So my son applied Monday night, and was accepted yesterday (they already had his ACT score). I have to say, the admission video was the most creative acceptance I have seen. Major is food science. It’s great to get such a quick acceptance, hoping to road trip up there later this fall to check it out.
Congrats! I agree, it was wonderful to start this whole process with one acceptance right away. Son was accepted to five in the end, and that was absolutely the best notification he received.
If you have not done it yet, you want to go ahead and accept admission and do your son’s housing contract. It will give him a very early priority date and likely his first choice of dorms. If he changes his mind and decides to attend elsewhere, most of the deposit is refunded before May 1st.
I have no idea at this point if he’ll end up going there, and we haven’t received anything other than the acceptance email. I will definitely look into putting down the housing deposit while he makes up his mind, though.
@s16s19s21s25 - My son applied two years ago this July and didn’t even think to look on-line. By snail mail a week later, he learned that he’d been accepted. It really took the college-application pressure off. He was ultimately accepted to five other schools. We visited all the ones he had not previously visited with his older brothers. In April he narrowed it down to two finalists, including Iowa State. On April 29, he finally chose Iowa State. He is out-of-state from Arizona and loved his freshman year. We were have been very impressed with the entire experience, from our first visit, through freshman orientation, to move-in, to two successful semesters. Students, administration, and faculty have all been very helpful and friendly. My son is a materials engineering major and the engineering college seems to be extremely organized and focused on making their students successful, both in college and in their careers.
Did I break your code? If so, Beaudreau could be s19s20s21. My oldest son will be a senior at Texas A&M in aerospace engineering. My middle son will be a junior at Miami (Ohio) in biomedical engineering. So I do have some college experiences to compare Iowa State to. Starting in 2012 and finishing up in late 2015, we visited 21 colleges. I’m sorry that I don’t know anything about food science.
@uwalummom gave you some good advice to accept early and pay the deposits. Most is refundable and it’s good to get in at the head of the line.
@Beaudreau Thanks for the input. Yes, S16 is a rising sophomore at Purdue who refused to visit any schools until after he was accepted. S18, who is a lot less clear on what he wants to study, was forced to visit UT-Knoxville (our in state option), and has done summer programs at a couple of other places- Auburn, Miami-OH, and Ole Miss. He still has no clue aside from wanting colder weather, so I have assigned him the task of coming up with 5 schools for himself. If he is set on food science, I think he’ll come up with the same list I put together 6 months ago since only about 1 school per state even has the accredited program (we all liked Miami-OH but he has to come up with a major).
I’m hoping for a road trip later this fall to ISU and Nebraska, which I think could be another front runner for him due to the city location, and cost/scholarships. It would help if he had an opinion–any opinion!! Food science is pretty cool in that even at the biggest schools, the entire program is typically no more than 150 students, so there is a lot of personal interaction and small school experience. I love road trips and am looking forward to seeing the campus, which looks great on the site (of course, most of them do), and Ames, which by all accounts is a great college town.
S21 and S25 are both also math kids who even now are leaning towards engineering, so the search for them will be a lot like the CS search for S16. S18 is doing is his own thing, which is great, but as a type A planner who wants all applications submitted by 9/30, I am gritting my teeth that he hasn’t seemed overwhelmingly interested in where he will spend the next 4 years!
@s16s18s21s25 how does your son like Purdue? My rising junior trying to decide between Purdue, VT and ISU for engineering. OOS. Visited Purdue and VT and loved both campuses.
@NJEngDad - Although this is an Iowa State Board, I’ll weigh in on Purdue. My oldest son graduated from high school in 2014. He was accepted into aerospace engineering at Arizona State, Texas, Texas A&M, Georgia Tech, Michigan, and Purdue. We visited every one of these schools (we live in the Phoenix, AZ, area). After all those visits, my son’s top two choices were Purdue and Texas A&M, with Purdue first. However, A&M came in at $30,000 less per year (National Merit), so second choice won. Still, we were very impressed with Purdue. Katherine Banks was hired in 2012 by A&M from Purdue to be the Dean of the A&M Engineering College. Dean Banks ran the Purdue college of civil engineering. Since then, she has extensively reformed the A&M engineering college to model Purdue’s.
