Rose-Hulman cites career preparation for high marks in Best Colleges rankings
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology is the top-ranked school in all of Indiana in the Wall Street Journal/College Pulse 2024 Best Colleges in the U.S. rankings.
Leaders of the private university in Terre Haute credited academic rigor and career preparation in helping to keep it in the top 20 of the rankings from the media outlet and the San Francisco-based research and marketing firm.
Rose-Hulman took home the 17th spot in the rankings, which took into account the student experience, the learning environment, and diversity. The university recorded 2,169 students in fall 2022.
“I have known that I wanted to be a chemical engineer since I was 8 and grew up on the east side of Indy raised by a single mom,” said Courtney Valmore, a senior. “I’m a first-generation college student.”
Valmore knew she wanted to go to Rose-Hulman in high school. With the financial aid she received she turned four years into a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, with a minor in economics, and a master’s in engineering management.
Her three prestigious summer internships then landed her a job offer at the beginning of her senior year from Cincinnati-headquartered consumer goods manufacturer Proctor & Gamble, a Fortune 500 Company.
“P&G felt like this dream,” Valmore said.
Valmore credited the staff, faculty and alumni at Rose-Hulman with getting her foot in the door at P&G. She said it was a strenuous internship application process that ultimately led to a full-time offer to work in the packaging department.
“And then I actually fell in love with ‘packaging’ because it took that aspect that I liked from all my other internships and combined it into one very niche thing that I hadn’t considered before,” Valmore said. “We don’t have a lot of chemical engineers go into packaging, but it allows me to work on sustainability, marketing, still be in a lab, but not be on a manufacturing floor every day.”
The university’s leader said the school fared well in the Wall Street Journal/College Pulse rankings because the academic environment allows students to have offers for high-earning jobs even before graduation. That factor was the most important in the rankings.
Robert Coons, president of Rose-Hulman, said, “Our academic curriculum is one of the most rigorous in the country at the undergraduate level.”
The school also pushed career preparation, having three career fairs a year to connect students with internships and opportunities.
“The younger students are talking to companies not only about positions long term but also about internships in the summer,” Coons said. “Internships are a huge part of what helps our students be prepared for placement and success.”
Rose-Hulman is a science, technology, engineering and mathematics university. Over 90% of its graduates have had at least one internship, while 70% have had two, and over 30% have had three or more.
Leaders of the university said their goal is to continually improve the experience for students not just to maintain ranking status.