<p>^^zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ;)</p>
<p>Hey! I wasn’t asleep, I was at lunch (same thing maybe?). Weenie, you already know what I would tell you. I don’t know zip about Ohio U. and Dad’o’2 did a great job outlining some info on that, plus gen’l pros and cons. So, is the difference between the $10k and the $28k impossible and out of the question or is there wiggle room, at least enuf to get thru the first year. An RA job at our state u pays room and board plus a stipend. That should reduce your $18k differential to about $8k. After your second year at you-know-where you can do co-op, alternating semesters with a job that pays about $2500/mo. I’ve been told about kids who work enuf hours to qualify for tuition reduction plans from their employers, which helps lower your costs more (altho I don’t know if they’d let you be an RA for just one semester, but you could certainly do it for soph yr). Also the co-op employer has been know to offer a job after graduation and pay the full cost of the masters degree. Several of the engrg websites for grad school I’ve looked at seem to have masters programs designed for working engineers, so that might work out nicely for him if he gets in with a good company through a co-op program.</p>
<p>On campus jobs could be plentiful at any or all of your choices, and you don’t have to completely forego student loans. We are looking at our S probably doing a loan/work study combo for the school he’s interested in as he has seen his sisters go through enuf to already have his game plan in place for his dream school and is working on wearing us down between now and then.</p>
<p>Does your S have a dream school in this mix? How hard is willing to work to make it happen?</p>
<p>
This is an excellent point, IMHO. My hubster does aircraft engineering type work in the “Aircraft Capital of the World”…Wichita, KS. Wichita State University, an otherwise unknown school 'cept for they unexpectedly made it into the Sweet Sixteen last year, has certain good engineering depts., and a degree from there is readily welcomed at all of the local aircraft companies and the smaller “supporting” businesses. As expected, WSU’s aerospace engineering dept is one of their stronger ones. </p>
<p>When my son interned at one of the area’s more esteemed firms, he was told in no uncertain terms that a law degree from Washburn (in Topeka) would give him much more leverage than one from one of those fer-away places, like Harvard. </p>
<p>In some areas, homegrown is preferable. ;)</p>
<p>D’s friend,mechanical engineer grad started his first job at $54,000 last June.Graduated from… GASP…Arizona State in Tempe.
While not originally from Arizona,he loves it there and decided to take his first job there with the same company he interned with (at $25.00/hr).
As Ive said before, in certain locations,the state U is the only game in town,well respected, and internships and job opportunities are there for the taking.</p>
<p>Ohio U’s website has a list of employers for their co-op program and it looks pretty good. Their local reputation could be excellent. Weenie, didn’t you say your brother or someone lives in Maine but works for a company in Ohio? They should be able to tell you something about this school.</p>
<p>Plus you can always use my headache test. (school A - headache; school B - sigh of relief). A lot of times you know deep down what you want to do, and your body will tell you even if your brain won’t. Don’t let a bunch of strangers push you where you don’t want to go.</p>
<p>It’s your son “going”, but you know what I mean.</p>
<p>pop quiz- who coined the phrase “cyber panties in a bunch” and what was he/she referring to??
(we’re back from local college trip :eek: and trying to decipher finaid offers 
)</p>
<p>I’m sure not relevant to the main thread, but to respond:</p>
<p>St. John’s being the answer to my fantasy! Oh horrors! Neither my son nor I could every survive a semester at a school with an entirely assigned reading list and so little science or research!</p>
<p>(but I know, perfect for someone else, and as ornery as I am, I’m happy to read all the great books, I just want to mix it up a bit!)</p>
<p>LOL. My nephew is going to St. John’s and his Mom loves it to. Both Mathson and I can’t imagine a greater torture!</p>
<p>After a semester at Penn my son became intrigued by St. John’s. If he wouldn’t have had to do 4 years there, he would have strongly considered it for a transfer school. It truly offers an intellectual experience, which you have to wonder whether some of the other highly acclaimed schools offer.</p>
<p>Ohio U recently had some major bad press with its engineering department, due to (verified) complaints of lax oversight and plagerism in the engineering graduate program. I’m actually an alum, so I have fond feelings for the school, but I would check out and research the issue, because it put the OU engineering department in a very bad light.
