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Wall Street Journal surveyed recruiters, and Penn State was ranked no. 1 overall based on the survey, and ranked no. 9 in engineering. Illinios is like 3 overall.
If the kid should happen to want to get a job in Chicago after school, going to Illinois would be a golden ticket for that. it will be the college the companies in Chicago are most familiar with.
I asked my spouse, who has a physics degree but does engineering work, without giving him any background on this thread, if he thought Penn State or CU was the better school. He very diplomatically said he didn't know much about Penn State, but that Illinois was better than either one of them. As I said, he didn't know we were talking about Illinois.
Speaking in terms of real life job hiring, I highly doubt that HR people care about rankings. My husbands employer is a Lehigh grad and tends to hire other Lehigh grads. They hire based on other workers they've had and how well they did and perhaps their own personal ties to colleges. That is, if several workers were from the local State U and they performed well than he/she will think that the college is good. I do think it's advantageous to go to the college where you may end up living just for that reason. But, heck when you graduate, you should be prepared to go where the jobs are. None of my kids stayed are now living in the same state where they went to college or where they grew up.
Speaking in terms of real life job hiring, I highly doubt that HR people care about rankings. My husbands employer is a Lehigh grad and tends to hire other Lehigh grads. They hire based on other workers they've had and how well they did and perhaps their own personal ties to colleges. That is, if several workers were from the local State U and they performed well than he/she will think that the college is good. I do think it's advantageous to go to the college where you may end up living just for that reason. But, heck when you graduate, you should be prepared to go where the jobs are. None of my kids stayed are now living in the same state where they went to college or where they grew up.
I don't think HR people care about rankings per se, as in #1 or #10 or whatever; the reputation of the school is I think a factor, especially in certain fields. A degree from MIT or Caltech will open some doors.
I asked my spouse, who has a physics degree but does engineering work, without giving him any background on this thread, if he thought Penn State or CU was the better school. He very diplomatically said he didn't know much about Penn State, but that Illinois was better than either one of them. As I said, he didn't know we were talking about Illinois.
I think a more valuable assessment of their relative merits would come from someone familiar with all three.
I think a more valuable assessment of their relative merits would come from someone familiar with all three.
Well, I am. I'd go with Illinois. That's what I said in the first place. I thought I'd get a more unbiased opinion, as I am from PA. Not many Penn State engineers out here. Pennsylvanians don't move around much.
He will definitely apply to U of I. He just doesn't want to go there at this point, but I will make sure he has some skin in the game when he makes that decision (e.g. pays a portion of the out-of-state difference).
Agree with the comments that, if he's paying out-of-state tuition, he should look at private schools due to their aid.
He spends a lot of time in PA (have family there) and CO (have a home there) so he knows and loves those areas. His dream is to work/move out of IL to a place with mountains.
Also, he is now leaning more towards business or engineering management degree (he needs to research programs more, though I remember Penn State having something like this), so he is not seeking the most rigorous engineering school out there - just a program that fits.
^^Well, if DS wants to go somewhere with mountains, then I'd recommend CU. Be aware he will likely get NO financial aid from them, unless you guys are destitute, which it does not sound like. I do think it's a better school than Penn State, and he may totally change his mind about majors once he gets to college and starts taking courses.
He will definitely apply to U of I. He just doesn't want to go there at this point, but I will make sure he has some skin in the game when he makes that decision (e.g. pays a portion of the out-of-state difference).
Agree with the comments that, if he's paying out-of-state tuition, he should look at private schools due to their aid.
He spends a lot of time in PA (have family there) and CO (have a home there) so he knows and loves those areas. His dream is to work/move out of IL to a place with mountains.
Also, he is now leaning more towards business or engineering management degree (he needs to research programs more, though I remember Penn State having something like this), so he is not seeking the most rigorous engineering school out there - just a program that fits.
As a lifelong Chicagoan, I understand the desire for natural scenery... but from a pure academic perspective, there is absolutely NO reason to pay more than in-state tuition at the University of Illinois if you're majoring in engineering or business outside of getting into an Ivy League or Ivy-level (e.g. Stanford/MIT) school. Out of all of the schools that you've listed, the only school that are comparable or better compared to Illinois for engineering and business are Michigan and Northwestern (which doesn't have an undergrad business program but elite financial firms recruit there more for the overall prestige). I could also see an argument for going to Indiana for business because its Kelley school has a great reputation, but that's about it. Having worked for several consulting and tech firms, I think a lot of people in this thread are understating the material advantage that U of I has on the engineering front even compared to a solid school like Penn State or Colorado. You can take a look at the list of firms that recruit at Illinois Engineering (e.g. Google, the major consulting firms, etc.) and they're as top notch as you'll find outside of Stanford and MIT. It would be one thing if your son wanted to be a liberal arts major, in which case it wouldn't really matter. However, engineering and business happen to be the two areas where U of I is a top tier institution.
Maybe it's just me, but I can't wrap my head around paying *more* for out-of-state tuition when the reputations of the specific engineering and business programs at U of I that you could receive for in-state tuition are CLEARLY better than the other options that you have listed (and in the case of engineering, we're talking about an elite level right under Stanford/MIT). If your son wants the ski lifestyle, then that's great, but he ought to look at the long-term career opportunities coming from a top institution that could actually provide him the resources to *afford* that ski lifestyle for the rest of his life as opposed to spending *extra* money on college that doesn't have as great of academics in the specific areas that he's interested in.
If this was a debate between paying more for Northwestern or Michigan compared to going to Illinois, then I think it's a tough decision... but that's because Northwestern and Michigan are higher on the academic pecking order compared to Illinois. That is definitely not the case for schools like Penn State or Colorado - you'd be paying more money for lower-ranked schools compared to Illinois (especially for engineering). It would also be different if you thought your son really didn't want to attend a large flagship school and maybe needed a smaller school environment (which is understandable for many people). However, when you take away the mountains, Penn State and Colorado are going to have very similar campus cultures compared to Illinois and they're similar in size. Once again, paying more just for the mountains (especially when it's a clear academic downgrade) is hard for me to understand, but maybe that's just me.
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