Hey, it’s not that extreme. It’s the oldest engineering school in the country, with a noted program in entrepreneurship and an excellent incubator program. Admittedly, upstate New York is a lot different from Phoenix AZ, but Southwest Airlines flies into Albany, so you can get between the two with one change of plane. She should visit the campus; I’m sure they’ll be happy to host her. And there’s an alumni chapter in Phoenix that can answer more questions in person.
treis - I’m not saying the kid’s the next Einstein, but she’s smart and she applies herself. I can’t imagine that there’s much she can’t accomplish if she sets her mind to it. This is what she wants, and what teachers and schools think she has a good chance at suceeding in. There’s no reason to think she wouldn’t have an aptitude for Engineering. And if it isn’t the right fit, one year into it and a transfer to another school isn’t a bad thing.
Dinsdale - 1st year calc was a killer for me when I went to the U of Minnesota. Your son’s not exactly Mr. Social, is he? I thought you’d mentioned that before. How did he find his niche there?
Dewey Finn - I think they’re visiting colleges soon. Maybe I’ll suggest they fly up.
StG
[QUOTE=StGermain;10782472Eureka - My hope would be that in academic circles, a top-rated school would be known, no matter how small. According to their stats, about 40% of Rose-Hulman students are from Indiana, so that’s not terribly insular.
[/QUOTE]
yes, but . . . what if she doesn’t end up wanting a graduate degree in engineering? Or ends up hating engineering altogether? If she goes to Purdue, there’s a million liberal arts options available. She may not change her mind–but many college students do.
I’m not trying to argue pro or con any particular school, but if 40% of Rose-Hulman students are from Indiana–how many of the rest are from Illinois and other mid-western states vs. Massachusetts or New Mexico?
Picking a school with little or no graduate student population has some advantages–strong likelyhood of even intro-level courses being taught by tenured professors with PhDs rather than undertrained graduate students, for example, but you may lose a little in the name recognition stakes.
Of course, name recognition only takes you so far–might get you an interview here or there, but probably won’t get you hired . . .
Still a work in progress, man. I think he went into college thinking he would have boundless social opportunities, but the reality is he is largely the same guy he was in high school, which limits the possibilities if you know what I mean. And I think he may have had unrealistic expectations.
Just making one friend at a time - in the dorm cafeteria, in classes, working out. Joined a Tae Kwon Do club. But he takes his studies very seriously, which really limits some things.
I believe he is checking out an engineering frat. Tho I’m not a big greek fan, I can see how it has some social benefits. I think it is easy for the dedicated student to become isolated. So while I want the best for him, I also have to be careful not to play too large of a part in his social life.
So far he has avoided my approach, which was the ready acceptance of the stoners and drunks. 
This is a good point. I went to Rensselaer and knew some people who figured out once they were there that engineering was not for them. But at the time, there were few programs aside from engineering, science or management. (Since then they’ve expanded the liberal arts programs, although they are still sort of geeky, with programs in technical writing and electronic arts.) So some people fell into the situation we called “failing in” where their lack of interest and ability in the core classes meant that their grades were too poor to transfer to a good university, so they were stuck. A well-rounded school like Carnegie-Mellon or Stanford might be a better choice for some people.
Frankly, though, the niece you’re describing sounds like a fairly hard-core geek.
I’m a graduate of Rose-Hulman. I am very happy with the education I received. I’ll list what I see as some important features regarding the school. As other people have mentioned, these are not necessarily unique to RHIT, and likely can be found to varying degrees at other similar schools (Harvey-Mudd, RPI, etc.)
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Very non-party school in a non-party town. Great for studying and sharing classes with academically motivated students.
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Good focus on teaching. The only ‘TA’ equivalents I had were lab assistants, otherwise every (small) class was taught by a (very available) professor.
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Little non-science opportunities. The ‘softest’ degree is Economics. Humanities are available, but not stellar quality and easily avoided (my language study covered nearly all requirements for me).
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Good school support on post-graduation placement. RHIT particularly excels in finding graduates their first engineering job, the placement rate is a point of institutional pride. This is not as high a consideration for those looking to move directly into grad school.
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Many available merit scholarships. Academic performance is well rewarded through tuition breaks, etc.
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Conservative culture. Not in an aggressive sort of way, more a factor of location and the school’s academic focus.
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Lopsided gender ratios. I attended very shortly after the first women were admitted. I believe that the number of men-to-women is still pretty lopsided.
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Weak athletics. I am not aware of a single football victory during my four years.
RHIT, and similar excellent small technical schools, is a great choice for someone seeking to learn the trade of engineering and will provide a rock-solid foundation in that field. It is not a good choice for someone looking to be nurtured into a modern renaissance person.
