College Search: Final Five
Perhaps this post should have been ... Web 2.0 and the College Admissions Process! Although the five schools to which Erik has already submitted applications are all fine engineering schools, two schools came to be on our list due to the "power of the web":
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) made the list because Erik learned via the Lego Mindstorms NXT Blog of their new robotics degree. It shows that smart schools get themselves listed on "non traditional web sites"
A freshman from the Olin School of Engineering stumbled upon my first posting in this category, and emailed me. Erik and I checked out Olin's web site, and given our experiences at the "big" schools, Erik eliminated MIT from our visit list and has already applied at Olin. Check out Olin's student blog. It appears Olin has a unique approach to engineering education.
Finally, here are the five schools to which Erik has applied. This Fall will be filled with additional visits to all of these schools: (compare against initial list)
One common trait is none of these schools are huge. In fact, the personal approach that these schools give the students is amazing. While on trips to Purdue and Iowa State, we were one visitor among hundreds; however, at Valparaiso our experience was dramatically different. Professor Will from the E.E. department spent a significant amount of personal time with us on a tour. We were thrilled with Valparaiso's virtual reality lab, and the obvious fact that undergraduates actually get access to this kind of stuff. This is in contrast to large universities where the resources were fantastic, but it was debatable that undergrads were the priority. TA's are very involved in the engineering education process. Thus, our choice of smaller schools is by design ... decided by Erik.
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