Re: engineering starting salaries: UT-Austin and Rice seem to have very similar starting salaries (mid 50’s). My son is choosing between those two schools… but we got a very discouraging email back from the honor program at UT (Ds asked for specifics about how many honors classes he would be able to take, since the honors program description very vague) and the lady replied that " We</p>
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<p>After many, many years of hiring engineers (and others), my belief is that the engineering school you go to (I went to Ga Tech for 7 years) may only make a difference in the first job, since the reputation of the school may affect which companies aggressively recruit there. After that first job, it doesn’t really matter.</p>
<p>dig: Would that be a vote for OU? 
:)</p>
<p>A question for digmedia and others in the field:</p>
<p>In general only (I know there will be exceptions), I think we can assume that the type of student who gets admitted to Cornell and wants to study math, science or engineering will have excelled in high school and will have completed a number of advanced/honors/AP math and science classes before entering college. At the very minimum, we can presume a year of AP calculus and AP physics if not much more than that. At our high school, the Ivy admit type of student would likely have taken AP calculus as a soph. or jr.–maybe even as a freshman–and would have gone on from there into multivariable calculus and other college courses. (Please, for now let’s not enter into the age-old discussion of the fact the levels of most advanced high school classes still aren’t the same as college classes.)</p>
<p>Therefore, it seems to me that since the average Cornell student entering engineering would already come in pretty well-prepared, the general instructional level can start much higher than it might at a lower-ranked school. Several classmates of my son’s are now studying engineering at local state schools. None of them were in the advanced track for math in our school district, so they wouldn’t have gotten beyond pre-calc in high school. None of them took any AP sciences in high school either. Maybe some were slackers or late-bloomers, but I think we can also safely assume that many simply aren’t as academically talented too. Therefore, regardless of the high quality of education and engineering courses available at many state schools, wouldn’t it be likely that they will not be able to progress as far or as fast as their elite school counterparts? It’s hard to imagine that at the end of 4 years the average state school graduate willl be as well-educated as the Cornell student simply because the former will have had to fill some of their schedule with all the introductory classes the elite school kid would have already completed in high school. </p>
<p>So now, what about the student who qualified for elite admission but chose to attend the lower-ranked school with $$$. To what extent will his education be impacted by that cohort of students who weren’t similarly qualified? That is the question that the many threads on this topic always come back to. I’m not sure I know the answer, but here’s a real-life example which may illumine this point, though it’s not about engineering.</p>
<p>At my S’s elite college, the pre-requisite for the two most introductory economics classes is calculus (and actually with his teacher it should have been multivariable calculus). In contrast, at my top LAC I successfully navigated those same intro. classes (and one intermediate econ. class) with no calculus knowledge at all. So, can we assume that if the starting level of knowledge for introductory classes is higher at an elite, the ending level of preparation will also be higher? This basic difference in the quality of education wouldn’t change in the case of an elite school admit who had taken AP calc. in high school, but decided to attend the state U with money. Regardless of his capabilities in calculus, if the intro. econ. course offered at the state U does not utlilize it, then it’s irrelevant. Even though that student possesses the ability to do more complex work, there will be less opportunity because of the tailoring of the classes to the average student at the school.</p>
<p>So, to what degree does this type of difference impact fields like engineering? Would that knowledge differential (if you agree it exists) dissipate after that first job?</p>
<p>I’d just add one thing to the above post. I think the rather high attrition rate in engineering at some of the lesser ranked schools can be attributed to exactly that scenario, kids have been admitted who just aren’t well enough prepared.</p>
<p>Dad ‘o’ 2 - I wanted to send you a private message, but you don’t have it enabled…anyway, thanks for your thoughtful post on here and have a good trip to RPI! We’ll be there the weekend after you.</p>
<p>Weenie, that may be true, but the state schools have a different mission from the elites, and that is to educate everyone, or at least give everyone a chance to be educated. With respect to engineering, it is the high attrition rate that means that those who make it through and graduate from a good state school engineering program probably DO have the same quality of education as an elite school engineer. Mind you I said a “good” state school engineering program, of which there are many.</p>
