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In the South, some of the big engineering schools are Georgia Tech, Auburn, and LSU. They're pretty expensive, but if you apply within certain time frames and with certain qualifications, they do give out some pretty generous money. They also have a history of students getting hired by good companies very quickly after graduation, great intern opportunities, and fantastic research chances. As far as private goes, Mercer University in Macon, GA is great, but expensive. A lot of our mentors attend Mercer and absolutely love it.

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Hey James,

I was wondering if you could go into detail about Cooper Union. I am heavily considering the school and would love to learn more about your experience and opinions.

Thank you

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Sure thing.

Academically Cooper is VERY tough and has little or no grade inflation. Where some of my friends had to get special permission to take more than 16 or 18 credits worth of classes I hardly had a semester with fewer than 18 credit-hours. My class' valedictorian did not have straight-As nor a 4.0, and no one (admin included) could recall a valedictorian that had gotten a 4.0. This can be very tough on perfectionists and people who were their HS class' valedictorian, I saw several people like this burn out quite rapidly. Despite the demanding academics I only ever had class 4 days per week (aside from one semester when I took a machine shop class, but that was 0-credits and really fun). No classes started before 9am, most started at 11am, and some ran until 9pm. I liked that classes were timed around what many college students fall into naturally and that I had an extra free day to catch up on work since often a Saturday or Sunday was completely soaked up by a sport or club event.

Cooper is quite small. A whole engineering class will likely have 130ish students in it, plus a few more for art and architecture. It also has a very high retention rate, around 93% IIRC for freshman. This means you're going to be working with the same 25-30ish students in your major for around 3 years. This is a double-edged sword - you can make a really good friends or really bad enemies. There is also a 2:1 M:F ratio, which is REALLY good for a school that is a vast majority of engineers.

Athletics and clubs are very accessible at Cooper because it is so small. I played soccer, ultimate frisbee, and men's volley ball; both the soccer and ultimate frisbee teams were (are?) co-ed. Many students at Cooper participate in a sport or a club of some sort. I was loosely involved in starting the Chem-E car team at Cooper (National Champions!) and heavily involved in getting Cooper's FSAE team off the ground. Tangential to the FSAE team I wound up running Cooper's welding lab for its first year and teaching my fellow students how to weld. I was also a part of the outdoor club, which did camping trips in the state parks around NYC, I was part of the re-formed billiards club, and a few other clubs.

I knew most of the faulty and staff personally and I knew some of the administration personally as well (I even went alpine skiing with Cooper's president for a couple runs almost every year on Cooper's annual ski trip). I sat in on the ME department meetings to help give student perspective to the faculty. I very much enjoyed that I could be involved in how the school operated and that the faculty and administration respected and appreciated my input. I was not alone in this level of involvement either. I do not think I would have enjoyed this facet of my college experience at a larger institution.

While Cooper is small, it is also in downtown NYC. There is no lack of opportunity for social interaction with literally millions of people (bear in mind that my home town had 1,600 people in it, and I went to college in a city of 16,000,000). Your campus is Manhattan. There is no end to what you can do on a free weekend. Also: Manhattan is your dormitory as well. Cooper has no meal plans, only a very small gym, and housing only for freshmen. After that, it's become an RA or get an apartment in or around NYC. This requires a relatively high level of responsibility and independence: not every 18 or 19 y/o out there can handle a full course load, shopping for food, cooking, paying all their bills, etc. Many can handle it, but it can be difficult. Personally, I loved it. I have always done my best work when school (or my job) wasn't the only large focus.

I graduated in 2009, right about at the worst time to get hired as a fresh college graduate. I nominally got on solid offer and took it, but I was being VERY picky about where I applied and what I would be doing. Virtually all of my classmates either had a job or got into a graduate program by the time we all got our degrees.

After graduation I was able to pass the FE exam in ME comfortably. I found that I had a very well-rounded skill-set that has served me well in my job. Most importantly though Cooper helped me hone my self-teaching skills which has been the second-most useful thing I learned there. Cooper definitely gives you enough rope to hang yourself with. The single most important thing I learned there is that being smart won't cut it - everyone who gets into Cooper is REALLY smart - hard work is what will get you through.

Cooper was very challenging for me. I don't know anyone whom it did not challenge in a very significant way (or ways). I knew people who burned out, dropped out from low grades, or couldn't handle the required responsibility and independence. The admissions office knows this and generally won't admit people who will fail (note that 93%+ retention rate and 7% acceptance rate).

