For undergrad engineering, UVA or Tech?

[Anonymous]

Go Hokies! If you can get into the engineering school - GO!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Go Hokies! If you can get into the engineering school - GO!

George Mason is more selective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Va Tech, but it is difficult to get into. YOu must apply as a freshman in your application to the Engineering School. Of the 8 colleges, Engineering is the most difficult to get into, followed by architecture and two others. You must list a second college - not of the top four - as your second choice.

You can just enter as undecided, which is called "university studies" and then transfer into any major. Some are restricted - engineering - but if you take the pre-reqs it doesn't matter.

Wow. This is so not the case in real life. Sounds good, though.

Um, what? Read up. I have plenty of friends who transferred into engineering from university studies and are quite successful now. I also have friends who entered the College of Engineering as freshmen and transferred out and graduated with some other major.

http://www.admiss.vt.edu/majors/index.php/majors/major/US

So your eye roll is based on your first hand experience that's 15 yrs old?

Actually, I graduated from VT within the last 5 years. Try again.

[Anonymous]

What's the latest thinking on this topic?

[Anonymous]

Georgia Tech, MIT, Purdue, Caltech

[Anonymous]

East Coast publics
Carnegie Mellon
UMD
GT

[Anonymous]

Rose-Hulman

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From what I have heard engineering would be the only reason to go with VATech. UVA is head and shoulders above VATech. If your kid is slightly undecided, then UVA all the way.

Oh come on. UVA is ranked better but they are two totally different schools. It's plausible that someone would choose one over the other for many reasons.

Really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go Hokies! If you can get into the engineering school - GO!

George Mason is more selective.

At what? Is that school even on a campus, or is it one big parking lot?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Given that choice, I'd let the kid go where the kid wants. (While I guess the majority would choose UVA, I don't think it's a "no brainer".)

In my experience, most people who have the choice go to Tech. Why wouldn't they? It's higher ranked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVa engineering grad here - if your kid is truly committed to being a working engineer, Va Tech is fine. However, if a kid ever wants to do something different during school or after, the kid will be much better off at UVA. A large number of entering engineering students fail out, and at UVA, these students can switch over to very well respected liberal arts programs. Also, I have many classmates who have gone on to do amazing things outside of engineering (become lawyers, doctors, start companies, work on Wall street, etc.).

+1. Do well at UVA and then go to an awesome grad eng program.

Like Tech?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UVa engineering grad here - if your kid is truly committed to being a working engineer, Va Tech is fine. However, if a kid ever wants to do something different during school or after, the kid will be much better off at UVA. A large number of entering engineering students fail out, and at UVA, these students can switch over to very well respected liberal arts programs. Also, I have many classmates who have gone on to do amazing things outside of engineering (become lawyers, doctors, start companies, work on Wall street, etc.).

+1. Do well at UVA and then go to an awesome grad eng program.

Like Tech?

Actually, graduate school for engineering isn't always needed to land a great job. Our son landed a pharma consulting position with just a Bachelors of Engineering. His backup plan was an MEng but luckily he didn't need it. PhD in Engineering is great if you want to do research of academia but may be overkill for a lot of applied positions in Engineering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Va Tech, but it is difficult to get into. YOu must apply as a freshman in your application to the Engineering School. Of the 8 colleges, Engineering is the most difficult to get into, followed by architecture and two others. You must list a second college - not of the top four - as your second choice.

You can just enter as undecided, which is called "university studies" and then transfer into any major. Some are restricted - engineering - but if you take the pre-reqs it doesn't matter.

Wow. This is so not the case in real life. Sounds good, though.

Um, what? Read up. I have plenty of friends who transferred into engineering from university studies and are quite successful now. I also have friends who entered the College of Engineering as freshmen and transferred out and graduated with some other major.

http://www.admiss.vt.edu/majors/index.php/majors/major/US

I teach at a top 25 school and you are not allowed to do this where I am. Further, other schools are considering this change, especially for engineering because as engineering grows more popular, students who aren't particularly qualified for the rigorous program transfer in and then fail out.

[Anonymous]

I really don't think the job, income and graduate school prospects are THAT much different between the two schools. You are going to need to do well at either school to get into a good grad school, so go where you think you are in the best position for success.

that said, a LOT of VT engineering students end up in different majors. I started in engineer at VT, hated it, and graduated with a liberal arts degree. It was ridiculously unchallenging and probably not the place for that kind of degree. (though I still ended up with a decent career after grad school). So don't always assume you are going to graduate in the same college you started out with ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Go Hokies! If you can get into the engineering school - GO!

George Mason is more selective.

At what? Is that school even on a campus, or is it one big parking lot?

Please .. Look at the selectivity percentages -- GMU is way more selective than VT.