<p>I have only got the recent experience of my D2 who is in a good state school program, and the friends of D1 who goes to a somewhat lesser ranked state school and has friends in its engineering program. At both places a fairly large % of those who start out in engineering either flunk out or transfer out pretty quickly. From what I have seen neither school skimps on rigor or quality just to keep people in the program.</p>
<p>As far as the example GFG gives on the econ classes, at least at D1’s school an elite admit student would be in the honors college, which at her school is quite extensive in its course offerings. There are honors sections of just about everything and they provide the elite equivalent, ie, all the students in that section have taken the AP versions of the prereqs, more or less, so the class moves ahead faster and goes into more depth than the regular section. I think D1’s school would, however treat its engineering classes differently from its econ classes, ie, the engrg classes would start off with the necessary rigor and if you didn’t have the prereqs you wouldn’t be allowed to take them.</p>
<p>At most every state school we’ve researched for both Ds it is almost universal that the average gpa’s and test scores for the engrg frosh are higher than those for the frosh as a whole. A lot of state schools have separate admissions standards for their engrg programs.</p>
<p>GFG: Some econ departments are more quantitative in their approach than others; that said, if an econ dept (in a state university or elsewhere) is more quantitative in its approach, the classes are still <em>not</em> taught in such a way that the kids who did not take AP calculus in high school can easily get by. On the contrary, they are taught assuming that everybody has the required background. This is the way they weed out kids, in the intro courses, who would never be able to make it through an econ major. As mercymom says, a state university will also offer many of these same courses on the honors track, but even in non-honors, the intro courses are certainly not taught on a remedial or “slower” basis. They zoom right along, and if a student gets it–great. If not, he or she usually switches to another major.</p>
<p>My post may not be as clear as I’d like. See, at both schools my kids go to there aren’t any “honors” engrg classes; they pretty much think engrg is hard enuf as it is. Actually, at D2 (the engrg D)'s school there is honors egrg analysis for frosh and an honors egrg seminar (she’s in both), but most of the other stuff after freshman year is the same for everyone. D1’s school doesn’t have the equivalent of honors engrg analysis or the seminar.</p>
<p>As for the rest of the freshman engrg curriculum, well there are of course honors sections of stuff like calculus and physics, or the AP kids would just start out in either Calc 2 or Calc3 (or even Calc 4!). There was apparently a huge drop out rate in honors physics between first and second semester. The school does however accomodate those who can’t start with calculus and they start with a lower math, maybe even a pre-physics class. But D2 tells me that now that they are scheduling for next fall, some of these students are being classified as “continuing freshmen”, ie, they aren’t being allowed to affiliate with a particular engrg dept but are being “held back” so to speak to get their prereqs up to snuff before being allowed to move on to the harder stuff like maybe mechanics or statics. A great number of kids who started out with D2 have decided to switch out of engrg altogether. But I think a state school feels the need to let them try and to support them in that effort. And an elite school doesn’t need to even consider doing that.</p>
<p>When I worked for Bell Labs, one of my duties was to visit certain schools to give talks and encourage continued engineering education. I won’t go into which schools those were, but let me state that they would not make any of the top tiers on any list.</p>
<p>What I found bears out to some extent what TheGFG said. There was a HUGE difference between the preparation level of these lowest tier schools and any of the schools we talk about here. But asked the same question about a school ranked in the top 100 of engineering schools and the top schools, the question might be harder to answer.</p>
<p>The question is also complicated by the individual student capabilities as well and how fully they take advantage of what is offered to them. I taught full-time at DeVry University, not one of the schools you hear discussed on CC. And, on average, I would say the AVERAGE quality of the students was nowhere near what you would find even in a state flagship. BUT, there were some top students there, and the school itself presented excellent resources for them, and for those who chose to take advantage of the situation, there was no lack of job opportunities. In my current company, one of our best (read: smartest) directors is a DeVry grad.</p>
<p>So, it depends on the student and it depends on the school, but as long as we’re talking schools that are familiar to CC posters, one can get a great engineering education at any one of them.</p>
<p>One of the students on the CMU board (a top school for computer science) said that kids come in with a fairly different amounts of computer programming experience. Those with relatively little may never quite catch up to those who start off with more, but there are courses at all levels. I’d guess that at State U. the kids with more math or science beyond APs would be likely to place into more advanced courses and thus emerge at the other end with more advanced level courses at the other end. Courses that might well be at the same level as those courses that all kids at a top engineering school would take.</p>