I’m a junior in high school right now, and I’m looking into attending a US college for my undergrad. I’d like to major in aero engineering (or at least mechanical engineering), and am looking for full tuition or near full tuition aid/scholarships. I’ve gotten a 1550 new SAT, and 790 in Math 2 and Physics. I also have pretty good EC’s (community service, original research, NYAS junior member, non-profit web design company co-founder). Is it realistic to try and apply to american colleges, or should I just accept the fact that I don’t stand a chance? If there is even a sliver of hope, what colleges should I apply to? (I’m also a huge american football fan, so a college with a great football program would be a great bonus.)
Not sure how easy it will be for as an international to get full/tuition aid/scholarships.
Embry-Riddle specializes in aeronautical engineering and has locations in the US and Worldwide, as well as possibilities for online study. I believe they offer scholarships.
U of Alabama (all locations, especially Huntsville), Embry-Riddle (it would really help if you are female and play a sport).
Also, are you sure you’d get a full package based on need? You might not have the money to attend, but that doesn’t mean the school will agree that you can’t pay. Fill out a few of the net price calculators. Make sure you mark international student (if it is an option) or that you take any federal grants and loans out of the final package.
Statistically, you have shot at MIT. Whether or not you have the depth and substance to convince the admissions office that you should be admitted, and manage to express it effectively in the application, is another story. I agree with Alabama as well. Excellent option.
Note that as an international student you might have difficulties finding internships (much less jobs) in aerospace engineering. Many of those positions require security clearances you will not be able to secure.
Tuskegee is a very good school but I think most of their scholarships target US African-American students since it is a HBCU site. Priority funding goes to domestic students.
Also, if you are interested in aerospace engineering, you should research your job opportunities in your country. As an international student, you cannot expect to be hired in any US firm, in this field, as @katliamom has noted. You would not be able to get a US security clearance to qualify for jobs in that field in the US.
The security clearance issue is overstated. There’s a large market for civilian aircraft. Even NASA doesn’t require a security clearance for most positions.
Are you sure about that? Half my family are engineers working in aerospace in Southern California. All of them needed security clearances from day one, including sister-in-law who is an admin. It was a big deal when a nephew engineer became engaged to Chinese student… he was asked about it a few times by his bosses and HR
Agree with @Katliamom. ^^ Husband and dd are also engineers who were required to have security clearances from day one at their respective companies. Dd who has been doing some software, very minimally related to aerospace, for 4 years now, is just getting some of her major clearances for certain projects.
Sister is in management for civilian aircraft at a BIG company on the West Coast. She was also required to jump through security hoops on recent promotions because her husband was a French citizen 30 years back.
Also, if there is an American candidate for a position and an international candidate, guess who has more of an advantage? All 3 companies referred to above^ have posted, on their websites, that they are not in the position to sponsor nor hire non-citizens.
If some students (who come from countries with no aerospace programs) have the notion that they may be employed in the US with Aero degrees, (with immigration to the US as primary goals), don’t you think it’s crucial to let them know that their degrees/studies should be considered for their marketability in their home countries?
I’m going to take a wild guess and say about 50% of aerospace engineer jobs in the US require security clearances. Not all aerospace engineers are employed doing defense work.
The bigger problem is that there aren’t that many aerospace engineering jobs to begin with. It might be better to major in some other kind of engineering, like mechanical or electrical engineering, materials science, or computer science. Aerospace companies need those, too. A company like Boeing has lots more programmers than aerospace engineers.
Take a look at Boeing’s annual report. They generate about 68% of their revenue from their commercial aircraft division. Many aerospace jobs require a security clearance, but there is a market for aerospace engineers outside military contracts. Whether those companies are willing to sponsor a foreign national for immigration purposes is a separate issue.
This is kind of interesting, so I did a bit of googling. Couldn’t find data about the percentage of engineering jobs requiring security clearance, but did find info that says approx 60% of all aeronautical engineers are employed in Department of Defense-related projects. Whether or not those jobs require security clearance isn’t specified, but considering who’s paying the bills, it’s not unlikely it is.
If any of you find some solid info on the subject, please share here.
This is a question that comes up fairly frequently among international engineering students. It would be nice to give them a solid answer.
@Blackbird1287 In response to your original post, schools like the University of Michigan, Purdue University, and University of Maryland are some great schools for aerospace engineering. In my opinion I would evaluate schools like Embry-Riddle very carefully since they are smaller, non-comprehensive schools that will give you a very different college experience compared to the more popular traditional comprehensive university. I may be wrong, but from what I have seen, comprehensive universities like UM, Purdue, and UMD tend to attract a larger variety of students with more diversity, including more internationals and more higher-performing students. Also, if you decide to change majors in the future to another type of engineering (possibly ME or EE, as they are closest to AE), larger, comprehensive universities will give you an equally good education, whereas smaller schools might fall a bit short. Most students do tend to change majors, statistically and due to the fact that they are continuously exploring and redefining their interests.
Some other schools you can look into are MIT, CalTech, Georgia Tech, UIUC, Princeton, and UT Austin, which all offer great aerospace engineering programs. You certainly have the SAT score to get into these schools but as we all know admissions relies on other factors as well.
In terms of the aerospace job market and security-related issues, the US puts restrictions on what foreign nationals can work on. This may limit your career growth or job experiences out of college. For example, I know that SpaceX college interns must be US citizens.
The International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR, is a broad set of laws that encompasses everything from the prohibition of the selling of military technology to the hiring of foreign workers. Work regarding the development of rockets and their components (I’m not sure to what degree of specificity) and anything going into space is limited to only US citizens and sometimes greencard holders.
ICBMs and rockets that send satellites into orbit have a lot in common, so it’s easy to see the logic behind these laws. I’d imagine that it also goes without saying that almost all gov’t sponsored projects (like those in the DoD, Navy, Air Force, NASA) are all subjected to these laws as well.
I’m not sure if civil-aviation related work is limited by other laws, but it’s not under ITAR.
Most aerospace jobs nowadays are in defense or astro, two areas heavily regulated by ITAR. Civil Aero does not represent a significant chunk of the industry.