Anonymous wrote:Any other schools you would research in this same set…not MIT, but something attainable for a 4.3 1400 SAT.

We visited Colorado School of Mines in Golden last week. Beautiful campus, great placement rates, and Golden is a cute town. STEM kid loved it, but it might be out of our price range OOS.

Clarkson University

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have to like co-op to choose RIT.

And RPI, they require Juniors to leave for at least a semester for the ARCH. https://ccpd.rpi.edu/students/experiential-learning

And it means requiring first sem junior year hard core Eng courses be taken in the two summer sessions. Not a fan of condensed Eng courses. And neither are most students. The arch is just a money grab for the university. You must live on campus and have the meal plan for that summer. And then be off campus for fall or spring whenever you get your “internship” which makes it harder to live off campus tge semester you are in Troy. So the uni gets more kids on campus and with forced meal plans.

Def visit and research before picking. My DD hated the campus and environment.

Also the buildings are in poor shape, a sign of the financial problems.

Anonymous wrote:DC loved RIT and did not like RPI at all. This is one area where looking at rankings and thinking they mean something is a good way to make a poor choice. Lots of complaints about RPI's junior year situation. I also do not think it is true to say RPI is better academically.

DC chose a different school, but really loved RIT.

+1

Location (Troy) is dismal for rpi. The junior required program is terrible, the university is in financial problems, etc. you can do better than rpi for a tech school. Rit and wpi both being examples.

I found the RIT campus a little isolated, but the students are really nice and my kid liked it a lot. RIT is very generous with merit aid, at least if your kid is the kind who can also get into RPI, which I agree has more academic cred. But Troy is bleak. Bleak, bleaker, bleakest.

Anonymous wrote:Visited RPI a few weeks ago and thought the campus was pretty dismal. Had that 70s concrete brutalism vibe. Not very exciting off campus options. Haven’t seen RIT yet.

I agree. RIT nicer campus overall and nicer city

Visited RPI a few weeks ago and thought the campus was pretty dismal. Had that 70s concrete brutalism vibe. Not very exciting off campus options. Haven’t seen RIT yet.

Our student preferred RIT over RPI after a visit and the general feeling and interactions with the student body at RPI. RPI may be the more academically challenging/ranked school but there is something about feeling comfortable. The RIT co-op options were good, the new buildings and lab equipment are top-notch. The size was a little bigger than our student wanted - he only applied to RIT he didn't get as much aid as he would have liked and decided not to attend.

I debated between these two and choose RPI for the stronger program. It was a long time ago but I regretted the decision when I was there. RPI was small and in a very isolated area. RIT was also isolated but my friends who went there instead seemed overall happier. It was a larger school with different types of students since there were different majors. It could have changed since then but take some time and visit. Stay overnight if you can. Try to see if your kid will be happy in these locations.

If I could go back in time I would pick a different area of the country completely instead of narrowing my choices to these two.

Anonymous wrote:What’s co-op?

For most majors, you are required to spend two separate semesters working full time instead of taking classes. Those majors are 5 year programs.

Anonymous wrote:Have to like co-op to choose RIT.

And RPI, they require Juniors to leave for at least a semester for the ARCH. https://ccpd.rpi.edu/students/experiential-learning