College Suggestions?

College Search & Selection
1

I only have four schools on my list and I’m in my second semester of junior year. I plan on majoring in chemical engineering but I’m not sure I want to go to a large state school since I really like the undergrad focus and close knit atmosphere at LACs. Also, the “weed 'em out” mentality at some schools really bugs me. I do know for sure that I don’t want the campus to be really spread out in a large city to the point where you can’t tell the city from the campus (this is why I’ve ruled out the U of M-TC and UW-Madison even though I’m a MN resident). Parents are willing to help with any debt I might take on as long as I work hard and don’t party away my four years- I’d like to avoid taking on too much though. Current list is University of Notre Dame, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Georgia Tech, and University of Alabama (safety).

Stats
Middle class white female from Minnesota, rural public school
UW GPA: 3.89
APs: I’m currently doing Calculus AB, and will complete Stats and BC next year (all of the APs my school offers), as well as several courses through the U of M, MSU-Mankato, and Southwest State
ACT: 33 composite, 35 in everything except math, 28 in math (didn’t study, retaking in April)
Took all of the honors courses available (certain English courses and Algebra II)

School is considered one of the best in the area. Few honors/college level courses, but some upper level “normal” classes (esp. physics and human anatomy) are as difficult as college/AP classes.
About 300 hours of volunteer work (30 for NHS), mostly tutoring middle schoolers, helping middle school band director, and coaching an elementary school math team.

Extracurriculars
Swim team (high school since 7th grade, club since 4th, waiting on captain decisions for next year)
Band (flute since 5th grade, joined pep band and started performing at solo ensemble competitions in freshman year)
Youth in Government (Model Assembly since freshman year, multiple leadership positions)
National Honor Society (haven’t decided on whether or not to run for a leadership position for next year)
Trap shooting team (since freshman year, best team in state)
German Club (joined junior year, was unable to before due to transportation issues)
Lifeguarding (year round)

Awards
National German Exam Gold Award (top 10% of scorers, was in the 95th percentile nationally)
“Excellent” rating all three years at solo ensemble
Employee of the month
Letters in all extracurriculars that issue them

2

RPI?

3

Have you visited those campuses? UMN - TC is not like that at all. UMN and UW will give you your best bang for the buck.

Do your parents know that OOS or private college cost of attendance is $50-70K/year? As the student, you can only borrow $5500 your first year, and a little more the years after that. Your parents will have to pay the rest.

4

I always like to recommend Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). It’s highly ranked, has a beautiful, compact campus, and offers a unique hands-on, project-oriented approach to engineering. It’s in a nice neighborhood, and city is undergoing a major downtown renovation. It does give merit aid, and it sounds like you would have a good shot at it.

I think you would also have a reasonable prospect of merit aid at RPI, RIT, and Case Western.

All of these schools are midsize with relatively compact campuses. Good luck!

5

Check out u of Nebraska. Its enrollment is small by Big 10 standards, and it divides its students up on 2 main campuses. So although it has about 20,000 undergrads, a lot of them are on the East Campus. So the City Campus, where engineering is, feels much smaller than your typical big public university. And on top of that, the City Campus itself is fairly small & very compact.

Also, with your credentials, you would likely get a very significant merit scholarship…Perhaps making it cheaper than your own home state public universities would be.

6

If you’e interested in exploring strong engineering programs in a smaller and perhaps more LAC-like environment, check out Harvey Mudd, Rice, RPI, WPI, Case Western, Lehigh, and Tufts. You might also consider actual LACs that offer more general (but still strong) engineering programs like Bucknell, Lafayette, Smith, Swarthmore, Trinity University, and Union.

7

^^ Seconding Harvey Mudd. You say you like the atmosphere of a LAC, and Harvey Mudd, as one of the Clarmonts, is just about the best LAC for engineering. It’s one of the tops even when you throw it into the mix with universities.

8

3.89 with APs and 33 ACT. Notre Dame sounds like a nice choice. What about BC? If you’re planning on doing engineering (I am guessing since you’re thinking of a couple tech schools) look into University of Illinois. Great program plus with your stats you’re going to get a lot of money…

9

Illinois would be the prototypical huge, spread out school the OP wants to avoid.

10

@bouders, yes, I have spent a fair amount of time both at the U of M and UW because lots of events are held on those campuses, and they are very spread out in my experience. Not to mention, they’re pretty expensive even for in-state students. @moooop, hadn’t considered Nebraska, MN does not have reciprocity with NE, but it looks like I can still get a tuition discount. Harvey Mudd sounds interesting, although I’m not sure I’d want to go to school in California. We’re going to Boston soon to visit relatives so I might have a chance to look at BC and Tufts while I’m there, although BC doesn’t have a full engineering program, just a 3-2 program. Unfortunately I don’t think I’ll be able to visit Harvey Mudd, RIT, RPI, WPI, or Case Western before applications are due next year, but I’ll do as much research as I can online. Also, shout out to everyone for not suggesting Iowa State because virtually everyone from my school who does engineering goes there and I’ve gotten no other suggestions from the guidance counselor.

11

To substantially widen your choice of LACs, you may want want to look into those that have a 2-1-1-1 relationship with Dartmouth’s engineering program:

http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/academics/undergraduate/dual/

12

@MNgurl101

WPI is a 45 minute drive from Boston.

