Thanks for sharing your experience with engineering at UW-Madison and Madison town. Its great that your kids had a wonderful experience.
May I ask if you were in-state for UW or were you out of state?
OOS - California
Ah thanks. We are also from California. Its good to see your kids could adjust well to Madison and the climate with out issues.
If money is not part of an equation, my vote is for Case. I believe it is the most flexible for changing majors and is strong in Engineering.
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I think OP agrees…it’s just his kid they have to work on 
4 years in Cleveland - not for everyone
I was once in Madison to - hmmm - how do I say this without embarrassing myself - that iconic vehicle based out of Madison - I interviewed to drive it but alas wasn’t chosen.
But I think one can say - 4 years in Madison - not for everyone.
Listen, if OPs student choose any of the schools, I think it’s great - so whether UW, CWRU, UMD, NU - any of em - as long as they get to the right answer for them, I think it’s great.
I was just noting to @momsearcheng and others - Case may be the best choice on paper to many of us but it’s only the best choice is OP’s student decides it is. He was actually less sold on UW due to no non stops to LA although I personally think that’s a silly reason not to choose a school - but everyone is entitled to their own reasons
Well I am not sure about no issues. DH (who is originally was from a cold place) visited Madison for training for a week and was not ready for such a cold weather…
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Have registered for admitted student day events at UMD and Case for mid April.
UW Madison does not have an event that is working for us but may visit and do self tour.
Hope the visits will help make the final decision.
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Very, very helpful. The gpa’s of the progression requirement have been a sticking point. This makes them seem more possible.
My sons also got into Purdue FYE and Washington Direct Admit engineering. When we looked at those options, they seemed more difficult due to the fact that the progression requirements fluctuated each year depending on the overall freshman gpa’s, which made things a bit more of a crapshoot. At least with Wisconsin and some other schools, you know the benchmark you have to achieve in advance to progress into your selected major.
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We are back from visiting UW Madison, Case and UMD CP and wanted to provide an update on how the things stood.
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UMD-CP: We visited the college first and it was beautiful spring day with 60’s weather. The campus was beautiful with all the green spaces. We did a 3 hour event for admitted students and there were two parts to it. First part was the info session on next steps and this was pretty average. Then we did the around 2 hours campus tour and we loved this part of it. The two tour guides we had were great and answered many questions honestly and very helpful. They did walk us into some of the buildings where classes were held, student union and the rec center and the various sporting fields. The Rec center was huge and very new and my S24 was impressed (he has seen a few other universities and some expensive paid gyms before). The did take us into the one of the model dorms and it was average dorm. They did have some new residence halls we checked them from our side but not inside. The new dinning hall was great with many food options. We stayed at “The Hotel” for the night so after a break we went back to campus to walk around by ourself and we saw many people playing soccer, frisbee, just hanging out and walking to some fast food places around the campus for grabbing food. We had dinner and breakfast at the local places and both were decent. We are vegetarian and there were many options available. The one downside of UMD was that town outside of the campus is pretty small and not too much to do. On the positive side we did not realize how close DC was to the campus. Its about 10 miles which is not bad if you want to go to DC for doing something. Overall the campus itself we all loved and S24 could see himself here.
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Case: We did the full day Admitted students day here. The event was organized well and they had various sessions which you could choose to attend. When we visited Case the day was cloudy the until 1:00 Pm and the weather was 50’s and cool but not overly cold. S24 kept saying its “dreary” . He also felt that the school was heavily focused on Pre-med and some engineering. He feels that this is not place if he wants to do Econ. We did the residence hall tours and the campus tours. The campus was great but much more compact than UMD. But one thing we noticed was that there were no groups of kids hanging about and chatting or playing. we kept an eye over it through out the day. We checked out the rec center by ourself it was underwhelming after we saw the One at UMD. We felt the dorms were similar to UMD and I expected better from a private college to be frank. We could not try out the food at the dinning hall as we had a short time between the various sessions and the dining halls were very busy when we checked. The City around the university felt safe to be walking around. Overall S24 said he cant see himself here and when I asked him why and he said just did not feel like he belonged there. I was hoping he would like this but its his choice so this will be dropped from the list.
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UW-Madison: S24’s friend goes to school here and we made plans to drive around the campus with him and have dinner with him on the day we arrived. The campus was amazing and it was a Friday evening and lots of groups of kids were playing on the field and hanging out. The weather was around 50 and they were wearing hoodies and long pants and they were playing and hanging out. S24’s friend seemed to love the college and he enjoyed his time there. When we asked him what he did for fun it seemed that his hobbies were all indoor (gaming, watching tv with friends and so on). He was not a out door person and he said he rarely goes outside other than to go the gym and attend labs or write exams. He said when weather is cold which is many months he also attends classes when it is mandatory and rest of the time listens to video sessions. This was not ideal for S24 who thrives better in a class room environment then listening to video’s. He can do it sometimes but not majority of the time. He is also a very outdoor person who likes to shoot hoops or play tennis to overcome stress. The next day we went to the admitted student event and also walk about the campus ourself. The campus was again pretty vibrant and people were hanging out. We also liked the campus is very close to the Madison downtown and there seemed to be lot of options for eat. During the admitted student event there was an info session and tour. The info session was better than the UMD one and they did a good job of showcasing some of the positives. The dorm options were more and seemed nicer than UMD or case. They did not take us inside though which was bit of a bummer. The rest of the tour was hard for us. It was pretty cold. It was around 40 and there was breeze which made it seem like it was colder and being from CA this was colder than most of our winter. It made us realize how cold this would be in winter. One of the student tour guide was wearing a mittens while doing the tour. The tour also did not take us into inside the rec center, or any building with class rooms. Over because of the weather and the way they did not take inside many buildings the we did not enjoy the tour as much. The tour guides were friendly and answered the questions. One other thing we noticed was there was much less diversity than UMD or Case here. Overall S24 loved the campus and How Madison city/downtown was integrated to the campus. He said if it was not for the weather he would have loved to go here and would be his top choice.
After the visits he is leaning towards UMD but had not yet ruled out UW-Madison. He has asked me for 2 to 3 days to think things over and we will see what he chooses.
This became much longer than I intended when I started typing this. Thanks for your thoughts before we left on the trip.
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Thank you for the information. I was wondering if you were able to compare opportunities internship and quality of education at Case Vs UW Madison for Econ major .
Both colleges said that they have college fairs and also websites where they post any job posting and you can look and apply.
Case said they had a co-op office that can also help with internships as needed. To me it looked like Case would have more resources it being a smaller student body and private college. Having said that it seemed like how easy and how many options they have will be depend on the student themselves. They have to be proactive and start looking as early as they can.
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Thank you for the summaries. We have similar choices w/merit (none for UW-Madison) but different majors and are OOS for all three. I could not get my son to visit Case. He is interested in economics and classical music and is a sports kid who wants some rah-rah… Kudos to you for getting your son to visit! Cost is a factor for us, and I feel like it would be more worth it to spend 60 K on a private school that has flexibility for majors than a big public, but my son had the exact experience as yours when visiting UD it was super beautiful out really pleasant, and we had personalized attention in both the business and environmental schools. Madison is another choice, but since we are from New York, we thought maybe UD would be better because it’s closer however, I’m learning that Wisconsin does have a better National alumni network curious to know where you’re at
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