College Selection

[Nadonahoe Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Nadonahoe]

Hi All,

My youngest child is a Senior in High School and the college acceptances have been coming in over the past 3 months. Chris is applying to engineering programs with an interest in Chemical Engineering and hobby in Software Engineering. He is a bright and capable student - but not much of a proactive socializer.

So far, his top three are Lehigh, Drexel and RPI (Rensselaer). Given all things being equal, if you have experience with these schools, which would you recommend and for what reasons.

Money is not a big factor in the decision - these schools are clear that they really want him as a student. A caring and supportive college infrastructure is a big plus to me - Chris doesn't think he needs to interact much with others for fun, but Mom knows that he enjoys it and will take advantage of options like Chess or Go club, Tennis team, 'Net Gaming, Movies etc. In addition, although he manages well, he has some health issues (diabetes, asthma) that need periodic supervision and treatment recalibration.

Goals are to participate in intern and co-op programs, work through to PhD level and augment engineering classes with business management classes. No specifc career options - is very creative, likes materials engineering right now and has had an exceptional High School Science track record in Chem, Physics, Biology, Earth Science.

Thanks for your time and input - I value any opinions or suggestions for how to weigh the factors and also to identify any important differences amongst schools that you know of........ Noelle

edited 3 times to correct spelling of Rensselaer !!

[grest Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close grest]

I know someone who went to Rensselaer, and the opportunities he had for interning were amazing. This was maybe 5 or 6 years ago, but he had a great deal to choose from. One year he was somewhere in Europe. I'm sorry I cannot remember the specifics. One of my cousins also graduated from there and got a wonderful job opportunity where he was able to advance quickly, and did so enough to retire early, but obviously this was many years ago.
Connie

[riverdees05 Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close riverdees05]

My son-in-law is working on his masters for Rensselaer via a program with Saturn/GM. Good School.

[davhu1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close davhu1]

Rit

You may get better responses at College Confidential:
http://www.collegeconfidential.com/

USnews ranking:
RIT 18
Lehigh 41
Drexel 57

I agree with the ranking order. RIT (did they change name? used to be RPI?)
is stronger academically. The social life is very dull but SUNY Albany and Union College are nearby. Lehigh is known by some as a party school. Drexel is not as strong by has a very good co-op program. Base on how you described you son, I think he would be happy at RIT.

My son is a junior and is also intersted in majoring in engineering. I am encouraging him to look at university that can provide greater options in majors (in case he changes his mind about engineering), social life and activities.

Good luck!

[Nadonahoe Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Nadonahoe]

OOOps - senility is Hell

Thank you all who took the time to think about and respond to me re this post. As is likely very apparent, I was an older parent when my son was born and as a result senility is taking over (maybe its just that I'm a little spaced out after my 4th experience raising a teenager! Not only did I have trouble spelling Rensselaer, but indeed I should have used RPI instead of RIT - it will only take 2 edits to get that change input. Thanks so much for your input..... Noelle

[GrayFal Silver Contributor and supermoderator Find all posts View Profile Close GrayFal]

RIT for his major...Lehigh is a good school but for his major - defintely RIT

[basham Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close basham]

I'm not from the US but would always consider money to be a factor in the equation in the choice of college. It is so expensive now at about 45K per year that with a number of kids to put through, without some financial aid I couldn't do it.

That aside. My son attends RPI, I'm not familiar with the other two colleges mentioned. He is a Physics major and instead of a Geek actually is a very social person, I'm surprised.

His plan is similar to your son's, PHD at MIT or stay at RPI for it if necessary.I never had that worry.

At young adulthood ages it is difficult to match colleges. Primarily I just look at it as years spent to grow into adulthood. Try to put them into the best situation to do that.

[chemteach Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close chemteach]

Rensselaer has a very good engineering program. Your son would probably find like-minded students there to socialize with. I don't know much about Drexel. In terms of engineering, Renssalear should be a great fit. I went to undergrad at MIT and it was really nice to be surrounded by many right-brain people. I imagine Renssalear would be similar because it is a math/science focused school. Lehigh was ranked a bit higher by U.S. News, and they have a HUGE chemical engineering department.

