anyone get into engineering school with a c? please read or give advice

College Majors Engineering Majors
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pardon any mistakes please and thank you

hello! so my younger brother’s CC account got banned or something. so he had a post about his anxiety and depression and his grades but CC deleted it idk why. so for the last few months he came down with severe anxiety which turned into depression. he has been battling anxiety since his freshmen year but this year it ended up getting worse (he is a junior). i didn’t really find out until i saw that he just stayed in his room and kept to himself. he lost a lot of friends this year along with rapid weight gain then loss. i am worried for him. he talked to me but i don’t know what to say. he is an intelligent kid, i am not lying when i say this. he won essay contests and tech contests in middle. he was an honors student as well. but since high school he has been getting straight b’s and occasionally a’s. he told me that his anxiety started when he entered h.s. because it was a huge transition and he “is scared of growing up”. anyways, this year he thought it would be a good year and decided to take two APs. he currently has C’s in them and if he gets lucky then he will get a flat 80, which ends up as a 90 towards GPA but still shows up as a 80 on your transcript. our school system sucks alot so he was not able to transfer when he wanted to. our school is just horrible in general. but the C’s caused him depression and now he is worrying himself sick about college. his SAT score is alright but i know he can bring it up. he has a’s and one b in everything else. but he is just worried about how colleges will perceive the c’s because junior year is the most important year i guess. he has a lot of pressure cause my parents want him to be in the national honor society and his gpa isn’t good enough. our school is a competitive public school and his class is very, very, very, competitive (most competitive class in our school. about 25-30 kids have 4.0 gpas) so he feels very dumb when they talk about their academics. it makes him feel worse. but yeah, he tries to get his mind off of things so he does a ton of ECs. he is just worried that he won’t get into an engineering school or just get into any college. i know he will but he lost all his self confidence. to console him, i’ve even tried telling him i will get him into my school as did my sister but he still is depressed about school, grades, SATs, college, and all that. as an older brother, i wanna help him. but yeah, is there anyone that got accepted to an engineering school with a C or lower? how did you do it? what school? i think he will feel better when he knows that he isn’t the only one and he will get into an engineering college. he isn’t aiming for MIT or Caltech, he wants to apply to Rutgers, Purdue, GaTech, Syracuse, Boulder, Case, SUNY, CUNY, NYU Poly, RIT, WPI, Rowan, TCNJ, Maine, Alabama, Embry Riddle, Penn State, Lehigh, UIUC, TAMU, UW-Seattle, USC, UT-Austin, Cal Poly and maybe, just maybe CMU or Northwestern. He wants to apply to a lot so he knows that he can ateast get into one. but yeah, any answer, advice, or motivational story or anything is greatly appreciated. I just wanna help him get through all this and help him gain his self confidence back! thanks!

P.S. Please don’t say anything negative as I will be showing this to him because he has a lot on his mind and he is in a very fragile state right now! thank you so much!

if you want an idea on how smart he is, he came in 2nd in the entire state for a computer competition

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First and foremost, it sounds like his in a pretty deep hole and needs help beyond what CC can give him. He needs to see his pediatrician or family doctor and tell them how overwhelmed he feels. They all deal with this and can give him the proper tools to get his life back into balance. Encouraging words from us aren’t enough, because depression and anxiety aren’t simple problems that require an easy pick-me-up. They are real, organic, disorders. If they were so easy to overcome, then they wouldn’t be so widespread in our society. He needs to know it’s not a weakness or a flaw, but simply a disorder like a sprained ankle. He needs a professional.

With that said, there’s many possibilities with his grades and there are LOTS of good engineering programs beyond just the big names. Rather than shotgun a bazillion applications, he should be more focussed in his approach. Top priority is two or three safety schools that he will certainly get into AND be able to afford.

What state are you from?

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@eyemgh NJ

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Three good instate options, Rowan, Rutgers and NJIT. What field of engineering?

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Focus, focus, focus. Narrow your list of target schools.

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I think the advice from @eyemgh is spot on. Stick to good state schools. Your brother may need a lot of support during the college years and being close to home will be better. Also, college is not as important as getting the help he needs to deal with his depression.

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@eyemgh mechE or aeroE like me

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@eyemgh and @Yomama12 thanks for the advice we really appreciate it. i don’t know how he will get help because we are asian and our parents don’t really regard depression as serious so whenever he tries to tell them what’s wrong, they quickly dismiss depression and say that it’s his fault because he doesn’t focus so this is happening blah blah blah…

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also, i did some research about how to tell colleges you have depression and most articles really discouraged it. so how can he explain his average grades (due to anxiety and depression)? it may boost is acceptance but it may also hurt him… so yeah

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All of the schools I listed in NJ have ABET ME programs. None of them have Aero.

As for his mental health issues, he needs help. I’m not sure what the age of medical consent is in NJ, but in many states minors don’t need parental consent to seek medical treatment. Of course they’d eventually get the bill and as a family he’ll have to confront it some time. His choice is pretty straightforward…listen to Mom and Dad downplay his problems, try to ignore them and be content to be holed up in his room, or get help. Me personally, I vote for the latter.

He doesn’t have to tell the schools he applies to anything. They will all however likely have at least somewhat of a program to help after he’s admitted. Anxiety and depression are common on college campuses and most of them are now seeing the need to address them.

I’d get going on the depression/anxiety first. It will only get worse. Then start on thinning the list.

He has three good instate options. All three of them admit well over 50% of their applicants. I don’t think a C or two will hurt. You will need to find out if engineering is far more selective than the regular pool. Sometimes it is.

Then narrow the rest based on the desire for aero, location, cost, size, weather, etc., etc.