TL;DR

Cooper is small, which is a double-edged sword. Cooper is really tough academically and otherwise, it isn't for everyone. If you come out alive on the other side you will be really well-equipped to do almost anything you want. I know (many) people who started their own companies in a variety of fields and people who work(ed) at: Google, Ford, GM, SWRI, Navy Electric Boats, Disney, Stryker, Credite Suisse, LG, Skanska, LEED, ISO, Motorolla, Mattel, Barclay's Capital, etc. I really liked my time there, though it was difficult it was also very rewarding. I loved being able to personally contribute to Cooper and I loved living in Manhattan for four years.

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If you know you aren't incredibly interested in staying in academia, I would definitely look at schools that offer cooperative (co-op) education programs. Some that stand out are Waterloo, Northeastern, and RIT. These schools are laser focused on making sure you have a ton (18+ months) of internship experience in your field before graduation, which is huge when it comes to getting offers to return to these employers or just having awesome stuff on your resume.

If you are interested in staying in academia or pursuing research positions, try to find a school that is well known for as being a research institution. While this seems like quite the obvious statement, my (anecdotal) experience showed me that, of friends looking for grad school admission/RA sponsorship, most were successful due to the great recommendation of the professors they did undergrad research with.

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Seconding and adding my school of Kettering to the list. 2+ yrs of work exp on graduation.

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Magnificently detailed and informative. Thank you James. That was extremely helpful. :)

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I'll second putting Olin on the list. Not many people at all have heard of it, but for FIRST kids, it really could be nirvana. It's small, very team/project oriented, and very engineering focused. You can do basically any project you're interested in while you're there, and they have many great student run engineering teams (Autonomous boat, human powered vehicle, Baja SAE, etc.). And lots of FRC kids end up there.

If you do end up applying and get invited to candidates weekend, I highly recommend you go. Olin's definitely not for everyone, and I was happy I got the opportunity to figure put it wasn't for me.

Oh yeah, and Stanford's pretty all around awesome. So, you might want to consider going there.

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You are welcome!

Good luck in your decision. :]

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Seconding Kettering. I was hired at my co-op right out of high school, and a lot of the younger engineers here were hired on full time after having a co-op with the company.

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Same. I didn't think much of Olin until candidates weekend ( I didn't like the idea of the size), but upon visiting I was convinced it was me.

I'd say just apply- it's common app with a couple supplements, and if you get into Candidates Weekend, go. You'll figure out if it's for you there - but probably not until then.

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Also Drexel.

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Just dropped a daughter off at Olin last weekend, and I can't recommend it highly enough. :)

If you can get in, they meet full financial need like many of the other selective schools, which makes it a great option. They just moved to #3 on the list of engineering schools without a doctoral program by U.S. News and World Report, and they made many of the Princeton Review lists this year, including #2 in best classroom experience.

Her experiences with FIRST and the connections she made through her FRC team were a huge part of her admission, so while she isn't on an official FIRST scholarship, FIRST is responsible for a huge savings in her college costs for our family. :D

(Olin students can also take classes at Wellesley, too, not just Babson.)

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I'll add the University of the Pacific (UoP) in Stockton as a school with a good co-op program. While not 18 months, it's unique in that all engineering students are required to do a seven month co-op, meaning either a spring or fall semester plus a summer, but they can still complete their BS in four years. They get paid plus receive college credits for the co-op.

My son is a UoP senior in Bioengineering. He's doing his co-op at Coopervision a contact lens manufacturer in Pleasanton. While not well known as an engineering school they have a decent national ranking. Tuition's not cheap, but they offered much better financial aid than the big state schools that my son was accepted to so it evened out. They classify themselves a mid-size college, but class sizes are small. The largest my son's had was around 60 students. In talking to him about his classes it sounds like they have a thorough and challenging curriculum.

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I'm putting in my 2 cents for Iowa State.

We're not really a "name brand" school, but I've found that hasn't hampered with my job potential (we get recruiters from a lot of midwest companies -think 3M, Garmin, Rockwell Collins, and of course John Deere and Vermeer- but we also get attention from companies across the country -TI, NI, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, Boeing...).

Iowa State is also inexpensive because we are a land-grant school. In-state tuition is incredibly low and out of state tuition is comparable to other schools at ~20k. They then off-set this by giving most out-of-staters a 4 year scholarship that varies based on high school classes, but can get as large as 7.5k a year. Most females in engineering get additional financial aid. I'm not sure what the prospects are for men, but the engineering college (which is the only college I know much about) does some nice things that make it easy to apply for a lot of scholarships with a single application.

I like the way classes are done here with a fair amount of hands-on work (my department has a lot of lab-based classes), but I can't compare that to other schools because I don't know other schools.

Go 'Clones.

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If you are interested in the small school feel, defiantly take a look at Webb. A lot of students there listed Cooper as their other top choice.