Best Schools for Undergraduate Aerospace Engineering

College Search & Selection
41

Good luck to your son! I’ve attached an undergraduate rocket engineering competition event that might be of interest to your student. I have also attached a list of 2022 participants. He will see that he can be involved in some great rocket projects at many universities. This year, Australian teams took the win!

My advice is for him to apply as the major that most excites him as he will have a greater chance of putting a strong application together that way. Aerospace is generally a smaller department at most universities and seems to be very close knit. As with many engineering degrees, having a degree in aerospace doesn’t mean only working in aerospace, just as you can work in aerospace without an aerospace degree. One of my friends is an aerospace undergrad and works in biomechanics/robotics. Friends of my husband’s that are aerospace engineers from Southern California work as imagineers (I think that’s what it’s called) for Disney. Good luck and I hope he ends up in a great place for him!!!

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42

tsbna44 - fantastic answer.

Never thought about UAH or U of Arizona - I will have a look into it.

I also read about food not the best at ERAU - I told him about this, he didn’t seem bothered :slight_smile:

The 2 links you gave me are gold - I already sent them to him.

43

Quick thoughts:

  1. If his passion is AE stick with AE. Engineering is hard enough, the more focused his desire to succeed at the degree goal, the better. And yes, employers DO specifically seek AE undergrads. Shows focus for NASA, Lockheed, etc.

  2. If he is specifically interested in Astronautical subspecialization, check out Texas A&M and University of Arizona among others.

  3. He has solid SAT. Did his PSAT qualify him for National Merit? If so, he would get in state tuition + $10,500 a year from TAMU. And as someone else mentioned earlier, a free ride from Alabama.

  4. You note over 3.9 GPA. Research how state of Arizona calculates GPA. He may have a 4.0 using their definition of what course count in GPA. If so, he’d get free tuition for OOS and the honors form is over the top nice.

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44

You may be right - I read that UF and also Purdue give priority for in-state first (about 50%). This year, my friend’s son (Florida resident) got into UF with SAT 1420 and 4.8 GPA - that’s why I was thinking that UF would be a match for my out-of-state son

45

Be careful with Texas A&M. It has a secondary-admission-to-major process like Purdue, but the automatic admission college GPA is 3.75 at Texas A&M (versus a much more reasonable 3.2 at Purdue). For those not meeting the automatic admission college GPA at Texas A&M, aerospace is one of the more competitive majors, though not as competitive as computer science, computer engineering, biomedical engineering, or mechanical engineering, in recent years. See post #172 and following at TAMU ETAM statistics - #172 by pbleigh .

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46

What do you mean by “extra fee” ?

47

Our daughter got into UF OOS with a 1520 and UW GPA of 3.93 so I agree your son is a likely admit. But it is still a bit arbitrary selection process since so few top OOS applicants get in. We turned UF down due to no OOS tuition waiver in her case.

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48

Tdbna44 - what do you mean by resume/brag sheet ? Does he have to send them something to the teachers for getting the recommendation ? Hugh …didn’t know about this.
He’s teachers / coaches know him pretty well, however being swamped with requests make sense .

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We are on our way to TAMU this fall so I have been following the reports of ETAM acceptances on FB. For the most part, raising auto-admit to 3.75 appears to have been a positive. Very few were auto admit. So the students (like OPs) with a focused interest in a niche like AE had a way better chance to distinguish themselves by taking initiative in targeted clubs etc. But yes, like Purdue it is not a sure bet. Just for sure would be crazy to overlook TAMU with AE. And especially if interested in NASA as the TAMU partnership has greatly expanded.

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50

Please excuse my ignorance - I am not sure what above means …

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51

I am on my way out the door to a 4th of July thing so can’t look up exact examples/numbers. But, in general, many engineering programs have added costs,can be as much as 2000 + extra a year. You will need to check specifics of the schools you’re considering. Happy 4th of July , everybody!

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52

He needs to get two recommendations from teachers - preferably one in the English/Humanities and one science math.

Often the teachers don’t know about the student - what they enjoy outside, what they’ve accomplished outside, etc. They typically know the student inside.

So often times they can “connect” what they see in the classroom to the overall student.

Most kids just ask for a recommendation. However, by giving a resume (a list of what they’ve done), the teacher has the ability to write a more complete and thoughtful recommendation.

Your son should have a resume anyway. Some colleges allow you to submit it and it can help him develop his list of activities for when it’s time to fill out the common app.

You can google resumes and find one - or PM me and I can share one my kids did (not saying it’s the best but it’s something).

You asked about extra fees - some colleges charge an extra “tuition” payment on top of tuition for high paid majors, etc.

In the case of engineering, for example, U of Minnesota (not on your list but) charges an extra $1K a semester.

U of Maryland is $2,971 a year Junior / Senior.

Rutgers - the tuition for engineering by semester is $7177 but for liberal arts is $6268.

