You did great in your junior year and you did really good on the ACT. It’s not going to be enough to get into Ohio State. You have decent shot at Ohio University, Cincinnati, or Cleveland State.
@Jfowl56 you’ve made super improvement. You should be proud of that–keep charging on! It’s hard to say how OSU will read that kind of record, though your GPA in light of OSU’s increased competitiveness means you need to have a plan B.
You still have GREAT options if not admitted to OSU. The company I’m with hires lots of engineers from Cincinnati and we are very happy with them. The institutional support for co-ops at UC is unrivaled. Other Ohio public universities also range from perfectly OK to quite solid. Additionally, you could consider either your local community college for a year or two, a public university, or an OSU regional campus and then transfer to Columbus. You could knock out lots of GEs and prerequisites, avoid OSU’s mass weed-out courses, and potentially save some money.
@philmusic Thanks for the in depth plan B’s. I will definitely take a look at Cincinnati now and probably apply there as well. You said your company hires engineers from Cincinnati - What is their main engineering program? Also, what is the main engineering program that your company looks at for employees? If you can’t answer those questions that is fine, you have already helped me greatly.
@Jfowl56 UC and OSU both have comprehensive engineering programs that span nearly the full range of the profession. Although your application may ask you to identify one program or another (electrical vs mechanical vs aero vs civil vs bio etc), most of the first 3 or 4 semesters will cover 90% of the curriculum even in the same classes no matter which you pick. You could readily enter as mechanical and switch to aero at the end of your 1st year, for example.
My company hires several different types of engineers (mechanical, aero, electrical, computer) depending on our needs. We do hire mechanical from both OSU and UC, as well as other places, and are pretty happy with them. At the time of the hiring decision it is much more about the individual and who they are than about the university as we have reasonable confidence in both universities.
You are a resident of Ohio, so if they don’t admit you to Columbus campus, you will have the option to do your first year of engineering at a regional campus. Check out the Campus-change program and talk with regional admissions. It is really a great opportunity for students who are from Ohio.