Expert: Paul Soderman - 12/29/2007

Question
Dear Sir,
   My son wants to study aeronautical engineering for his BS degree.  He is about to finish his high school (12th grade).  He has already received admission from Caltech, Georgia Tech, U of Texas, Austin, and probably will get admission at Stanford too.  Can you please give me a comparison between these four places to study the indicated discipline?  I am not looking just for a plain ranking, but for the pros and cons between these four places.  In particular, do you think that Caltech would be a lot better than Stanford for this subject (for BS)?  Any response will be deeply appreciated.  Thank you very much for your time.

Best Regards,
Tim

Answer
Tim
Your son has some nice choices.  Those are all excellent schools I believe. I worked with engineers who graduated from all those but the U. of Texas - the ones I knew from that region chose Texas A&M.  A good ranking of schools with some data on ranking criteria is listed at

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/eng/b...

Stanford is ranked second and CalTech is ranked seventh.  But I think anyone would be hard pressed to claim that a degree from one was really better than the other.  I recommend visiting each campus to see which one is most appealing from many standpoints such as professor reputation, facilities, housing, activities, and general ambiance.  I studied at Stanford, which has a quite beautiful campus and, in graduate school worked under celebrated professors who were doing advanced research, which is what I needed then.  However, I began my studies at Oregon State University and later decided that Oregon State had better teachers at the undergraduate level.  Its a funny thing - a Nobel Prize doesn't guarantee good communication skills.  On the other hand, rubbing elbows with brilliant people can be inspirational.  Your son is just going to have to decide what is best for him... somehow.

Probably the best thing at the undergraduate level is finding a school where he will be happy to live and work and learn good study skills.
Good luck.
Paul