Advice for student interested in Engineering without many academic options in HS

Applying to College
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<p>My 10th grader is interested attending a top engineering school in two more years. Our problem is this: short of having a couple of honors English and AP social studies classes (US History and Govt), our HS does not offer what he needs to be accepted into these schools. There is no math club/competitions, no AP science or math classes. The student body is not very driven academically. He has taken two math classes on line at this point (AP Calculus AB and BC) and will take two more college math classes online as well (MV Calc and Linear Algebra). He has already topped out in science at our school (Physics, which students take as seniors) as a sophomore. His PSAT scores are very good and his GPA is 4.0. </p>

<p>Any suggestions from you all about how to help make him acceptable to these schools with the serious limitations from our school?</p>

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<p>
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a top engineering school

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</p>

<p>Bad start.</p>

<p>I'm sure your son is an exceptional student, but by starting out with the indefinite determiner in a manner such as, "a top [X]," you're going the wrong way in the selection process. </p>

<p>The most important thing besides cost is fit, and after having gone through the admissions process, I cannot tell you how much the other traits become utterly utterly superficial.</p>

<p>The point of selecting the right school is to select places that will not suffocate or stifle. A top school is not necessarily synonymous to this. Eventually there <em>are</em> top schools that you should look at, but aiming to look good to every top engineering school is a bad life <em>AND</em> admissions strategy. Each school differs in culture, lifestyle and attitude.</p>

<p>Since your son has already learnt topics independently, that will look quite good. In his app, he should not <em>complain</em> about the school to the AdCom either. I know what it's like to have a stifling school!</p>

<p>Also, your son is a sophomore. Super lucky. I didn't know of the opportunities I could take outside my school until senior year (quite too late). If he's interested in research, he should come up with topics he wants to explore, contract researchers he wants to work with, and design experiments that would test phenomena he has noticed [but seems ill-explained to him]. </p>

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Our HS does not offer what he needs to be accepted into these schools.

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</p>

<p>You do not need to be part of the Machine to be accepted into these schools. You do not need to be part of the Machine, either. ;) </p>

<p>I don't know where you get the idea that he <em>needs</em> those courses to get into those schools. It disadvantages him, but he must make up for it in other ways. </p>

<p>You could look into homeschooler advice material -- not so much because he's being homeschooled but because he's studying independently anyway -- see what homeschoolers do to make themselves look good.</p>

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<p>Perhaps he could take summer school at a university. That would be more than the equivalent of an AP class. Harvard Summer School is excellent. You may still be able to apply, but you'd probably need to really hurry.</p>

<p>You could probably have him take the AMC math competition if you contacted them, but these are hard to take cold if you're not familiar with math team type tricks. There is a series of books they now have which you could order on-line to help you learn this. I forget the names of them. </p>

<p>Probably, your best bet in terms of competitions would be to sign up to take the opening round of the chemistry, bio, or chem olympics selection exams. They are much more straightforward than the math contests like AMC. So I would pick have him pick his favorite subject and then take it this summer. Then in his spare time next year, study for the opening round of the U.S. chem/physics/bio exam. The exam is probably around February or so. Info is available on-line. </p>

<p>I'm sure people will chime in and say that top engineering schools understand that some high schools have limited resources, but trying to go above and beyond your high schools limitations can't hurt.</p>

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<p>Thanks for replying. When we say "top" engineering school, it is because he would love to be surrounded by those types of students who are highly motivated, techy math/science kids. I know that they exist on every campus, but we know he would really thrive at a school where he would just be another "geek" in the mix! </p>

<p>We live in a very rural area, and there are no opportunities for any kind of research/internship work within a 3-hour drive. The closest college is almost a 3 hour drive.</p>

<p>We realize that there is no set formula for acceptance to Harvey Mudd/Cal Tech/MIT/Olin/ etc., but I imagine it will be difficult for him to compete with students coming from schools with the advantages of excellent science classes/teachers/competitions/clubs and research opportunities etc.</p>

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<p>Does he have an idea what kind of engineering? Is he a very hands-on type of person or just excellent at math and science? </p>

<p>Knowing these things would help me to give you advice.</p>

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<p>
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advantages of excellent science classes/teachers/competitions/clubs and research opportunities etc.

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</p>

<p>Your son has research opportunities. They're just not discovered yet.</p>

<p>He's still lucky -- he has one and a half years to seek them out. Make him go find a mentor or a project! ;) </p>

<p>Surely there are teachers who are impressed with him at school?</p>

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<p>He is interested in mechanical engineering probably. Would also love aeronautics. He LOVES physics and will do an online class next year ... nothing like being in a lab though!</p>

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<p>Where would research opportunities lie? I'm not trying to be dense, but we don't even have decent science teachers. There is a math teacher who has really bonded with him, which is GREAT. He has helped him up till now. At this point, his math courses are beyond the math teachers at our school. Our science teachers are uninspired and (seems to me) not very well educated. The physics class was pretty basic ... he will attempt an online physics class next year with "virtual" labs!!</p>

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<p>hm...if he already knows calculus I would try to take a physics class at a university this summer. Make sure it is physics with calculus, **not **some "Physics for the Life Sciences" class because the latter is pretty worthless. Back when I was at Harvard Summer School, they only offered the "Physics for Life Sciences" course in the summer so watch out for that.</p>

<p>I know that Northwestern, U. of Chicago, and Tufts have the physics with calculus classes and I'm sure many more. I don't know if the cost would prevent you from your kid being able to attend.</p>

<p>It's going to be pretty hard to start a team competition at your school. Your best bet is probably an individual one. After you take the university course, he could try to study on his own for the physics olympics selection exam. Preparation materials are here:<br>
2007</a> Physics Olympics </p>

<p>See the section on "AAPT Physics Test Preparation Collection."</p>

<p>I wouldn't worry about seeking research experiences just yet, especially before he's taken real physics. You could perhaps explore a research internship at a place like Boeing for next summer. Or, alternatively, there are engineering summer camps for high school kids that would be stimulating. I remember that Purdue had one that seemed very interesting.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Where would research opportunities lie? I'm not trying to be dense, but we don't even have decent science teachers. There is a math teacher who has really bonded with him, which is GREAT. He has helped him up till now. At this point, his math courses are beyond the math teachers at our school. Our science teachers are uninspired and (seems to me) not very well educated. The physics class was pretty basic ... he will attempt an online physics class next year with "virtual" labs!!

