, SDSU, Cal poly Pomona and Santa Clara. Few of these colleges are with in 1 hour from home and that is not something he wants. The other issues is he is not convinced with CSU’s for economics. If he was sure he wanted engineering I might have pushed him a bit more towards them but not doing it for now.

In UCSC there is no Mech so he would have to do electrical engineering if he goes. This is one which is 1 hour away from home so we may go and visit this in next couple of weeks anyway.

UCR he does not even want to talk about it. For some reason the perspective among the kids in our area for UCR has not been great.

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You and @blossom bring a great point about the NU with London option and I think this will drop of the list once I talk to S24.

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I did have a talk to S24 about not starting out as a engineering major if he is serious about engineering. I have a BS and Masters in engineering my self and know how hard it is if he is not 100% into it. At 17/18 years he is simply not able to decide. I would have loved for him to make up his mind and stick to it. But he says what’s wrong with having multiple interests.

At this point I am ok if he takes a little longer than 4 years to graduate. He does have multiple AP’s that should help him a little with the time line.

In regards to the direct flight you are right, I think that is just a wish and easy enough to drop compared to the cold weather. I know some friends kids who went Wisconsin and Mich and could not handle the weather and is one of the reasons why this has become an important factor.

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Yes I think NEU will drop of the list at this point for a visit.

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My son originally wanted to be far from home (we’re in CA and he was looking at the UK and Canada). He ended up 15 minutes away from home. He lives in a dorm and it’s really just fine as a college experience. Just a data point, in case this is the ONLY reason not to consider some of the CA schools :wink:

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I would love if he ends up going this route. I have told him that he can stay in the dorm and does not have to home on weekends unless he really wants to :slight_smile:

So far have had no luck but may be seeing the OOS college options he will change his mind.

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What are his in-state options?