Just a quick note to add: if he wants to go to graduate school, he should try to do research with a professor as an undergraduate.

[Cat Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Cat]

My husband graduated from RPI (yes, Rensselaer!) and over the years, he said that his education prepared him better than almost everyone else he has worked with. Furthermore, among those who intend to major in engineering, a degree from there enjoys cachet because of its well-known quality.

At his first job, the company president was also RPI educated. You will find many RPI grads in similar positions.

[wackymother Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wackymother]

This topic is timely for us, too--my oldest DD is a sophomore in HS and starting to look at RPI and RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) and WPI (Worchester Polytechnic) for computer science. Nadonaho (hope I'm spelling that right!), did your son get the RPI Medal? Did you visit the campus? What did you think?

[Cat Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Cat]

RPI is an inner city campus, an integral part of the city of Troy, NY. It's "up the hill" on Congress.

A big plus for those entering the technical field, is the co-op program, which an earlier poster mentioned. Employers love the co-ops, and many times a student will snag his first permanent full-time job as a result of his co-op work.

[chemteach Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close chemteach]

I spoke with a fellow teacher today, who is familiar with both Lehigh and RPI. She said that for someone who definitely wants to go into an engineering/math/science field, RPI is the better choice. Lehigh is more liberal arts focused and the science/engineering students are not abundant. RPI's strength is its engineering programs, and your son would have the ability to see many different fields that may interest him.

Edye

[davhu1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close davhu1]

This topic is timely for us, too--my oldest DD is a sophomore in HS and starting to look at RPI and RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) and WPI (Worchester Polytechnic) for computer science. Nadonaho (hope I'm spelling that right!), did your son get the RPI Medal? Did you visit the campus? What did you think?

USNews rankings:
Undergraduate engineering specialties:
Computer Engineering
(At schools whose highest degree is a doctorate)

1. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology
2. Stanford University (CA)
3. Carnegie Mellon University (PA)
University of California–Berkeley *
5. U. of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign *
6. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor *
7. University of Texas–Austin *
8. Georgia Institute of Technology *
9. Cornell University (NY)
10. University of Washington *
11. California Institute of Technology
Purdue Univ.–West Lafayette (IN)*
13. Princeton University (NJ)
14. Univ. of California–Los Angeles *
15. Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison *
16. Duke University (NC)
17. Northwestern University (IL)
Rice University (TX)
19. Univ. of California–San Diego *
Univ. of Southern California
21. Johns Hopkins University (MD)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. (NY)
Texas A&M Univ.–College Station *
Univ. of Maryland–College Park *


Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs ranking:
RPI = 18
WPI = 51
RIT = 57

[Nadonahoe Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Nadonahoe]

Decision date is getting closer

Thanks so much to all of you generous souls for your insight and empathy.

For some reason, it gets that much harder choosing THE school from so many good offers - my son (and his Dad and I) has some interesting times ahead.

Acceptances for Northeastern and Lehigh just arrived today as well as a letter announcing that Chris has been admitted to Drexel's Honors College (his other acceptances were RPI,Syracuse and Rutgers). He'd have some enriching opportunities and leadership experiences offered to Honors College students.

Drexel, Syracuse and RPI have all offered him generous merit scholarships.

A primary requirement is to experience an outstanding co-op program and Drexel's reputation and 18 months of co-op built into the 5 year program is a big draw in spite of the overall school rankings. I need to understand more about what aspects influenced those rankings in order to begin to compare the differences in quality and programs amongst these 5 engineering schools.
Perhaps a discussion with the Deans of the Engineering programs will help in distinguishing the key characteristics of an undergraduate education from each of the schools.

To WackyMother: Chris is not an RPI Medal participant and we have not visited the campus. Chris and his Dad did attend an RPI admissions event in NYC several months ago. Since Syracuse and RPI were a little remote from us, we agreed to defer a visit until he had been accepted and was weighing one of those schools as his college of choice.

I'll let you all know the final outcome if we survive the stress of making this decision :^)

[riverdees05 Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close riverdees05]

The best thing about it, is that he has some really great choices. That shows that his hard work has paid off. Just think of all this class mates that would just love to have his problem! I am sure he with your help will make pick the best school for him.