I’m about to graduate, and I’m starting my search on colleges I want to apply to. I need a school that has both civil and environmental engineering. I don’t want a school that is in the middle of nowhere; I need a social scene. So I’m looking into the following schools:
Stanford
Columbia University
UT Austin - for its location in Austin and it’s good civil and environmental collaboration
GA Tech
NYU
UC Berkeley
I live in Georgia so that’s why GA tech is on there, but it just doesn’t appeal to me. I’m also trying to eliminate student loans as well. Everyone is telling me that GA tech is the best option for financial situations, but I’m hoping for a scholarship elsewhere.
4.0 + GPA
33 on ACT
Chosen to be in Georgia Governor’s Honors Program
Varsity letter in community service
Girl
You were selected for GHP. Did you participate? What was it in?
Yes I participated. I was selected for architectural design/engineering as my major and minored in science.
If financial aid is needed, you can eliminate UC schools when you are OOS. I searched collegedata.com for schools with both your preferred majors, then sorted the list by how well the school meets financial need. Here are some ideas in metropolitan areas:
John Hopkins
Rice
USC
George Washington
Stevens
University of Miami
Good luck & aloha!
Thank you! I still want the prestige that the colleges I listed have. I know those are great schools, but i’ve researched a ton and those are my top colleges
FWIW, my DS chose Rice over GaTech.
And Columbia and NYU are great schools, but not top for engineering programs, nor are they generous with scholarship $, IMO.
What was the purpose of this thread? I could not identify a single question or request. The OP clearly states that:
Which begs the question: What was the intent of this thread? The OP seems to have all the answers to nonexistent questions.
If the student is “about to graduate” – does that mean after a summer course? After fall semester?
GA Tech is higher ranked than all but Stanford and tuition free to you. Don’t dismiss it just because it us in your home state. We live in Michigan and see a similar vibe with UMich. I actually, finally realized how good UMich CoE is , despite taking multiple classes there only after visiting lots of other schools with my son. Only a very,very few (like Stanford and GA Tech) compare favorably.
Middle of Atlanta, Olympic athletic facilities, world-class faculty, crazy good recruiting, in-town internships, the brightest students in the south, $0 tuition - extremely favorable M/F ratio (for you, if you are straight) and a bus direct to Emory for more social stuff. Near 100% chance of admission with your profile. Maybe you can coax some more money out of them for living expenses too.
Best of all you can graduate debt free and slide in to a great STEM job while your peers make $500/mo student loan payments and eat macaroni for the next 15 years.
Tufts has both Civil and Environmental, is located in a city with a high density of young people (Somerville) adjacent to another such city (Cambridge) and a few miles from Boston. Meets full need for financial aid.
NYU, UT, and Cal aren’t going to give you scholarships.
What are your parents saying about how much they’ll pay?
Jym626 is right. In the traditional engineering disciplines the best universities tend to be public universities, and “prestige” means very little. Columbia is a great university but there are at least two dozen universities with stronger Engineering Departments than Columbia. Also, engineering at NYU is a work in progress.
What wrong with Georgia Tech for you?
Don’t look down on GA Tech just because it’s in-state. Face the music with a smile: you need financial aid. GA Tech is most likely to give it AND accept you. Having one or two reaches like UT Austin or UC Berkeley isn’t bad, but you need to be able to afford them. If financial aid is necessary, you need to choose schools that can provide that on a realistic level.
You’re going about it with the wrong attitude; prestige isn’t equal to academic quality. Would you rather go to a ‘prestigious’ school and drown in debt? Or would you rather go to a smaller school but be able to handle your debt? That’s great to go to the prestigious school and impress your neighbors and family at barbecues with your bumper sticker school proudly announced on the back of your car and your sweatshirt, but that’s just surface, superficial stuff.
Take a look at this site: (http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/) With your stats, you could qualify for a lot of full tuition/full ride scholarships. This is what you need to be looking at. University of Alabama is a strong school with a good engineering program.
we just came back from visiting U of A…very good engineering program, nice campus ( but very large), and very generous with academic scholarships ( full tuition plus 2500 a year for engineering - my son has a GPA of 3.93 and an ACT of 34). That’s about $27,000 w/out applying for any other scholarships.
Mississippi State is another very good engineering school and nice campus but a smaller. Tuition plus first year housing ( $23,000).
Ole Miss is an up and coming engineering school with a manufacturing emphasis. Campus is smaller but very nice. Tuition plus OOS state fee ( $21,000).
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Jym626 is right. In the traditional engineering disciplines the best universities tend to be public universities, and “prestige” means very little
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Right. States have a vested interest in having strong engineering schools because they need the graduates!
The idea that there are only a handful of very good eng’g programs in this country is very naive. Each state usually has SEVERAL good programs…Calif has over 25 schools with very good programs.
Georgia Tech has an honors program. Most folks outside of Georgia would love to go tuition free, GT is one of the top engineering schools in the country.
Also don’t be sure you can get into a top 20 school, most high achievers have very limited success and somehow the number of applicants keeps soaring and these are small schools, other than UCB. (UCs will not cover at least $24K, regardless of your financial aid status).
Civil and environmental engineering are not the highest paid engineers. And really, you should be looking at school websites to see what each schools interests and programs are, rather than obsessing on USNWR rankings.
Civil and environmental engineers are also not particularly “prestige” oriented, so I think you may even get less traction from your expensive, prestigious degree than say an EE, CS major.
Although MS State has an excellent engineering school/program, neither of my kids liked the rural aspects.
My DD2 is a civil eng student at UA. They have expanded the civil eng program/env’tal eng. Some great aspects at UA are their honors college, including fairly sizable programs like Emerging Scholars (research opportunities as a freshman) and STEM MBA. My DD is in the STEM MBA and honors program.
With research, you may have found that they have just opened this National Water Center facility at UA:
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20150524/NEWS/150529815/1291?p=3&tc=pg
Here is a good summary about how UA has built up over the last 14 years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrV8g7kxJps
Definitely can look to comparing various schools against GaTech. Just don’t discount what is already available in your back yard, with in-state tuition.
UA also offers excellent $$ for your stats for OOS. The build up of honors students has a large pool of bright students on campus, along with the athletic excellence in the SEC and national level.
Agree with @pickone1 about not being obsessed with USNWR rankings - there are excellent educational opportunities in your major at a very large number of schools.
I’m an engineer by degree, mechanical engineering and am now an executive in a Fortune 100 company responsible for hiring engineers. Unlike other disciplines, prestige isn’t as important as how strong the engineering program is at a college. Companies are hiring engineers for their technical aptitude not their pedigree. Columbia is a great college but for journalisim or some other academic field, not for engineering. If you really want to be an engineer than focus on engineering colleges. UC Berkeley and Stanford both offer very good engineering programs. WIth UC Berkeley you might find it difficult to finish in 4 years due to UC overcrowding and it will cost you $50K+. Stanford,'s admit rate is now well under 5% and the students who get admitted to Stanford have either strong research accomplishments already or they offer something special. D was rejected by Stanford outright with a 36 ACT so don’t expect them to roll out a red carpet. In many ways if you are looking for a good undergraduate engineering program, it’s much easier than if you are interested in other academic fields. ABET certification and a track record of placing graduates into good jobs