Unfortunately your opinion does not reflect the reality of the professional world. You are generally far better off graduating from a better school. Simply going to MIT opens oportunities that someone from Southern Illinois probably won’t even be considered for, even as a top student. I don’t know anything about Southern Illinois, but generally it doesn’t matter if you go to number 1 or number 10. I mean there is no wrong choice if you are deciding between Rose-Hulman, MIT, or Carnegie Mellon.
As for whether it’s “worth it” financially, I can’t say. I graduated from a pretty highly selective engineering school about ten years ago. A significant number of the engineers in my class ended up never working in engineering and instead opted to work for consulting firms like Accenture or went and became lawyers. There just seems something inherently stupid about shelling out $200,000 for an education that will get you a $50,000 a year job.
My take:
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First of all, the “best” schools are not sharply defined. You can, at best, estimate what “tier” a school is in. Rose-Hulman is certainly a very fine school, but I don’t think you can say it’s better than Harvey Mudd, or Olin, or MIT or Purdue or Michigan. Those schools are different, and there’s nothing wrong with liking the feel of one better than the others, but I would definitely not focus on a particular school because it happens to sit atop the USNews rankings this year.
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Going to a better school probably does give you a chance at a better education. At the undergraduate level, though, the difference isn’t great, IMO. The student has to decide how much she thinks “a little better” is worth.
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However, it’s all about what you put into it: someone who puts more effort into her education at a lower-tier institution will be better-prepared than someone who just punches the clock at a “better” school.
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In addition, there are many “lower-tier” institutions that you would never think of as engineering schools that offer excellent programs with excellent faculty. I think that if a student likes a school and enjoys the program and likes the faculty, she’s likely to get a better education than she would at a top-tier school that she hates.
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When looking for a job, or getting into graduate school, then: grades in general, extracurricular activities, personal contacts, and other experience all count for more than the school you went to. I’m not saying the school is completely unimportant (and remember there are multiple tiers here, so MIT v. Ohio State is different than MIT v. East Podunk U.), but it’s nowhere near the most important (unless the person you’re interviewing with went to the same place).
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Once you’re in grad school, no one cares where you got your undergraduate (unless they went to the same place). Once you have work experience, no one cares where you got your undergraduate (unless they went to the same place).
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If your niece is convinced she wants to go to grad school (and it’s really a bit early to be convinced, but in any case…), she should probably consider a school with a strong graduate program, which Rose-Hulman does not have. There’s plenty of opportunity for bright undergraduates to do research work with faculty member, which is a huge advantage when applying to grad schools (as well as judging if one is interested in grad school).
-zut (BSME, MSME, PhDME, adjunct faculty, and ABET evaluator, for what it’s worth)
Well I am here to offer a different perspective on this in the professional world. Now Architecture may be different, but I also know lots of engineers and I would say it is the same. Schools matter ‘a bit’ but there are so many more actual tangible issues that are more important.
In Architecture it is your actual portfolio of work you have done and your innate design abilities that are more important. I have competed against many people from Ivy league schools and beat them to get the position, and I went to a state university for my masters. Going to a elite school and having a dull portfolio isn’t going to get you anywhere in this profession. But if you have good design abilities you can go very far even from a state school. I have worked with people from a wide variety of schools and I have not found any one school to be above the rest.
I have been VERY successful in my career, the only issue I would agree with you is that someone from an Ivy league school likely would have a old boys connection to help jump start their career, whereas someone like myself had to do it the old fashion way and earn it myself.
Now I can only speak to my career and I realize that Architecture may represent a more skewed view on the work industry then other professions. People generally expect and accept their Architect being a bit eccentric whereas they wouldn’t want that from their broker or banker.
Is it likely, based on her area of interest, that she will need to attend grad school? I assumed she would, but I know she’s less interested in academics (except for what it’ll teach her) and more interested in actually doing the work.
StG
As much as the place wasn’t for me, send her to freaking Georgia Tech. They have great programs in mechanical, material, structural engineering, as well as something very few other schools have, which is industrial design - designing things, like, well, car seats.
It is also:
- Reasonably close to Nashville
- Perfect for moderately attractive girls (like any engineering school in that regard)
- Tons of research if you like that sort of thing
- Tremendous amount of resources
- In downtown Atlanta which is freakin’ awesome
- Amazing internship/co-oping opportunities, such as interning at the Volkswagen design center in Germany
But most importantly, cost! It’s only 20ish a year for out of state, but the cool thing is that if you study abroad - and GaTech has an extensive study abroad program - you only have to pay in-state tuition, meaning you get to spend a year in Singapore, or France, or whatever for like 7k tuition.
Certain fields require graduate degrees to get a reasonable job in the field. Engineering is not one of them.
For someone less interested in academics and more interested in “actually doing the work” a BS should be fine. An MS would be okay too. A PhD seems like a bad idea.
Given her interests, she might want to consider Kettering University. It’s small, very engineering-centered, and very automotive-industry oriented. They are very big on co-op programs, and I believe their academic schedule is somewhat nontraditional in order to accomodate lengthy periods of industry work between terms.
