College List for a Future Engineer from CA

College Search & Selection
1

DS20 Interested in Majoring in Mechanical, Computer or Robotics Engineering

White, Male, Not first generation college student,

Prefers a diverse city campus, but strong academics is first priority; access to public transportation a plus;
Not a partier, but very social;

STATS:
UWGPA; 4.0
UC Capped GPA: 4.2
Weighted GPA: 4.5
Class Rank: 13/653 after sophomore year;

MCA Score (Cal Poly) 4897
SAT: 1520 first attempt- needs to retake with essay 730 EBRW/790 Math
SAT Subject Test(s): Math II- 800; will take Physics at end of Junior year

Classes.

Freshman Year-

World Geography
Honor’s English
Honor’s Math II
Biology
Spanish 1
CADD

Sophomore Year:
AP World (4)
AP Chemistry (4)
Honor’s English
Tested out of Algebra 2
Honor’s Pre-cal
Spanish 2
Mechatronics

Junior Year:
AP Calculus
APUSH
APLANG
AP Statistics
AP Physics 1
Design Implementation

Senior Year: (Anticipated)
AP Physics 2
AP Calc BC
AP Computer Science
Gov/Econ (Can only take AP if you divide classes into 2 year long classes
English (not sure about AP or regular)
Spanish 3

EC: Primary EC is FIRST Robotics- Spends 20-30+ hours a week year round; Lead Programmer Sophomore and Junior Year; Dean’s List Nominated, Regional Team Awards, Qualified for the International Championship (9,10)

IDEA (Engineering Academy)- helped develop Mechatronics Curriculum
Anticipated Intership for Major Tech Company

Other minor EC: Golf (9); Math Club 9-present Chess Club started 9-present

Studies Advanced Math and Robotic Control Systems independently; seeks out mentors in community

Prefers to stay in CA unless he is accepted to a better school out of state. Prefers East or West Coast Schools;

Our budget is 40K per year max and our EFC is 40K but we have an older daughter in college and our EFC is split 20K/20K and daughter’s tuition is covered through DOR. I’ve run the net price calculator on all of the schools on our list and they come in 22-35K per year.

Are there any colleges I should add to the list, removed from the list?

(Reminder- son has CA residency)
Cal Poly - (Currently first Choice, despite not being in a city)
San Jose State-
Sac State-

UC- Davis, Santa Cruz (has one of the few Bachelor’s in Robotics). Berkeley, UCSD, UCSB

Private USC, Stanford, MIT, Northeastern, WPI, Syracuse, Case Western. (All of these have large, but competitive, FIRST Robotics Scholarships and met our budget constraints when I ran the NPC)

Thanks in advance for any suggestions, advice and recommendations!

2

Are there specific reasons that some CSUs, UCs, and privates are selected but not others? Some have distinctive curriculum features that may be a plus or minus (e.g. Northeastern co-op focused curriculum).

3

Yes, Cal Poly because of their learn by doing philosophy, UC level academics at a state school price; San Jose State because of it’s proximity to Silicon Valley and likelihood of admission; Sac State- least expensive and commutable.

Berkeley- outstanding curriculum, son loves campus and atmosphere, and he would be challenged and pushed academically.

Santa Cruz- has one of the only undergraduate Robotics majors; Stats should make him competitive for Regents.
Most of the privates were selected for the quality of their program, affordability and access to FIRST Robotics scholarships.

Do you have advice on other schools we should consider @ucbalumnus

4

For robotics, check the ME, EE, and CS departments for courses and faculty interest in the subject, even if there is no specific robotics major.

Regarding learning by doing: Any engineering curriculum will have design course work, but different schools will do it differently. Some will start with natural science and math, then engineering science, then engineering design. While efficient in terms of prerequisite sequencing, that may not expose students to engineering design until late. Others try to have smaller design experiences earlier, even though the main parts of the curriculum still have to follow prerequisite sequencing.

Look up the curriculum and 8 semester (or 12 quarter) plan at each school to see how it is organized.

Are the FIRST scholarships essential for affordability at the private schools?

5

Thank you. I will have my son look at the curriculum plan for the schools on our list. The FIRST scholarships are not essential for affordability at the private schools, if the Net Price Calculators are accurate.

Do you think the colleges on our list represent a good mix or safeties, matches, and reaches?

6

I may be wrong, but the list looks a bit heavy on safeties and looks like it may need a few more matches, though that may not be a problem.

7

Looks like a well-chosen list. I thought WPI from the description of your criteria.

Did you consider and rule out U of Rochester? It fits the pattern and also has robotics scholarships.

CA-wise, San Diego State has a great urban college experience and strong engineering.

And while it’s not a coastal school (well, unless you count the Gulf, sort of), Rice could be worth a look. It’s in a major city with a lot to offer, has top-tier STEM with exceptional flexibility between majors, and offers a fantastic undergraduate experience both academically and socially. Also a very easy direct flight from any California hub. https://r2i.rice.edu/about/

8

@MWolf - If that’s true, that may be a first for CC. ?
We’ve seen many 4.0 students rejected from Cal Poly, Davis, UCSD and UCB so I wanted to create a realistic list.

9

@aquapt Yes, we did consider U of Rochester; however, it seemed like it would be difficult to get in and out of in the winter and would put him far from our family in the Boston area and CA.

I think Rice would be a great fit, DS is not a fan of the Texas humidity, but knowing that there is “exceptional flexibility between majors” may cause him to reconsider, as his interest in Engineering crosses several majors.

Thanks for the SDS recommendation.

10

Although, students with weighted 4.0 GPAs tend to get overconfident in their application lists. If your student has an unweighted 4.0 in hard courses, his chances may be substantially better than theirs (although UCB engineering majors are a reach for everyone, and UCSD and UCD engineering majors are highly competitive as well).

