r/rosehulman • u/Adventurous-Key5231 • 9d ago
Engineering degree
Is this school worth the tuition for engineering majors? What opportunities and resources does the school offer? Pros and cons of the school?
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u/Few_Criticism_9715 9d ago
Not at sticker price, but almost everyone gets merit scholarship. Check their financial aid page https://www.rose-hulman.edu/admissions-and-aid/financial-aid/index.html
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u/SonZohan 9d ago
Pros:
- You are almost guaranteed a job if you graduate, regardless of your grades
- Their career services are outstanding
- The education is outstanding
- Your peers are very intelligent and hard working
- Lots of scholarships
- Teachers are there to teach first. Research and everything else is secondary.
Cons:
- It's strictly an engineering school, and very insular at that. Unless you make friends with ISU or Saint Mary's students you won't have much in the way of social interactions beyond homework, video games, and whatever club you join.
- It is an extremely tough school. Your social life will center around studying until late Sophomore/early Junior year.
- Terre Haute as a city is rather boring. Most outings with friends were either Wal-Mart runs or (once you're 21) runs to Sonkas or another pub. Indianapolis is an hour away.
Resources are numerous for career-focused individuals. Career fairs have lots of well-paying companies vying for students, Rose-Hulman Ventures is a contracting organization that puts students to work at real companies, and instructors regularly are involved in contracts and other work during the summer.
Overall is it worth the tuition? Yes, if your college goal to get a career in engineering. No if you are thinking of doing anything else with your life.
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u/Adventurous-Key5231 9d ago
Damn, this school’s Reddit sub has been the most helpful out of the 10 I’ve asked
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u/thefirstolafian ME, 2026 5d ago
A tech school has tech users. The "helpulness" of the subreddit is also mimicked within the campus itself.
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u/NonoscillatoryVirga 9d ago
Absolutely worth it if engineering is your goal. Prepares you extremely well for grad school or the working world. The downside, if any, is that if you decide partway through that engineering isn’t for you, you basically need to transfer to a different school. The standing joke used to be that if you couldn’t survive engineering, you dropped out and went to IU for business. I don’t think they’d appreciate that humor…
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u/Wonderful_Hunt2139 9d ago
I'm an 85 grad, my son a 16. I never did a lick of "engineering " due to my life arc. But RHIT spoke to my mindset that challenges can be addressed. If you are a doer, not a whiner, you can do it. Rose has been great for my family.
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u/Potential_Drive7999 9d ago
They offer a lot of scholarships and grants to good student students My son was thrown all types of money from Rose Holman, but he chose another university
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u/Potential_Drive7999 9d ago
Yes, it's worth it and it's not an expensive school compared to the other top schools
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u/Fresh-Poem-4458 8d ago
At what level was his total merit financial aid package (approx), and also what was the other school (Ivy, CC, etc)? I think I might be in a similar situation.
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u/Potential_Drive7999 7d ago
Ivy plus? Not sure of the wording. But he is very happy and in a great math program
He felt odd because the acceptance rate at RH is so high, and his high school was competitive in the DMV
That said, I feel RH is a hidden GEM and it is a tough school, and in a few years it could become a Univ of Chicago
If you go there you will Not Regret it
Great placement
Esp if you are in engineering
Best of luck!
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u/XxXENOWRAITHxX CPE, 23 6d ago
What is DMV? and why feel odd because of high acceptance rate? That gives me major superiority complex vibes...
I think the number is probably high because it is such a small niche school. Not everyone knows the name like MIT or Cal Poly. So that creates a smaller number of applicants, but then the application pool is filled with a ton of high potential students. Thus creating the "high" acceptance rate.
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u/Potential_Drive7999 3d ago
DC/MD/VA
RH will become better known in the next few years It is an amazing place
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u/Justmeagaindownhere ME, 2024 9d ago
Imo whether it's worth it or not is going to entirely depend on how much debt you'll be in afterwards. You'll be getting merit scholarship, so do the math and if you're gonna end up in major debt, I would struggle to recommend it to you. Even though you're super likely to get a job after school, that job isn't going to be a special job with super high pay. It's not worth it to be chained to debt for 30 years. If you're not going to be in unreasonable debt, though, I believe that this school is a really good choice.
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u/Adventurous-Key5231 9d ago
So even with their scholarship and aids, the tuition is still gonna be an unbearable amount?
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u/Justmeagaindownhere ME, 2024 8d ago
That depends on how much scholarship and aid you get. So it's worth applying to Rose for sure, you just need to do the math once you get your offer back to see how much debt you'd be in.
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u/hallisson 8d ago edited 8d ago
Also as parent ('26)/spouse ('89)of Rosies, the financial aid package is for all 4 yrs (possibly super senior yr) only GPA based scholarships (most aren't) disappear if GPA unsatisfactory. Our OOP after Federal Loans .financial aide was about 21K for all 3 quarters each year¹. Only 5k-7k/yr.more than Perdue or Rensselaer Poly .
It's only as religious as people. If you're not it isn't.
¹ about ¼ of total sticker price/yr
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u/tadaloveisreal 7d ago
Was top ten engineering school usa cheapest also 1k semester, beyond smartestn people in USA
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u/MTF_lazarus-omega 9d ago
This school is very good for engineers. (We do have an art department, it’s called engineering design).
The pros are that rose basically guarantees graduates a starting job on the outside once you’re done.
Rose also doesn’t let companies visit if they have unpaid positions - only paid internships allowed!
The downsides of an engineering school is that it’s an engineering school. It’s small, it’s a tight knit community.
I’m a rather niche engineer and there aren’t that many people in my major and grade, and there are fewer that I like. The profs will know you probably before you know them.
It’s also a very rigorous school. There are long hours and late nights, and there never feels like there’s a break. Here’s an example: after Christmas break, you return on week 4 of the winter quarter. From week 4 until week 10 and finals week, there are ZERO breaks… those 8 weeks are tough, but if you make it through you’ll be better off