Help me decide where to go for college

Hello, I have been getting acceptance letters from various colleges, and I have narrowed down the list to 2 colleges. These two are Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and Western New England University. It is probably beneficial to know that I am majoring in mechanical engineering.

Both of these schools cost almost the same for tuition, which makes the decision harder. Obviously, being on GRM means I love cars, and WNEU is in the town that the first car was made. But, Edwardsville is about 20 minutes away from a town I have visited that I absolutely love (Alton, IL). SIUE is also in my home state, which is pretty awesome, but I also feel like the opportunity to live in Massachusetts would be great (I am bad at socializing and I feel that being in a place where I don't know anyone with a dense population would help me open up).

If anyone has any input that would be great. My dad (The_Jed) said that posting on here would be beneficial to get advice from some other people with common interests.

Congratulations on the acceptances! That's awesome news, and it's great to be starting with choices. Great choice of major as well (from another ME). 

There are a few things I would really consider that will potentially help you for the start of your career as well, as you get through college. 

1. Scholarship or grant availability is huge. Tied in with this, cost of living/safety around the schools can make a real difference in how it feels to be there. 

2. Does either school have extra-curriculars that you see yourself being excited about? How many people go to each school/what is the chance you could find something brand new while you're there?

3. Is one school or another closer to quite a bit of industry that you could look to Intern or Co-Op at while you are at school? My wife and I (both engineers) did our work experiences out of state from our colleges. It was great, but it also meant missing out on some of the on-campus time we could have had if there were more local internships we were excited about.

Extra-curriculars /passion in what you can talk about and previous work experience will be key as you look to get into a career after graduation, so it wouldn't hurt to be thinking about that now! There are a lot of other considerations and I'm sure others will chime in with more, but these were what came to mind. If you are interested in more specific discussions or anything please feel free to reach out. I doubt I can help much, but my wife and I both went through engineering school and came out (~7 years ago) of it into some measure of "success."

Only good choices in front of you, and congratulations again.

I assume the tuition is less if you're already a resident of the state. Considering the cost of college, that would be a big factor for me. 
 

Since you already know what you want to study, see if you can arrange to speak with the department chairs at each school or a professor in each of the programs you're interested in. Prepare questions on the programs and facilities so that you can really get an idea of what they have to offer, the more specific the better; they will have limited time, so stay focused on the program rather than the overall school experience. You should come away from that with more clarity on the academic side. For the social side, you need to visit both if you haven't already, leaving enough time to really explore the area around the school as well as the campus. Ideally, you want to do as much as you can in advance to figure out which is the better fit for you.

I wasn't familiar with either school's location so for others who don't know either...
1. NE Metro St. Louis on the Illinois side
2. Springfield, MA

Purdue is up that way as well and is an excellent engineering school.  My wife went there.

SIUE. Why? In state tuition, it's Engineering school has a good reputation (at least in Chicago and the St. Louis area), they have Waffle House, and going home is a 2-3 hour drive instead of a $300 plane ticket. 

As a kid your age, I was pretty much determined to get away from home.  Now, as a parent, I love the idea of my kids being close to home.

So, from your perspective, perhaps getting away has its appeal.  Forces a degree of independence.  Of course, relative strength of each school's program and your post-graduation job prospects should probably be the primary criteria for selection.

The_Lily said:

Hello, I have been getting acceptance letters from various colleges, and I have narrowed down the list to 2 colleges. These two are Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and Western New England University. It is probably beneficial to know that I am majoring in mechanical engineering. [snip]

Big decision-nice job reaching out for advice. 

Somewhat unrelated-have you considered taking a gap year? It was one of the most beneficial decisions I made when I was in college, and the research is finally catching up:

(From: https://www.gapyearassociation.org/data-benefits/)

It doesn't have to be expensive-I worked in Florida and Hawaii for mine and came back with about as much money as I left with.

I'm near WNEU (~35 minutes South-East, across the CT line).  It's got a fine reputation around here, and I love the New England area, but don't move here just to socialize :)  Join clubs wherever you end up!  There's no better way to meet people than to see them repeatedly over the course of a semester.   We do have great tracks over here if that matters to you, with pretty good car culture.  WNEU is only ~30ish minutes from Palmer, 1 from Thompson, 1:30 from Lime Rock, etc.

As others have mentioned, this is a cost-benefit analysis, which is one of the main things Engineers have to grapple with.   Make sure you're looking at the total cost of ownership such as travel back and forth, etc.   If you have any dream jobs (i.e., SpaceX, Ford, etc., etc.), I'd try to reach out to their HR departments and see if either college would weigh better.  I know that it's no guarantee by any means, but it's good info to go into the weighted matrix.  

One other thing to do, especially since you're looking to be an ME and since you're a car person, presumably like to min-max the builds, is to look through the course work for any adjacent degrees.  You may be able to pick up a minor or three for the cost of just a few classes.   This is especially valuable if you want something like, say, an ME with a minor in mechanization, manufacturing, electrical, etc.

Best of luck! 

One thing I would ask both schools- if they regularly see graduates go to big schools for grad school. Not to suggest you will go, or want to, but to have it as an option in 4-5 years. Unfortunately, what school you go to does matter for job opportunities. 

1988RedT2 said:

As a kid your age, I was pretty much determined to get away from home.  Now, as a parent, I love the idea of my kids being close to home.

So, from your perspective, perhaps getting away has its appeal.  Forces a degree of independence.  Of course, relative strength of each school's program and your post-graduation job prospects should probably be the primary criteria for selection.

To be clear here, SIUE is 150 miles or so from home. Still very much the same general region and culturally nearly identical (outside of Edwardsville basically being a suburb of St. Louis vs. her being from a small rural town), but if "away from home" means away from parents and your hometown, SIUE fills that part of it. 
 

FWIW Lily, I went to Illinois State University, lived in Peoria, and have a very good friend who grew up down the road from Edwardsville in Troy. So I'm familiar with the general area. 

Springfield MA is one of the least nice city's in MA. Big opioid problems. No money really being invested there. The armpit of MA. Second to maybe Brockton MA. Do not recommend.