I am currently in an NYC community college majoring in mechanical engineering. I have an overall college 3.65 (out of 4)GPA, planning to transfer to a 4 year engineering school for fall 2021. I would like to major in aerospace(mostly) or mechanical engineering.
No SAT. Hs GPA 2.8 - I hangout with the wrong people. I’ve learned my lesson.
Demo:
Low Income and first-generation student.
Any reach or target school would you recommend me on looking at?
What I have in mind:
USC, UW, Cornell, stony brook, Syracuse, Illinois, and Virginia tech.
extra activities:
-President of the engineering club.
-In a research fellow program researching in multi-rotor drones.
-Participated in a NASA Academy online.
-member of an engineering team at my local 4-year school. Designing rockets.
No expert on transfers but I think some of the same principles apply as 1st year applications.
What’s your budget? I would think NY state schools or CUNY would be cheapest option. Can you get decent FA? Are you a URM? Maybe some scholarships are possible. I would try to avoid loans like the plague.
Do you want to stay close to home? Depending on where you go that can add a lot of money to the bill if you want to come home. Flights aren’t always cheap. Cornell is pretty but its isolated and not easy to get there. USC would require cross country flights. Throw-in Uber costs to the airport.
It’s good to aim high but you also need affordable. As long as the school is ABET accredited you should be good. Maybe think outside the box like Vermont or Delaware if you can get scholarships. For cost, maybe some schools in Florida like UCF or USF.
If you aim high look at schools that meet full need. Maybe Columbia, Lehigh, Lafayette, or UNC? Good luck.
I am not familiar with transferring, but I read that some schools have a set of majors that you cannot transfer into so you will need to research that area. Suggestions of colleges to look at are: Purdue, Ohio State, Miami of Ohio, Texas A&M, Michigan State, Stevens Institute of Technology, Virginia Tech, RPI, WPI, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Some may be reaches but you can decide what works for you.
Realistically, I think that you need to look at the CUNY (and SUNY, if they have a direct transfer path) schools that say that they will take people with a 2 year degree from your community college. Speak with the advisor at your community college.
The fact is, the rigor of community college classes is not at the same level as that at even good high schools, let alone good colleges. You did not get a 4.0 at the community college, so unless there were extenuating circumstances, the level of the community college classes did present some challenge for you. For this reason, I think it is most realistic for you to focus on taking advantage of the transfer pathway that already exists for you to CUNY’s CCNY (Grove) mechanical engineering program.
It’s not only about getting into the most selective school. Your goal is graduating with a 4 year degree that will qualify you for a good job. I don’t want to discourage you. Yes, go ahead and apply to any and all of the places on your list. But make sure you are also set up for the seamless transfer to CCNY for their engineering program (which I assume is where you are on the engineering team, when you say your local 4 year school).
It happens that people get into even MIT from community college - but not without a 4.0 at the community college, other evidence of extraordinary aptitude, and a good reason for having gone to community college in the first place. Most people who transfer into highly competitive engineering schools are coming from other competitive 4 year schools, with perfect or near-perfect GPAs. I’m not saying that they wouldn’t ever take someone from a community college, but at the very least, one would need to show that one had hit the top of the scale at the community college, with a 4.0.
Purdue is one of those schools that has the most popular majors closed to transfers. Aero and mech e would both fit the categories of “popular majors”.