Good luck!

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@eyemgh from what i heard engineering is competitive at Rutgers but many kids with like 3.0 gpas get in. His gpa is a 3.6 this year but the last two years they were around a 3.4 and 3.3. Purdue has a wide range of gpas. Purdue is his first choice so his hopes are really set on purdue. hopefulle he gets in and gets some money from them. but I am only worried about his first two years in hs. We are trying not to apply to competitive schools because it will only hurt him. but yeah, i am trying to help him out of depression. i have seen positive changes in him lately so i guess that is good. but other than that, he still has anxiety. his depressions is diminishing so that is good. but as for our parents, i am going to talk to them one on one. then we will ask him how it is and whether or not he needs help. but thank you for your advice!

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Make sure he applies to a school he will without a doubt get into. Any option is better than no options. Don’t let him end up with zero acceptances by not having a safety or two. Good luck.

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@eyemgh how do we find schools that he will definitely get into? college admissions is a very tricky process they can turn down a 4.0 gpa but accept a 3.0 gpa so it’s really hard to guarantee your spot at a college even if you have a 4.0 gpa, 2000+ SAT, tons of ECs, etc.

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At a SELECTIVE college, sure. But there are colleges that accept almost everyone; there are community colleges. Seek them out.

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Yep, as @bodangles says, the random factor is much more common at very selective schools.

Usually your state schools are good safeties, but the NJ offerings aren’t slam dunks. I do think that even with a C or two he should get into at least one of them.

Wyoming is a classic safety school. Admission rate is something like 97%, it’s cheap, even for out of state students, and the engineering program is decent.

Go to Big Future and look at admission rates. Then you need to spend some time digging to find out if engineering is a tougher admit.

Good luck.

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This is pretty common. It’s not the end of the world.

  1. He needs to get treatment for depression/anxiety. That can start with a psychologist who can do talk therapy and also refer to a psychiatrist to do an evaluation for medication. Both of these are critical.

  2. He needs to be getting enough sleep. Otherwise, it’s just a downward spiral. You can’t learn if you can’t stay awake.

  3. Lehigh is the perfect school for this student. If you can afford it, then he should apply ED.

What makes Lehigh perfect is that if you go on collegeboard.org and look at what they consider very important, important and considered, you’ll see surprisingly and most unusually, that academic GPA is only considered.

At most competitive schools, like CMU and Northwestern, academic GPA is very important.

Lehigh also cares a lot about test scores, and level of interest. These are important.

What Lehigh considers very important is recommendations and the rigor of your secondary school record.

The message to students from Lehigh seems to be: If you’re smart (SAT), go for broke on rigor. If you are not successful, that’s ok, we’ll love you anyway, we care more that you went for broke.

They accept about 60% of their ED applicants, but only about 30% of their RD applicants. They say that they want to accept the students that want to go there.

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I’ll second @ClassicRockerDad’s recommendation of Lehigh. It isn’t a true safety school in that virtually anyone gets in and is cheap, but it’s a great match school for your brother. We visited and it didn’t make my son’s final list, but there was LOTS to like about Lehigh. With a little over 7000 students, it’s small enough to feel like you aren’t a random number, but big enough that you’re not feeling like you’re still in high school. The school spirit is very high. Unlike the brethren down the road, Lafayette and Bucknell, Lehigh has a great, well funded engineering department. They have lots of toys, but are still focused heavily on undergraduate education. Their curriculum starts with engaging, “hands on” stuff early. They also work with the middle school in the neighborhood doing a cool joint design and build product. Bethlehem was far better than we expected (as was Easton where Lafayette is for that matter). Many of those steel towns were brutalized as the US steel industry wound down. Bethlehem has rebounded nicely, even converting a steel mill to a really cool, steam punk looking casino. All in all Lehigh is a school I highly recommend, even for the highest achieving students.

For similar size, look and feel, along with competitiveness, I’d add Case Western and WPI.

Remember though, in order, confront the depression, get a safety school or two, THEN find match and reach schools.

P.S. I don’t really even believe in the concept of match and reach. Ideally, students should have a safety or two and the rest should be schools that fit well, regardless of how hard they are to get into. In a perfect world, the safeties would be in the hunt for top choice. Schools like Caltech, MIT and Stanford aren’t necessarily the best individual fit even for students with the stats to be competitive to get in.

P.P.S. Where I will disagree with CRD is SAT as a measure of intelligence. There are broad assumptions one can make, like people who score in the 700s likely have more horsepower than those who score in the 400s, but that’s about it. You certainly can’t say that a 780 is smarter than a 740. There are too many variables including the cohort you test with to make that statement. Depending on the two test days, a 740 and a 780 might have the exact same raw scores. For instance, my son missed a single question on math and dropped to 760. In some testings, one miss will still be an 800. It’s all about the strength of your cohort’s scores. SAT as a skill can be taught, in a relatively short period of time. Incremental changes achievable in an SAT cannot be achieved in a true test of intelligence, a standardized IQ test, in the same period of time. IQ is even debatable.

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I agree that it’s a crappy and flawed test but it’s nonetheless USED as a measure of intelligence by admissions offices. That’s what I meant. Get a good enough SAT score and they think you are smart.

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@ClassicRockerDad @eyemgh is lehigh lenient towards applicants with depression because i heard that many schools don’t like it when applicants have depression. they have a lesser chance of acceptance. i mean he has had no disciplinary issues but it is only his grades

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I am headed off for college graduation / vacation soon. But I am concerned about your brother. College is important. But mental health is important too. Use the good advise from above posters… but remember to also keep everything in perspective. Good luck!