Hasn’t much of this activity moved online these days? Post covid …
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Not at Purdue, the college career fairs have been back in person for a few cycles. They were only virtual Fall of '20.
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eyemgh - I have not a clear answer as you know how is the communication with a teenager. I believe he likes aerodynamics - I’ve seen him watching many videos not just about airplanes but about roller coasters and the science behind them. Definitely seems to be interested in the science of flying.
Honestly, I’m not sue if he can articulate very clear “what he wants to do” at 17, how many of us could … The time of discovery just began. He just went to an Exploration Camp at ERAU, where they presented the aerospace industry and professions in this industry. I’m waiting for him to come back and hear impressions. That’s when he told me - “ERAU is better at what I want but UF is better as an experience, and I also want the experience”. I’m waiting for him to come home and find out details about this statement 
These being said - all schools offering AE, offer also ME. However not all schools with ME offer AE. At this moment, I’m thinking we should pick a school with AE, so he can easily switch to ME if he decides so.
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Some may offer AE not as a standalone major, but as a subarea option or in-major elective courses within ME. But that may take looking in catalogs and department web sites.
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True - I think I’ve seen major in ME and minor in AE - Villanova offers such a package
I think that’s a great approach, and one I’ve advocated for others. He has to narrow down his list anyway. AE cuts it to about 50 schools.
Once you know this, you’ll all have a better handle on schools that will fit him. It may also turn out that the things that ERAU is “better at” might also be found at UF. It’s much harder to see everything a big school has to offer on a brief tour.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting an experience to be a certain way. My son for example had the acumen and resume to be competitive at schools like MIT, but he specifically wanted a “typical college experience.” It’s 4 long years, more for some. It might as well not be drudgery.
Best of luck!
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Be a little bit careful with this logic. At many schools that limit department enrollment, ME is one of the more difficult programs to be admitted as a transfer because demand is generally very high. This doesn’t impact all schools, but be aware it isn’t bulletproof logic.
If you aren’t using your 4(-ish) years in college to explore yourself, meet people, and have fun (in addition to seeking your degree, of course), you’ve missed out on a big an important part of the process, in my opinion.
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Boneh3ad - I see. Then maybe a school like Purdue will be more beneficial as they are accepted to engineering school and after the first year can pick the major based on GPA (I think). Somebody said Texas A&M does the same …
However, let’s see if he’s getting into Purdue or Texas A&M - all the comments over here ruined a bit my confidence
On the other hand I just want to say that it doesn’t seem fair to me to limit the OOS students. First because doing so, the acceptance is not the same for everybody, seems to be more competitive for OOS. Also, not all state universities have the same policy. Rutgers for example has the reputation of choosing OOS students first because they pay more …so for a NJ resident, there is no mercy, so to speak.
You’ll see a huge debate flare up on here about first year engineering programs where a student is admitted to engineering and then applies later to their major of choice. Sometimes that second admissions process is competitive. Sometimes it isn’t. Every school that has a program does it a little bit differently.
Personally, I see merits to both approaches and I feel as though a student can thrive in either of them as long as they know what they’re getting into. Others feel passionately one way or the other.
As for admission of non-resident students, every school (and their governing states) have different rules. Texas, for example, has a state law that high school seniors in the top 10% of their classes are automatically admitted to state flagship universities (Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech) and this fills the overwhelming majority of available spots each year.
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@Buflea Virginia Tech and UVA also have general engineering type programs in the first year.
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Exactly - initially my son said he doesn’t want to deal with the pressure of perfect grades as he did in high school . Now, I guess, this is the price of not knowing exactly what you want to do in life at 17 …some kids know and don’t have this problem
I see - I didn’t know that.
I read about UVA - I think is a solid reach, very, very competitive - in other words I don’t think he will get in.
For Virginia Tech I believe he has good chances
I’d go as far as to say that most kids entering college don’t know what they want with any degree of certainty. I think many have an idea about what they want and a fair number simply end up reinforcing that idea through their coursework.
I sure didn’t. I liked airplanes. My dad worked at a major airframer his whole career and I was immersed in it from the beginning. He always told me I should do ME instead of AE to keep my options open, in part because he had seen so many cycles of layoffs (never actually got laid off) and hiring and didn’t want to move away from the metro area we lived in for a different AE job if he had been laid off, some wished he had more versatility. Of course he never had to test that theory and it still isn’t clear to me whether that fear was well-founded or yet another old wives tale.
I took his advice, though, and studied ME. It was at a school that did not (at least at that time) have a first year program that required a second application to the major. I ended up staying in ME despite being unsure when I applied and took some extra aerodynamics courses. I ended up going straight to grad school for AE. Now I am on the faculty at a combined AE/ME department. Go figure.
Yes, UVA is a reach. VT is a match. I would apply ED or EA (not regular decision) to VT if he decides he wants to apply, to strengthen his chance of admission. Good luck with your final list!
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It is 6% for UT Austin and about to go to 5%. Also, that auto-admit doesn’t guarantee a particular major at UT Austin.
Sure, the law has changed since last I lived in Texas, then. And I never said it would guarantee a major, just admission to the university, thus the main reason those schools are so heavily in-state students.
I have a kid like that. Kid didn’t know which path to take. Kid applied in three separate buckets: engineering ( nearly 100% acceptance to top schools (2 were top 5) and honors programs), all engineering programs were general engineering), humanities with a specification ( mixed bag also very top schools top 10), liberal arts, not specific but here are my interests( very low acceptances, same type schools).
Take my advice, bend the truth and just state that he wants to do this or that. There are too many applicants and they don’t have time to figure out if John/Jane are a good fit. They want to know that John wants English lit and Jane wants engineering. Write the essays to the major and build an easy story. AO’s don’t want to wade through stuff.
BTW, my kid had two spikes in each field (including national awards so it wasn’t the level of EC’s, and kid had almost perfect test scores with exactly the same scores in each category on the SATs 790 in both). Data sample of 1, but kids friends did much better when they went for very specific majors. The I don’t know what I want kids who were also top notch fared less well. We learned a lot from this cycle.
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I got my undergraduate degree at Texas way back when. Back then, if you had an 1100 or higher on your SAT and were in the top 10% of your class, you were an auto admit and could chose any major. Now, with so many bright kids in the state, you see auto admits with 1500+ SATs getting denied from Engineering and CS. It is crazy.
Curious if you have a source for the change to top 5%?