13

UMN instate tuition is $14K/year. You’re not going to find lower tuition anywhere. I attended UMN for grad school. I stand by my assertion that it is a well defined campus.

14

The U of MN will be great for you, but it is a huge school with large class sizes.

We are from MN, and my S’s stats were very similar to yours. He, too, was a trap shooter finishing high at State. He was interested in Computer Science.

We toured the country, and he ended up selecting Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. 2500 kids, second to Rice in academic rankings in Texas, very generous merit aid to help out your folks, and they have undergraduate engineering in a brand new $231M integrated science building that is gorgeous.

They have a shooting team, too, if you want to continue that sport in college. They are D3 athletics, men’s baseball just won the D3 world series last year, good D3 sports. Swim team, orchestra, etc., if you want to continue those activities.

Campus is beautiful, about 10 minutes north of downtown San Antonio. Many dorms overlook the downtown, all dorms have balconies.

Have you toured Rose-Hulman? Terrific school, but it is almost a work atmosphere. Almost no fun extra-curricular activities at all. Everyone working hard trying to get a great job–which they will! :slight_smile: They just are not going to have much fun along the way. I would HIGHLY recommend you visit RHIT before enrolling, especially as female, with skewed M/F ratio in play. It is not like any other school on your prospective list.

Back to Trinity, Delta flies 3 non-stops a day from MSP airport, and airfares are reasonable.

Our S is loving Trinity. He has 7 kids in one of his sophomore CS classes on Cyber Security, taught by the head of the department. NO TA’s teach ANY classes there, all Professors.

And he loves the weather. We are never getting him back to Minnesota after 4 years in San Antonio.

Good luck!

15

@ColdinMinny, Trinity sounds like a good fit in terms of academics! The size and undergrad focus is right in line with what I’m looking for. I wish they had a specific chemical engineering degree, but it does sound like you can specialize. Generous merit aid is nice for sure, I won’t qualify for much in the way of need-based aid. I looked into their swimming times and unfortunately it seems like their swimmers are quite a bit faster than I am (the high school program I swim for is very weak, I’m basically a big fish in a very small pond). That’s definitely not a deal-breaker though as I’m not 100% sure I want to swim in college. I’ll probably contact the coach and ask a bit about training/competition commitments since that’s my primary concern with college athletics. The shooting program is a big plus, does your son bring his own gun or is there some sort of rental system? Airfare isn’t an issue because Dad works for an airline, but multiple flights per day does help with getting seats.

About RHIT: Yes, I have visited, and I really liked it. The undergrad focus and size is great, and they have a swim team that’s right at my level (I’d be towards the bottom, but not the worst), as well as a pep band and a concert band that’s a pretty similar time commitment to high school band. I’m not too concerned about the M/F ratio as a lot of my friends are guys anyways, but you’re right in that it’s something to consider. I’m going back for an overnight visit in the fall to meet the swim team and to see a few specific things I didn’t get to see on the general tour and hopefully I’ll get along with them well and meet some like-minded potential friends of both genders! My main concern about RHIT is that apparently their aid isn’t that great, so having some options that are known for being more generous is a priority. Notre Dame is quite good, but it’s obviously not guaranteed that I’ll get in :slight_smile:

16

You will probably end up paying about $10-12K per year at RH v. Trinity, possibly slightly less because you are female and they want to attract more female engineers to RH.

The shooting team has shotguns for the use of the team members, or you can bring your own. Up to you. The Coach typically has you enroll in the Trap and Skeet PE class first, so you can know out your PE credit, get an A, and he can assess and improve your shooting. If he likes your skills, he will invite you to the team.

One stat which concerned me was that RH’s budget for student activities was under $40K per year. Most schools have budgets in the many hundreds of thousands to play first-run movies, attract speakers and musical performers.

For example, former Prime Minister of England David Cameron spoke at Trinity a couple weeks ago. You are not going to get that at RH, believe me.

Nonetheless, you will get a terrific education at RH. If you think you will be happy there, and can afford the higher price, you will do wonderfully. It is, however, going to be heavily education focused with little else. We saw multiple kids sleeping in the hallways with laptops in their laps between classes. Was a bit depressing, actually. And we did not visit during finals.

Finally, San Antonio >>>>>> Terre Haute. Not even close. No offense to folks from Indiana intended.

Good luck!

17

Seconding Case Western, Trinity, Lafayette, Bucknell, WPI, Nebraska.
Definitely thirding HarveyMudd.
Do apply to Madison just in case.
Look into UDel, UVermont?

Run the NPC on all of these and bring the results to your parents. It’ll clear things up.

18

Others have mentioned some of them but many of the [url="<a href=“http://theaitu.org%22%5DAITU%5B/url”>http://theaitu.org"]AITU[/url] schools would be a good fit for you and some offer very good merit aid.

19

UDel’s ChemE program is notorious for “weeding out” students.

Two good engineering LACs that come to mind are Lafayette and Lehigh.

20

Bouders, you need to familiarize yourself with the state universities that are offering significant merit scholarships based on grades and SAT or ACT…Places like Florida State, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Alabama, West Virginia, Kentucky, LSU, & Mississippi would all probably be significantly cheaper than Minnesota for the OP.