Now my son has decided to go on for a PhD in AE, so we visited Purdue again in January. Now that’s not the best time to view campus, but they treated my son great on his visit. He’s subsequently narrowed down his interest to space plasma/electric propulsion, which is not a Purdue strength, so he will not be applying. But he still loves Purdue. A son of a friend of mine is heading to Purdue from Chandler, AZ, this fall to study industrial engineering.
Thanks @Beaudreau. Thoughts on Purdue vs ISU?
@NJEngDad - Purdue is tied for 9th in the US News Engineering rankings; ISU at 37. If your son does well, he will have no trouble getting a job out of either school. Purdue does have a better brand recognition, particularly internationally. Both schools impress me with their organization and teaching. At ISU, my youngest son was admitted to the honors college and got to do freshman research with a materials engineering (his major) professor. His advisor is great; he likes the dorm, Martin Hall, and his roommates. He’s coming back to the same dorm and three of the four suite-mates are sticking together. The dorm complex (Martin, Friley, Eaton, Helser) is located just off campus town and very close to the engineering complex.
I like both campuses a lot, but Ames > Lafayette. Iowa State is much cheaper for OOS students and much more generous with merit aid. OOS tuition is “only” $21k. With a 33 on his ACT, my son got an $8k university scholarship and another $3.5k Engineering scholarship. My youngest son did not apply to Purdue, but as I said, my oldest did. He was a NMF, passed 15 AP exams, had a 3.84 GPA, and scored 2330 on the old SAT. Purdue’s OOS tuition is $29,000/year and they only offered him $10k.
Here’s a great website where you can compare detailed statistics for engineering colleges. http://profiles.asee.org/ New ISU engineering freshman averaged 25/30 for 25th/75th percentile. Purdue averaged 29/33 for the same percentiles.
One other thing, there are direct flights from Newark to Des Moines, which is only about 30 miles from Ames. Purdue is about 75 miles from the Indianapolis airport.
I have been less impressed with engineering at Texas A&M. Dean Banks is doing a great job getting it organized, but some of it came too late for my son’s freshman and sophomore years. They have also been growing rapidly, which brings pains. And TAMU is only 3% OOS, so that has taken some adjustment. I don’t want to sound too negative; my son has gotten a great education and will be ready for graduate school. He has made a lot of friends and has learned how to shoot and ride four-wheelers.
I don’t know much about Virginia Tech. They are highly ranked and have a solid reputation.
And yesterday, S got a letter from ISU notifying him that the application was open and encouraging him to apply…sigh…they need to cross reference the mailing lists.
S was accepted as well. Will be a long time to wait for his other application decisions, but great to know he can attend ISU. We are following the CC advice and accepting in order to get housing priority in case he attends.
I just planned our trip to visit campus in late October, also going to see Nebraska since S was accepted there as well. I wanted to see the scholarships before accepting–I know it’s refundable, but it feels weird to “commit” knowing he may not attend. Also, if S goes there, I think he’d put in for the food science LLC so housing would be more or less pre-determined. You’re in NJ? I am from there. We live in TN.
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Regarding merit scholarships, you are propbably familiar with the calcualtor https://www.admissions.iastate.edu/scholarships/freshman_award_calc.php. Formulaic, just like admissions. The counselor indicated that financial aid letters are sent out in January. As there is a lot of negative commentary out there about “double depositing,” we inquired about accepting in order to secure housing priority, even if S hadn’t decided on ISU yet. The counselor recommended doing so even if ISU wasn’t his first choice. No negative implication from ISU’s perspective. Sounds like priority wont be an issue for your son because of the LLC. Mine is doing engineering so wants to secure a spot in the UD community. Please post reflections from your visit. We will wait for his other application decisions before heading to Ames.