Alabama actually gives you back $2500 because of the SAT - so on top of the $28000, he’d get another $2500 for $30,500 off.

Check each school for their surcharge - not all have - or when you are on info sessions, it’s a good question to ask - is there a tuition surcharge for engineering - just to make sure the school still meets your budget.

Scholarships – College of Engineering | The University of Alabama (ua.edu)

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In other words - your original question was basically - should he apply to Embry Riddle or Florida.

You needn’t decide. You can do both.

In fact, the Common App - where most kids apply - allows you to enter in Common Data (name, adress, test scores, academic records) plus store your main essay and your recommendation letters (Common app will email the teachers for you and they will submit to common app). So applying to colleges is relatively easy - although many/most have a feel to apply. You should get on the information lists of each school of interest. Some may send you a free application waiver.

Schools that don’t use Common App - typically have an easier app - like Alabama and UAH - that you can do in 30 minutes.

Common App will then take each school of interest - and walk you through their specific questions and provide you any other essays you need to write.

I believe it opens August 1st - so you’ll want your son to set up an account then.

In other words, when I went to college and I applied to 9, I had to write 9 different applications. It took forever. We had typewriters.

Today, with Common App, you can often times apply to another college in 15 minutes - because all your data is saved/stored - and it’s easier for teachers too (they just write one recommendation for you vs. one for each college).

Apply to college with Common App | Your future starts here

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54

TAMU is also on the list …

So far here is the list we’ve put together with his stats (1510 SAT, 3.92 GPA) and AE in mind :slight_smile:

  1. REACH
  • Georgia Institute of Technology
  • University of Michigan
  • University of Virginia
  • University of Illinois Urbana Champain
  1. MATCH
  • Univ of Florida
  • Purdue
  • Univ of Texas Austin
  • Univ of Maryland
  1. SAFE
  • ERAU
  • Texas A&M
  • Univ of Colorado Boulder
  • Virginia Tech
  • Rutgers

As I said - never looked into Univ of Alabama or Univ of Arizona - maybe these are safe for him and worth applying

55

So far - we’ve visited only ERAU, UF and of course Rutgers … however he is now in Florida, called me and said he wants to visit more as now he understands the importance of visiting - he mentioned Purdue, Univ of Texas Austin and Virginia Tech …it’s going to be a busy summer :slight_smile:

Question - after early acceptance, how long do we have to send our answer ? Can we visit after the we know he was accepted or not ?

56

Move Florida, Purdue, and UT Austin to reach. Austin will be hardest.

UT Austin is also much much more expensive. I think Florida and Purdue could happen - but they are definitely not a match.

Good list though - and as long as you are happy with and can afford the safeties, it’s fine.

ERAU doesn’t fit - but if you leave it, add UAH as a cheaper substitute (although it’s not purely aeronautical). ERAU is small - whereas the rest of your list are large colleges. If you like ERAU, add Florida Tech - similar and just as well reputed.

You can do all your visiting on line and then after you get your offers, visit those you can afford in person. All info sessions and tours can be done on line to save money.

Some schools like an in-person visit up front - demonstrated interest - but it’s not necessary at public universities. It’s great if you can do it but you only have so much time and money - and that’s why on-line is great as a fill in for now.

Your list of schools is great but not necessarily affordable - since you said that is a factor.

Hence the Alabama, Arizona, and UAH - they will be very inexpensive compared to the rest and would be good additions (in my opinion).

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57

Run the NPC calculators for all of them.

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58

So I work in aerospace and we have a lot of Alabama, Alabama Huntsville, Embry Riddle, UT, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, SMU, Purdue, UF, Iowa State, Ohio State, Kansas State, Auburn, U of H, anD LSU grads in equal mixes of EE, AE, ME, and BME degrees. Those with coding knowledge have an edge. Rank of the college doesn’t matter as much as experience, internships, communication skills and good (not perfect) grades.

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59

i’m loving this - have a D23 interested in the same major/colleges as well.

my one thought for you @Buflea is to read through threads on acceptances here on CC for those reach and match colleges on your list - and see how competitive they are. (mostly so in the computer science field it seems; engineering was right behind). I saw some heartbreak here this spring for kids with high stats. Not to say that will happen to your kid, but make sure you have safeties.

my kid will be looking mostly at safeties with high merit, including Iowa State AE, and might throw in a few others.

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60

Hugh !!! If I move Purdue, UF and UT Austin to reach, there are no match schools left :slight_smile:

The reason I put Purdue, UF and UT Austin on the match list is because I looked at CDS for the SAT / GPA range and I picked the highest one

  • Purdue highest GPA is 1430 with only 9% of applicants with GPA > 3.75
  • UF - highest GPA 1450 with 40% of applicants with GPA > 3.75
  • UT Austin - highest GPA 1450 - no data about GPA

What match schools should I replace them with ? I also have NC State (maybe a match ??) and Ohio Univ (another match ?) but I was thinking to drop them .

Penn State is a safe also

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