My son wants to study aerospace engineering, but his gpa is 3.4. He did get 1490 on his psat. Since the top schools would be a reach for him, does anyone have suggestions of good schools to look at?
That’s a really broad question. Are there any cost, size, setting, or geographical considerations? There are are relatively small number of aerospace programs nationwide, so it shouldn’t be too terrible trying to narrow it down, but you will need more information than what you’ve given us so far. Otherwise you will just get random suggestions.
I will also add this: aerospace engineering has one of (if not the) highest attrition rates of any engineering discipline. Students feel drawn in by the fact that planes and spacecraft are really cool, and then they get smacked in the face by the fact that it is one of the most math-heavy flavors of engineering. In other words, just make sure your son is aware of that when he starts and takes it seriously from day one.
GW has aerospace under mech-e and being in DC there are many opportunities for internships.
Also note that many of then engineers aerospace industry are not aerospace engineers. Choosing Mechanical or Electrical engineering may be a better, more flexible option.
I think nudging my son towards mechanical, maybe with a minor in aerospace is a good idea. Beyond the top ten or so schools with aerospace that are ranked, what are things I can look for to know if the school has a good program?
The first thing you should do is go to the ABET web page and find out which schools have AE. There are about 60. Second, rankings can be misleading. They are really ranking the quality of the research and the graduate faculty. It won’t tell you anything about the undergraduate experience. It also leaves out some very good AE programs at schools that don’t have doctoral programs. Last, a minor, per se, isn’t that important. A ME can work in aerospace. If they want to take some aerospace classes, they can, and it can be good for job seeking. Having the paper though is vastly overrated.