We just got an email with the automatic scholarship, but I am hoping for additional $$ from CALS/FSHN when that opens up. I’m not sure how many other schools S will apply to besides UT-Knoxville, mostly due to his not wanting to remain in hotter weather, unsure about any possible major other than food science at this point, and fairly average ACT scores that will only provide so much in scholarships.
I just scrolled up and saw you asked about Purdue… S16 is at Purdue studying CS, so I did the whole engineering search fairly recently. I love Purdue–how can you not love a school that well respected that freezes tuition for 6 straight years? S16 is in the new honors dorm, for the second year in a row, and is pretty happy. I like how compact the campus is. School admins were really responsive to any questions I had as we were deciding. I think Purdue does a great job with on campus interviews. I have driven past VT but haven’t ever seen the campus.
I’m really looking forward to seeing ISU in person–online it looks great. I know most colleges can create a nice impression online, but from all accounts it’s a beautiful campus. (I went to William & Mary so I am kind of spoiled and have pretty high standards when it comes to pretty campuses!). I’ll post my report after our trip.
This process is such a change–S18 could be totally done with the college thing by November, when S16 was up in the air until February, waiting on UIUC and some other really competitive CS programs.
Thanks for the insights on Purdue. They really do have an impressive engineering offering. S was very impressed when we visitied. Unfortunately, they transitioned from rolling to EA admissions this year. So he now has to wait until Jaunuary 15 for a decision instead of what would have likely been an October notification last year.
He is very happy to have ISU as an option. All the online information is positive and the admissions counselor that we have been communucating with has been fantastic. They really seem to care about their students…
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We did the early deposit two years ago, before my son had even applied anywhere else. Seven months later, after being accepted into engineering at Arizona, Arizona State, Michigan State, and Alabama, he selected Iowa State. He had great scholarship offers everywhere, but Iowa State felt right to him. With the early deposit, he got his first choice for housing in Martin Hall, a newer dorm very conveniently located near the engineering complex and Campustown. He loved his first year and just started second year classes this week. He is back in Martin Hall again.
Concerning scholarships, the calculator was exactly right. He was offered the same amount as estimated in September, about a month after his admission letter. He also got a $3,000 engineering scholarship offered in December.
We are quite pleased with Iowa State. The campus is lovely and the engineering program is very good. His advisor (materials engineering) even called him at home two weeks ago to tell him that he should change his fall schedule because a co-requisite had changed for one of his classes. My son agreed and the advisor adjusted the necessary classes for him. My oldest son is in his senior year studying aerospace engineering at Texas A&M. It’s a great school, but I can’t imagine that kind of support for him. He could not even make an appointment with his advisor when he needed help his sophomore year and his emails were never answered.
HI all,
I just sent in our deposit. I’m waiting for dd to come home and sign the housing agreement. I’ve recommended Martin Hall to her – I think from reading @Beaudreau. I’d like her to be in the Women in STEM community and I think she’ll find her peeps amongst the honors kids even if she isn’t in honors.
As for scholarships, I think dd needed to just up her SAT score by 30-40 points to qualify for the next level. She’s taking it in October. Ack! She’s taking it next week! How time flies! 
I still need to have some chats with admissions/housing about how they handle US citizens coming from abroad.
Anyway, nice to see you here. It will be nice to have a group to chat with!
@Kardinalschnitt - Congratulations!
Thanks! So dd ended up ranking her housing choices Geoffroy, Martin, Friley. I’m letting her spend a bit more as we have some room in the budget and I think she might like to have her first choices since she will be so far from home. She really loves the look of Geoffroy. Anyone seen it in person yet?
@Kardinalschnitt - All those dorms are nice (Friley depending where you are.) We made the same decision to spend a bit more for an newer air-conditioned dorm. Our sophomore son is from Arizona and has made great friends at ISU. He will be going to Davenport next week to interview for a co-op position during next term.