I second Clarkson, if he can stand cold upstate New York. Also, there’s SUNY New Paltz for EE.
@2019boston I responded on the other thread but my S19 applied to some of the same schools. I would says stats-wise Bucknell and Lafayette are a difficult admit for your DS Both wait listed my son (high ACT) and while he did come off the list at Bucknell and they really courted him as they undershot their enrollment big time, it was never a good fit for him. He came very close to enrolling at Clarkson but we couldn’t get over the distance and remote campus. We didn’t love Stevens or Manhattan either. A drive by and Drexel was a no although he applied and was admitted to GWU in the heart of DC. He was also admitted to Villanova but fit was questionable. Our focus was a tuition benefit from hubby’s work (college) so our list was framed with that in mind. His guidance counselor would have liked to see him apply to northeastern but weren’t willing to pay for that so he’s next door at wentworth. Now that I see your username I assume you know Boston;).
I know you don’t mean it this way, but 1200 to 1300 SAT described as “struggling” is wholly inaccurate.
Better scores may be available, but I would probably avoid that type of language around him and 95 percent of all high school students and their parents nationally. 1300 is 88th percentile for those 1.7mm students who took the SAT and 100 percent better than the 1.3mm who didn’t bother. So all in all, only 200k students in the entire nation out of over 3mm students scored as well or better.
Room for improvement. Sure. Struggling. No.
Admissions is holistic at many schools so while a lowish SAT for a particular college represents a hurdle it’s not necessarily disqualifying. I have a son at Lafayette who scored just under 1300. He applied as a bio/chem major but ultimately switched into ChemE with no problem. In high school, he had a high GPA in the toughest classes from a school known for its rigor, great recs and an ok essay but really nothing particularly notable as ECs. (My kid says that Electrical Engineering is the most difficult engineering major at Laf.)
Really, there are a lot of schools that meet the basic requirements if you look at smaller unknown schools. The question is whether he is willing to give up familiarity and name recognition, maybe rankings for choices other than Rowan and other schools that are better known.
These were the very things my friend found to be benefits of her son going to the ‘local’ school, which just happened to be the flagship. His dad could text him and they could have lunch. He came home on Sunday nights (and brought his cousin who was from out of town) for dinner and laundry.
My nephew went to school about 40 minutes away, again at the flagship. Very convenient. There really is no ‘just stopping by’ because on a campus of 30,000 students, you can’t just find the one you are looking for by driving by. Parking is impossible.
We also live pretty close to Rowan, and it was last on my D’s list. She only ended up there because of an amazing scholarship, and now she couldn’t be happier she made that choice. She’s in engineering and has had amazing opportunities academically and socially.
My tip for Rowan would be to apply to honors and take the honors application seriously. Rowan Honors comes with a lot of perks and a great community.
@MACmiracle May I ask what you mean by “amazing scholarship”? More than 10K/year merit-based? (I’m trying to figure out if Rowan still offers scholarships over 10K as there are conflicting reports on the matter). Thanks.
@NJEngineerDad My D18 got $15K. I think $10K might be the maximum beginning in 2019.
Another suggestion for Rowan is to volunteer to help with freshman move in. There’s a box to check if you are interested on the application, at least there was. I think some of those kids who helped out with that are now RAs in their sophomore year and saving a huge amount of money.
@MACmiracle still working on Rowan but he has stated he’s too familiar with it. It’s reputation in engineering has grown so much and he has gotten his SAT up and took ACT today so we will see.