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</p>

<p>I know what it feels like.</p>

<p>Blaming the school will not help ... and I do empathise! In the end I will have a love-hate relationship with my school, and maybe one day will seek to reform it, but at this point if the teachers at HS aren't a help ... then well ignore them. If he isn't challenged academically, then he will have no trouble dual-enrolling at a local community college or university (if the school supports such a policy, if it will cost little for you. There, he can not only go beyond the HS curriculum but also potentially work other faculty, who will have access to research resources.</p>

<p>There are all sorts of low-cost personal research projects [or potentially higher-cost, if you can secure a sponsor] that can be worked on. I speak as a low-income student here. It's funny how I'm only working on them <em>after</em> admissions, but whatever, eh? ;) From there, he can submit it to be presented or published (if the idea is excellent enough!) to a local university's journal or symposium.</p>

<p>What I'm doing at the moment is work with acoustics, formants and phonetics (I'm interested in neuroscience, linguistics and bioengineering) that is meant for my end-of-year paper for AP Biology but I'm going beyond that anyway just because I want to [and even though I'll be doing 10x the workload and it won't improve my grade]. It doesn't matter for admissions anymore, but I've always wanted to do this sort of thing but I wasn't even aware that the open-source software (Audacity) I used to edit and mix music could also be used to investigate phonetics and linguistics.</p>

<p>Oops, I went on a tangent ... but anyway, my ultimate point is that research opportunities do exist if you look for them. I wish I knew this in sophomore year, not senior year... Your son will get some pretty advanced math on hand. My school is non-exceptional, but my physics teacher recalls one of his students who wrote a graphing calculator program that generated field lines given an arbitrary distribution of charges (it wasn't very high res, of course, but this was compensated for the fact that you could zoom in and out). Simple things like that (the student later got admitted to MIT). I'm not sure if he actually cited it on his application -- he probably cited something bigger -- but for example MIT has an optional essay that asks "describe a thing you have created" (from a machine to an idea). You will want to be able to put something on there. :)</p>

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<p>It sounds like he would enjoy the math camp my D has been attending the last few years. They might still have space for this summer and they offer scholarships if cost is a problem. Here is the website or you could call or email Max the director. he's very nice and helpful. And he emails back quickly. Honors</a> Summer Math Camp : Texas Mathworks : Texas State University</p>

<p>There are a lot of other summer math and science camps you could look into although the deadlines have passed for many for this year. I also suggest looking at the website for Cogito which lists lots of competitions he could do on his own. Cogito</a> - Home. Also, the Art of Problem Solving website has a lot of information: </p>

<p>Art</a> of Problem Solving</p>

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<p>I second the recommendation of the Art of Problem Solving site (which happens to be where I first heard about College Confidential). The MIT admission website </p>

<p>MIT</a> Admissions </p>

<p>is full of good, general advice about getting ready for top engineering colleges, not just MIT. </p>

<p>Summer Programs </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/summer-programs/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/summer-programs/&lt;/a> </p>

<p>are a key consideration for a student with limited local programs. Distance learning </p>

<p>Education</a> Program for Gifted Youth </p>

<p>also helps fill the gap.</p>

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<p>If he likes CS (which I'm guessing he would since he's a math person) he should try the USA Computing Olympiad. </p>

<p>As for research, its easy again if he likes CS/Engineering since research in these areas don't require high tech labs (at least not while he's in high school). Play around. Build things. It's pretty easy to win research competitions as a highschool kid. My projects are usually started as a "just for fun"/"it'd be so cool if..." kind of thing. Of course, it got to the point where I was working 5+ hours a day on it for fun, but still.</p>

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<p>My D and I visited some of the "top engineering schools" in March during a college-visiting trip to the northeast. At Olin we were the only visitors that afternoon so we had a long one-on-one discussion with an admissions officer and the tour guide in lieu of the information session. I brought up basically the same issue as as you since my D goes to a school that doesn't participate in math competitions and doesn't offer AP Physics. The admissions officer said that they look at your application in the context of your environment and they want to see that you've taken advantage of what is offered. She suggested community college or online classes. They said it would be preferable for the student to have taken calculus and some physics before you got there but it sounded like there was one student who hadn't taken physics before. They seemed a little irritated by our questions maybe because they get this same question a lot. Or they are tired of people complaining about their high schools. So I got the impression that it wouldn't be helpful to dwell on the downsides of the high school. Anyway, it sounds like your son has already completed the basic requirements for the "tech" schools which seem to be completing some physics and calculus. </p>

<p>You don't say whether your son is unhappy or bored at school. If boredom and unhappiness are concens then there are numerous competitions, camps and internet sites he can get involved in as mentioned above. If you are just worried about him getting accepted to colleges then he appears to be doing fine already. </p>

<p>I also like the MIT website and I found this particular page to be quite helpful: </p>

<p>MIT</a> Admissions: The Match Between You And MIT</p>