The Declassified Selection Guide to Petroleum Programs
Deciding where to go to college is perhaps the biggest decision a high school student will ever make. The average student determined to pursue a degree in petroleum engineering will need to choose the right college for them. Selecting a university can be overwhelming as high school prospects do not often know what factors to take into account. Colleges can be analyzed in three main areas: academics, student life, and financial factors. Each of these topics can then be broken down into specific statistics. The top four universities with the best petroleum undergraduate programs are Texas A&M, The University of Texas at Austin, Oklahoma University, and The Colorado School of Mines. There …show more content…
The fall 2018 acceptance rate was 66% according to US News and World Report. This is highly selective and reflects the caliber of the program. The graduation rate is slightly subpar at 46.2% in four years (Brand, 2015). However, the freshman retention rate for the whole university is an impressive 90%, but there is no retention rate published for the petroleum department specifically (College Factual, 2018). This overall retention is one of the best in the nation (College Factual, 2018). The student/faculty ratio is 21:1 and 22% of classes have fewer than 20 students (US News and World Report, 2018a). This is an impressive statistic considering the university has 68,624 enrolled students, with 18,260 belonging in the college of engineering (Texas A&M Engineering Communications, 2018b). Of these students, just 599 are enrolled in the Petroleum engineering undergraduate department (Texas A&M Engineering Communications, 2018b). Texas A&M places massive importance on industry experience as “undergraduate students are required to have a summer internship” (Texas A&M Engineering Communications, 2018a). In 2017, the average graduate of the Petroleum undergraduate department brought in a salary of $86,651 in their first year of work (Texas A&M Engineering Communications, 2018c). There is no job placement statistics published for the Petroleum department, but the university publishes a job placement rate of 54% with offers upon graduation (Texas A&M University, 2018b). This makes job prospects for graduating Aggies exciting. The faculty of Texas A&M Petroleum have 18 Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) distinguished members. In 2017, 393 SPE conference papers were published by Texas A&M, 52 were refereed journal papers (Texas A&M Engineering Communications, 2018b). Texas A&M is a great research university, making groundbreaking discoveries
Deciding where to go to college is perhaps the biggest decision a high school student will ever make. The average student determined to pursue a degree in petroleum engineering will need to choose the right college for them. Selecting a university can be overwhelming as high school prospects do not often know what factors to take into account. Colleges can be analyzed in three main areas: academics, student life, and financial factors. Each of these topics can then be broken down into specific statistics. The top four universities with the best petroleum undergraduate programs are Texas A&M, The University of Texas at Austin, Oklahoma University, and The Colorado School of Mines. There …show more content…
The fall 2018 acceptance rate was 66% according to US News and World Report. This is highly selective and reflects the caliber of the program. The graduation rate is slightly subpar at 46.2% in four years (Brand, 2015). However, the freshman retention rate for the whole university is an impressive 90%, but there is no retention rate published for the petroleum department specifically (College Factual, 2018). This overall retention is one of the best in the nation (College Factual, 2018). The student/faculty ratio is 21:1 and 22% of classes have fewer than 20 students (US News and World Report, 2018a). This is an impressive statistic considering the university has 68,624 enrolled students, with 18,260 belonging in the college of engineering (Texas A&M Engineering Communications, 2018b). Of these students, just 599 are enrolled in the Petroleum engineering undergraduate department (Texas A&M Engineering Communications, 2018b). Texas A&M places massive importance on industry experience as “undergraduate students are required to have a summer internship” (Texas A&M Engineering Communications, 2018a). In 2017, the average graduate of the Petroleum undergraduate department brought in a salary of $86,651 in their first year of work (Texas A&M Engineering Communications, 2018c). There is no job placement statistics published for the Petroleum department, but the university publishes a job placement rate of 54% with offers upon graduation (Texas A&M University, 2018b). This makes job prospects for graduating Aggies exciting. The faculty of Texas A&M Petroleum have 18 Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) distinguished members. In 2017, 393 SPE conference papers were published by Texas A&M, 52 were refereed journal papers (Texas A&M Engineering Communications, 2018b). Texas A&M is a great research university, making groundbreaking discoveries