Thanks so much everyone for the insight! My son is the height of practical and wants to stay away from ANY debt at all, so your reassurance has helped me quite a bit. I wish we could afford Vtech or Harvey Mudd, but it doesn’t seem to be in the cards…unless his upcoming scores we have yet to see are amazing! I will update this thread if that happens
Meanwhile, I am going to rest my constant worry because what is meant to be will be. It is HIS decision after all.
Many thanks to all for EVERY opinion.
BTW, my family has lots of Vandy from grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. He refused to even go see it due to cost while I am shaking my head. Lesson for me…He will be fine no matter where he goes.
Still open to any other ideas of schools if you think of any.
“We have figured out that Co-ops are going to be key with this major in order to get experience and make contacts outside our region.”
“BTW, my family has lots of Vandy from grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. He refused to even go see it due to cost while I am shaking my head. Lesson for me…He will be fine no matter where he goes.”
One thing to know about Vanderbilt is that they do not support co-ops (at least they didn’t back in 2013). They believe that you should complete your degree in 4 years. Not a good thing or a bad thing but it was a deal breaker when our D was selecting schools for engineering.
You are OOS for Auburn correct? If I read their OOS scholarships correctly, if your son were to get a 33 on his ACT he would receive a $16000 a year scholarship. At a 31-32 it would be $12000/year.
Ditto what Bon3head said about regional engineering schools versus schools with a “national” reputation. It may not matter much, depending upon the employer.
By the way, I am familiar with ChE and Materials Science Engineering at UTK and they are both excellent departments. Also, there’s lots of new construction ($$$) going on at UTK’s engineering facilities. I know a kid who got a great engineering co-op job in the midwest specifically because of his prior experience at UTK’s engineering school.
Unfortunately even with perfect ACT scores, Mudd will likely be out of reach. Merit aid is generally inversely related to selectivity. At the most difficult schools, admission is typically the reward.
I am currently a senior ChE at UTKnoxville. I can give you some hindsight on the ChE curriculum and the co-op/internship opportunities at UTKnoxville.
The curriculum is very much similar to other schools. I had to take Mass & Energy Balance, BioMolecular for ChE, Fluid Flow, Mass Transfer, Separation, Senior Lab, Senior project, Analytical Chem, Organic I&II, Physics …
The size of class has been increasing steadily for the past few years i.e. my class (2012) has about 75 students and the 2013 class has 100 students. Most of professors are really nice here. They are willing to help you with the homework during their office hours if the TA is unable to help you. If your son is interesting in research, UTKnoxville is a great school for him, because it is not difficult to get a undergraduate research position here.
For co-op/internship opportunities, I think UTKnoxville has been doing a great job in organizing Engineering Expos ( mainly for engineering co-op/internship in Fall and Spring semester) and the job fairs ( for entry-level jobs and a few internship positions in Fall and Spring semester). Here is the link to their 2014 Annual Report http://www.coop.utk.edu/pdfs/epp_annual_report_may_2014.pdf. I personally had a great experience working with the co-op office. They can sign you up for interviews with your interest company for co-op/internship. There were at least 70 companies coming to the Engineering Expo in Fall 2014, namely Kimberly-Clark, International Paper, GP, SABIC, Shaw, Exxon, Northfolk, Southern Company, Eastman Chemical… At least 100 companies came to the job fair in Fall 2014 and the number keeps increasing over years.
Unfortunately, I can’t give you any ideas on the social life and extra curriculum at UTKnoxville since I live off-campus and I did not join any organizations ( I am nerd you can say that lol).
As you can tell by now, English is not my native language and I apologize for grammatical errors or mistakes I have made.Anyway, despite of the language barrier, I am graduating with 3.95 GPA in December and I am currently doing a co-op with a Fortune 500 company. I am doing multiples onsite interviews for the entry level position now.
So my point is as bright as your son is , if he is willing to work hard, he will be a very successful UTK grad engineer.
Translate that for us. When my kids took PSAT (years back), the had 3 digit score… 240 max (3x80), nmsf varied by state but usually well over 200. Oh, maybe you mean PSAT 2 parts = 145… .equivalent of SAT (2 parts - math / verbal) 1450?
well it seems as though the scoring has changed somewhat. The very first score is 1450 then as you go down the report, it shows the raw scores which you are supposed to add together and multiply by 2 so my sons is a 217. However, there is so much info about what score is what that I just added the two groups to my post. Sorry to confuse. We are in TN, and our cutoff was 212 last year.
Now PSAT 217 I understand That’s great! It could ield some nice LAC scholarships, but the TN state schools might still be more cost-effective. Try running some college NPC (net price calculators) for a ballpark idea.
That’s great! It could ield some nice LAC scholarships, but the TN state schools might still be more cost-effective. Try running some college NPC (net price calculators) for a ballpark idea.