Unfortunately, perhaps, it’s also in Flint, Michigan.
I don’t know a whole lot about Kettering, other than visiting there twice as a postdoc (while working with one of their faculty on a project that had absolutely nothing to do with automobiles… 
), so I’m not recommending it - just pointing out its existence since the school is not widely known. However, I’d submit that they are at least worth a look in your case - you may or may not find them attractive.
I was kind of going under the assumption we were talking about the professional world as it applies to engineering majors.
Architecture is a bit more artistic and subjective. Your professional reputation is defined, as you say, by your portfolio. Engineering, business and law are more rigid and structured disciplines. Grades and school reputation become more important because, for the most part, people don’t want a C student designing their buildings, doing their finances or putting together their legal defense. At least until they prove otherwise, which is hard to do as it is harder to get the intital experience.
**msmith **is making a different point from yours, I think: You are saying if you get a good education, regardless of where from, you can hang out your own shingle and start your business, say, in Architecture, and if you bring the right combo of hard work, luck, etc., you can do quite well - so “which specific school” is less of an issue. Is that close?
However, what **msmith **is saying is: if you want to work for a big, established firm - whether in engineering, architecture - or consulting, where they value the analytical skills one learns in technical majors - well then, you have to go to schools where those firms hire. Since most firms like that interview and bigger and/or prestigious-rep’d universities, then a budding student should try to attend one of them (or maybe a smaller school with a known alumni link to one or more targeted firms you want to work at…) **msmith **- how’d I do?
Go to the best school, for your discipline, that you can to get your bachelors. Find the best supervisor that you can for your PhD (they may be positioned anywhere).
(At undergraduate level, the quality of the school you attend really does affect the difficulty of the work that you are exposed to and opens positions in companies that will only hire graduates from certain schools.)
This is exactly what I came in here to post. Undergraduate research is extremely valuable for engineers for two reasons:
[ol]
[li]It gives them exposure to larger and longer-term projects than any class will. This isn’t unique to research, as internships and coops offer similar experiences, but if, for instance, you go to work for Boeing, you risk spending a lot of time learning Boeing’s proprietary technologies, and that doesn’t necessarily have as much carryover to your next project as basic research does.[/li][li]Research faculty have contacts in industry and academia, and a recommendation from a professor can carry a lot of weight in interviews. Such recommendations are, of course, required for grad school.[/li][/ol]
Maybe, maybe not. Engineering undergraduate degrees tend to spend four years covering the basics of the field that everybody needs to know regardless of what direction they end up going. Graduate school is the time to specialize in your field and to do more interdisciplinary work. On the other hand, if she can find a professor who does the sort of work she’s interested in and do some work for him (or her, but let’s keep the demographics in mind), that’ll go a long way towards helping her to specialize early. Furthermore, that professor can give her better direction as to whether she should continue on than we can.
All that said, a master’s in engineering is very rarely a bad investment. Since it’s only two years and non-thesis programs exist, it’s something she should definitely consider down the line.
EE here. Been one since 1992.
I work in a campus-styled, government-sponsored lab complex, and I’ve spent my entire professional career interacting with engineers. I have met some bright engineers. I have also met a lot of dim bulbs. I have found no correlation between engineering skills/aptitudes and the schools they attended.
I did not attend a prestigious engineering school. Not to brag, but I’m the first person they come to in my group when they’re having an electrical/electronic problem. Most of the other EEs in my group attended prestigious universities (Cornell, etc.), and I’d be surprised if most of them remembered V = IR.
Suffice to say, I don’t think it matters at all what school you attend. An engineer’s skills, intelligence, and ability come from within. Some of the brightest technical wizards I’ve met do not even have a 4-year engineering degree.
Your experience reflects a small sliver of the job market. Yeah, the MIT grad is going to have an advantage in name recognition if they are being hired for a non-engineering job. However, when engineers hire other engineers, experience and knowledge matter a lot more than the school name. A student manager of the Buckeye Bullet is going to be a million times more marketable than a MIT grad with a 3.0 and no real experience.
Ignore the sticker prices on the colleges. They are all but meaningless. Colleges have a vast array of financial aid opportunities, and you can’t begin to compare actual cost until all the offers are in. Many good private schools offer substantial scholarships to a huge chunk of their population–both merit-based and need-based. Often these scholarships bring the price down to about what the state school costs, or at least within 10-20% of it. Other schools won’t offer anything at all. It’s really hard to predict. So you can’t worry about making cost-benefit analysis until you’ve finished getting all the scholarship offers.
Furthermore, you can negotiate these things. If there is a school that she really loves more than any of the others and they don’t offer her enough money, she can call them up and explain that she’d love to go there but simply can’t afford it. They may call her bluff, but sometimes they will work with you if you are one they’ve decided they really want.