I am a high school junior who has taken 5 ap classes so far and many honors classes. My only B grades in high school are in math. I have gotten a B one semester of honors algebra 2 as a freshman, a B one semester of honors pre-calc as a sophomore (it was an 89%), and B’s in both semesters of calc bc. (For background: last year every person who got an A got a 5 and some who got B’s also got 5’s.I studied but I didn’t get enough practice in over the year leading to less than desirable test scores in the class. I will be practicing more over the next year before I head to college). Can I still get into some okay engineering programs? Which universities should I look at? I have good extracurriculars and test scores.
What state are you in? what is you UW GPA? from hat you describe, you are 3.7-3.8 UW GPA. Include you AP scores 5 in your application if you can. I think most state flagship Univ you have a good chance, if they are not Berkeley or Mich. You still have chance at Michigan and UCB.
CA, I have a 3.90 UW
You don’t need an A in every math class to be good in engineering or in STEM.
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Thank you, that makes me feel a little better.
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What do you mean by “good” test scores?
It’s absolutely true that a few B’s in math does not disqualify you from success in engineering.
It’s also true, though, that most engineering programs at CA public U’s are more competitive than the school in general. So whatever school you could theoretically get into based on generalities, you’ll need to go down another level or two of competitiveness for engineering, especially if the weak areas of your transcript are on the STEM side.
This doesn’t mean you can’t get into an engineering program - far from it. It just means you need to target the programs you apply to accordingly.
Even a hypothetical California student with a 2.0 GPA and “good” test scores could get into engineering programs at WUE schools like Northern Arizona and Portland State. If that student went on to perform well in college, they could get a fine engineering education at those schools.
You’re probably not going to be going to Berkeley, UCLA, Cal Poly, etc. for engineering. But that’s okay. You will have plenty of options. What those options are will depend on your course rigor, your test scores, your EC’s… and also on your financial situation.
32 Composite
E-30 M-34 R-30 S-32
Retaking next month
Sat 2 math: 800
AP: chem, calc bc, us history, psychology, Lang and comp
Honors:algebra 2,sophomore english, precalc, world history, chem
Taking ap econ, ap gov, ap physics 1, ap literature,ap stats senior year
taking calc 3 at cc
Okay, you have some good rigor there, then. SLO could be in range, as well as SDSU, and definitely other good CSU engineering programs that are less competitive than those
.
UC-wise, UCB/UCLA still probably not unless you bump up the ACT… but you’re very solid for UCSC and even more solid for UCR/UCM… and a decent chance at UCD/UCSB. San Diego… my bet is you’d get admitted to the campus but not to engineering. (They do it that way, whereas UCLA/UCB will just turn you down altogether if you don’t get into your major.) Pull out a 34+ and things will shift a little, but even with what you’ve got, you should have good in-state options. Also Santa Clara and similarly-competitive private U’s outside of CA could be worth a look, again depending on finances. If you happen to be female, you could look at some of the programs where women have an admissions advantage, like RPI for example. Again, hard to make suggestions outside of in-state publics without rough financial-category info.
around 130k
white female
app developer, know three programming languages very well
founded a coding club at my school
gold award recipient for stem work with young students(been a gs for over 10 years, many leadership awards)
hs robotics team captain
hundreds of hours of community service through local soup kitchen
leadership role in a community service club at my hs for the past two years
GWC summer immersion
very dedicated to another EC which I have been involved in throughout high school and have been entrusted with a large amount of responsibility through (cannot say due to privacy reasons)
National Honors Society
California Scholarship Fed.
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UC’s really like leadership stuff, and your EC’s and leadership look great.
Here - use this to look at the stat-based odds by major: https://rogerhub.com/uc-undergraduate-admissions-calculator/ (make sure to use the calculator to get an accurate capped/weighted GPA for 10th and 11th grades only)
You’re not out of the running at the top UC’s, and the EC’s will help. A few more ACT points would help even more. “Holistic” as the UC’s claim to be, admissions are still very stat-driven. You should definitely be able to get into competitive programs in the UC system, though!
Plus there are many, many great private and public U’s outside of CA where you’d be very competitive. But if you could squeeze out an extra point or two on the ACT, it would turn a lot of “maybes” into “probably’s.”
Plus there are many, many great private and public U’s outside of CA where you’d be very competitive
Could you name some of those please?
There are so many schools where you could be in the hunt that no one can really answer that without knowing more about what you want out of a school experience. Do you want urban, suburban or rural? What regions of the country will you not go? Small, medium, large, or giant? What hobbies do you want support for? Surfing? Skiing? Hiking? City culture? Have you researched class sizes? Does that matter? Do you want a typical college experience or are you really about all math/science all the time where a very focussed tech institute might be a fit? What is your financial situation? EFC?