Here are the 2017 frosh admission rates at UCs by UC-recalculated GPA. Be aware that these are for the whole campuses; engineering majors should be expected to be more selective.


Campus  4.20-   3.80-   3.40-   3.00-
        higher  4.19    3.79    3.39
UCB     43%     13%      2%      1%
UCLA    47%     12%      2%      1%
UCSD    84%     39%      7%      1%
UCSB    82%     45%     10%      1%
UCI     94%     52%     11%      3%
UCD     90%     56%     17%      4% 
UCSC    93%     76%     44%     14%
UCR     98%     90%     63%     23%
UCM     98%     96%     89%     57%

Here are the 2018 frosh admission eligibility index thresholds for SJSU: http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/impactionresultsfreshmen/ . CSU eligibility index is GPA * 800 + SATRW + SATM (but SJSU uses a modified version for some majors).

CSU Sacramento is campus impacted, but engineering majors are not major impacted. Unfortunately, that campus does not post current or historical eligibility index thresholds: https://www.csus.edu/admissions/impaction.html

11

Syracuse is that much better?

12

Was just going to say the same. ^^

If I felt Rochester were too hard to access, I wouldn’t be considering Syracuse at all. Of the two, UR seems like a far better fit for your criteria, and city-wise I would 10x rather be in Rochester than Syracuse, which is really struggling with economic decline and crime, and lacks the cultural resources that Rochester has.

13

Have you looked at Harvey Mudd? There is a lot of interesting robotics work going on there, and undergrads are first in line for research opportunities because they don’t have grad students. You’d want to run the NPC, of course. And it is a reach, due to low admission rates.

14

quite frankly, I’ve found (through my kid) that if he wants to stay near home, then you should just focus on the California schools. I’m just saying this because we spent years going through so many options all over the country and even overseas, and in the end, he really just wanted to stay close to home. His #1a and #1b were less than an hour away (Stanford and Berkeley). For the most part, the schools in engineering that will be better than Berkeley or CPSLO or UCD or UCSC will give very little merit. And with your EFC, for those that are pretty generous, you’re still financially better off at the California publics.

15

@ucbalumnus and @aquapt - Glad I have the two of you helping me out. I’ll take Syracuse off of the list. I visited Syracuse many years ago in the spring… In case you’re recommending Rochester to others, I should let you know that Rochester is the only college on the FIRST Robotics list that requires you to apply for the scholarship as a junior in HS.

@intparent- I did have Harvey Mudd on the list but took it off because I thought perhaps I had too many reaches. I’ll run the NPC and see what comes out.

ProfessorPlum168- I don’t think it’s as much about being near home as it is about being near Silicon Valley. I did want to correct you on one small point- the private schools on the list all come out less expensive than the UCs, but about the same price as Cal Poly and SJSU. With that information and his stats, do you think that I should have him apply to more private, competitive schools?

16

RPI also requires students apply as a junior for FIRST robotics scholarship and its not a set amount at RPI.
Case Western offers the Michelson Morley award for engineering/CS students and a FIRST scholarship, and the Michelson Morley is often worth almost $30K per year. Its a very good award and requires no extra essays like the skimpy RPI FIRST scholarship , and some RPI recipients have won only $19K a year, but that varies by gender and other factors.

Syracuse airport is worse for flight frequency and airline choices than Rochester, and I would also cross off Rochester for travel, its a pain to get there from the west coast. Cleveland much easier on Southwest Airlines and other airlines from West coast.

Although it does not match his geographic preference,
I might add Purdue as he should win the OOS $10K merit a year, but run the NPC. Its in a smaller city but a good price for a great program in mechanical and ECE with a lot of great clubs and campus activities.

Is UCLA off his list for some specific reason?

17

@redslp my kid went to a decent HS in Silicon Valley, a majority Asian HS with most parents who could afford to send their kid to private schools if they wanted to. To me, it seemed like the vast majority of kids didn’t really want to stray away from California. There were a fair number who went to Ivy League schools, NYU and CMU. One went to TAMU on a full scholarship, one went to USC on a almost full scholarship. But almost the rest of the top 15% went to CA public’s, around 40 to Berkeley. So my very educated guess is that of those kids who went to schools like Michigan or Maryland or Indiana or UMass is that they didn’t get into Berkeley and could afford to get out of town.

I guess my point is this - if my kid would be happier at Berkeley at $35K a year or a better comparison say UCSC at $35K a year as opposed to Case Western at $20K a year, I would choose the school he’s happier at eight days a week.

To your question about smaller privates, Santa Clara U is becoming top notched in Engineering, that would be a good school to look at. They’re typically not that generous with financial aid though, but now with this billion dollar seek of endowment that just happened, maybe they will start to chase the top students with dollars. Maybe you can look there. If you live close enough maybe commuting is an option.

18

Yes, was just going to say that Santa Clara would be worth a look if he wants to be in Silicon Valley. They have some decent merit for high-stats applicants. And they have a robotics-specific grad program within MechE so it’s safe to assume there are opportunities to focus in that direction even though there isn’t a specialty undergrad degree.

19

@Redslp

Aside from the robotics scholarship, the robotics history at WPI may interest you. The program is also unique from the course design on up.

For history see https://www.wpi.edu/news/long-history-first-robotics-competition

For program activity detail see https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/robotics-engineering

Just keep paging down, it is full of robots related program information.

I am a little surprised that CMU is not on your list.

WPI '67

20

@retiredfarmer Thank you for sharing the links to WPI. My son was just telling me about the link between Dean Kamen, WPI and FIRST Robotics this morning.

From what I’ve read CMU sounds more competitive than collaborative. Do you think that’s accurate?