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<p>Good point. Still seems better than a 3-2 program where you pay 5 years, have to leave your friends, and can’t start engineering classes until 4th year after you’ve transferred and committed.</p>
<p>I am in the top 10% and my ACT is a 33.</p>
<p>There are a number of smaller schools with eng’g that would give you merit…SLU, UDayton are a couple.</p>
<p>What is your financial situation? What are your parents saying about how much they’ll pay?</p>
<p>To play devils advocate here, I think that to a certain extent the size of a school matters less for a major like engineering. There are lots of reasons why someone would go to a liberal arts school and some are for the classroom experience (more interactions with professors, more classroom discussion). With engineering, most classes are going to be in lecture format with the exception of lab classes. I go to Clemson, which has about 16,000 undergraduates and professors hold office hours (can also knock on their door anytime if they’re in their office - these are often under utilized) and if you want to do research, there are plenty of undergraduate research opportunities you can participate in if you take the initiative and talk to the faculty member heading the project. So yes a large school is definitely intimidating in terms of the shear number of students but within your engineering major, you would probably be getting the same experience as a student at a smaller sized school (with potentially more resources and offered classes)</p>
<p>Great advice from Pierre0913. The engineering department in large universities can seem like they’re small communities; a very positive feature for those looking for a more “intimate” undergraduate educational experience. At most comprehensive universities there will be way more liberal arts majors than STEM majors.</p>
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<p>Note, however, that “liberal arts majors” and “STEM majors” are not disjoint sets. The S and M parts of STEM are also liberal arts.</p>
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<p>I don’t know about the S, but for the M it takes a masochist to study engineering.</p>
<p>although some of STEM is liberal arts, I think what LW meant is that many big univ have students in majors that often don’t intersect much with eng’g. </p>
<p>On the other hand, math majors can find themselves in some of the same classes as eng’rs…Calc I, II, III, DifEq I, II, and some others, Physics with Cal I, Physics with Cal II, Gen Chem, etc.</p>
<p>Those in Math, Physics, Chem and Eng’g are often in buildings that are clustered together…a little STEM world.</p>
<p>I’ve seen people say “very few” students on LAC 3/2 programs follow through, but I have yet to see stats to support that “very few” of them or even “most” don’t complete the engineering program.</p>
<p>I only have anecdotal experience (and second-hand to boot, of course), but I went to a small LAC with a 3/2 engineering program and most of my friends who were in it completed the program by transferring to one of our partner universities. One of the reasons for that is that one of our partners was a top engineering school in the same city, but some of them transferred to other places, too - including Columbia and Stanford. The ones who didn’t switched majors mostly because they were no longer interested in engineering, and typically they switched to physics or math.</p>
<p>I also currently go to a university that is a receiving school for 3/2 programs, and I worked in student affairs, and every year we get about 100 students in the “2” phase of the program. Some of them have adjustment issues in the beginning, but virtually all of them are doing fine by mid-semester.</p>
<p>You don’t finish the engineering major in 2 years in a 3/2 program, or at least not the ones I’m familiar with. The LAC has core first-year engineering classes at it offered by professors. My husband was in such a program and he took core engineering classes in his first years at the LAC; he also did a summer internship in Huntsville at the NASA station there (he was aerospace engineering). Most of his friends completed their 3/2 program by transferring out to the “2” school.</p>
<p>I will say, though, that my LAC and his (both across the street from each other) had a lot of support for 3/2 students - there were lots of engineering student groups, a large chapter of NSBE (we went to HBCUs), and the engineering students started together over the summer in a special program and so bonded before the school year began.</p>
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<p>The link to a Carleton page in post #13 indicates that there are probably about 12-20 per class level (out of about 500 total students per class level) on the engineering mailing list, but only 0-3 per year apply to transfer to the designated 3+2 or 4+2 schools.</p>
<p>To Juillet’s point, I would think these 3/2 programs “success” varies widely between LACS. For example, Emory’s program would have you transferring to, for example, Georgia Tech. You wouldn’t even need to change apartments(both are in Atlanta) or leave your friends. In fact, many of your friends are likely at GT.</p>
<p>[Dual</a> Degree Programs in Engineering with Georgia Institute of Technology | in Atlanta, Georgia at the Other Department, Emory University](<a href=“http://catalog.college.emory.edu/department-program/major/engineering.html]Dual”>http://catalog.college.emory.edu/department-program/major/engineering.html)</p>
<p>^^^
Actually, that’s a great idea. Even better might be to start at Oxford College of Emory University. You might be able to start some engineering classes earlier than Year 4 which would take a lot of the pressure off.</p>
<p>@ClassicRockerDad,</p>
<p>20 public and private colleges and universities are part of the Atlanta Regional Council for Higher Education’s (ARCHE); which allows cross registration. You could take 3 classes at Emory, while signing up for 1 or 2 classes at Georgia Tech. Real useful for anyone trying to complete a 3/2 program in Atlanta.</p>
<p>LOL at M2CK; “a little STEM world.”</p>
<p>Another option would be to attend a rigorous LAC with a major in physics, chemistry or math to get the technical foundation. Then take a engineering course at a local university in the summer to gain ‘confidence’ in engineering and see if you even like it all that much. Then graduate with the bachelors in four years from the LAC and apply to graduate schools. S1 followed this path and is now a grad student at a top engineering school. He was able to do a double major and an additional minor at his undergrad school and I think that the diversity of background (along with his summer engineering course and internship in engineering) helped him gain acceptance to his first choice grad school.</p>
<p>Additionally, I second the suggestion of the smaller LAC engineering schools. Swarthmore, Trinity College and Lafayette are good options if you want your undergrad to be in engineering.</p>
<p>Re: #34</p>
<p>However, the graduate study required by this method could be costly, unless the goal is to get a PhD (PhD programs are usually funded, but master’s degrees usually are not). It may also take longer due to the need to “catch up” on upper division engineering course work before doing graduate level course work and research.</p>