Now a few caveats.
It’s a common misconception, but selectivity and quality are not correlated. Depending on what YOU want out of a school, there will be schools all over the board selectivity wise that will be great fits. For example, my son, now a masters candidate in ME, agonized over his final three choices. His stats were a bit higher than yours (no one’s stats can be a lot higher than yours…congrats 
). After acceptances rolled in, he narrowed to three and agonized for weeks choosing. The acceptance rates were 76%, 50%, and 14%. Search for fit and affordability on your terms.
Regarding the CSUs, where you live can impact your chances. The give extra emphasis to students who attended HS in their respective service areas. For Cal Poly that’s SLO county and Santa Barbara county North of Gaviota.
Speaking of Cal Poly, they admit competitively, by major. CS is the most competitive major at the school, probably the most competitive public admit in the state, with well under 10% accepted. It’s not uncommon for student aiming for the tippy top selective programs at Cal Poly, CS, ME and BME, to get rejections, but to get into Berkeley snd/or UCLA. CS was crazy this year, they had over 5000 applications for 100 slots.
That said, not all engineering majors at CP are as tough. I’m fact, some, like industrial and manufacturing have acceptance rates well above 50%.
Lastly, take some time to determine why you got Bs in your math classes. The top correlate to engineering success (not as much for CS, but still important) is facility and love of math. Using my son as an example again, he’s taken 5 math classes beyond Calculus IV (which is PDE, vector fields, etc). He uses math extensively daily. In order to be a successful and happy engineer, having not just good math grades, but a deep fundamental understanding and foundation is important. If you aren’t absolutely confident in your background, spend a little time on Kahn over the summer, even digging back as far as trig and alg II if necessary. The effort will reap huge dividends.
Good luck!
My kid got zero As in his preCalc and BC Calc classes but is going the Berkeley for CS. He got a 5 on his AP test though and has never scored below 800/36 on his SAT/ACT math portion, including Math II. Just a statistical point for reference.
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As @eyemgh said, it would help if you could narrow down what you’re looking for. What type of engineering? What financial constraints? What size and setting of school, in what region?
In the category of schools that are more affordable because of the WUE program, Colorado State is probably the top engineering program. It’s a very strong STEM school with excellent research opportunities for its undergrads. You can search the WUE schools by major here: http://wue.wiche.edu/search1.jsp U of Utah and Washington State also have strong programs. All of these have Honors Programs/Colleges to further enhance the experience. (Oregon State used to be a top WUE school for engineering too, but they’re no longer participating in the tuition exchange. Michigan State is also a top-notch STEM school.)
Farther afield… your stats area almost exactly at the median among engineering admits at Purdue - an excellent engineering school. Virginia Tech would also be a match. For research universities in an urban environment, look at Case Western Reserve U and U of Pittsburgh. Liberal arts schools with strong engineering programs: Lehigh, Bucknell, Lafayette, and Union. STEM schools in the Northeast: Stevens, RPI, WPI, RIT. STEM schools in the Midwest/Rockies: Rose-Hulman and CO School of Mines. You’ll have a particular admissions (and merit aid) advantage at the STEM schools that struggle with gender-parity, esp. Rose-Hulman and RPI.
Part of the equation needs to be how sure you are about engineering, and what appeals to you as an alternative should you change your mind. (For example, some schools have strong STEM-adjacent business programs; others are better in the pure sciences; and still others have strong programs in social sciences and humanities.)
Hopefully that gives you some good options to look at as a baseline.
After vetting all the WUE schools with my son, he narrowed to Utah and Colorado State. We felt Utah was a notch above in both facilities and curriculum. USNWR, if you give any weight to that, which I’d be careful (they have Harvard at 25 which is a complete joke), ranks Utah ahead of CSU. Utah in fact made my son’s final three.
My son also had some b’s in math and is OOS at Michigan in engineering. But his high school was number 1 in our state and all honors /Ap classes. No one expects you to be perfect. Your essays and app should show your interests in engineering etc. He ended with Calc 3 (multivariate Calc)in high school. Getting into any highly ranked school is a bit of luck, grades, ecc, and setting yourself apart and being unique and interesting on your essays. The old well rounded holistic thing. Plus more luck.
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I got a 4 on the BC test. Looks like I’m toast lol.
And why, exactly, are you toast?
A 4 is good. At UC Berkeley CoE that would not only get your credit for 1 year of Calculus but also allow you to skip right to MV Calc or Linear Algebra.