I play football and I have a chance to play D1 football at Davidson University which is great. My only issue with Davidson is that they do not offer an official major in CS or EE, but what they do have is the Columbia Combined Plan.
Basically, I complete 3 or 4 years at Davidson with a liberal arts degree while also taking math and science classes. I apply to Columbia through the Combined Plan and do a 1 or 2-year Masters there in engineering.
This sounds pretty good right now, but that is assuming I get accepted to the Columbia Combined Plan. Columbia’s acceptance rate for C/O 2019 was 6.9%. If the combined plan is anything like that, I’d rather not do it. If I don’t, I can get accepted to Georgia Tech & equivalent schools (3.9 UW GPA, 2000 SAT, lots of strong ECs, I live in GA).
My question is, basically, is the Columbia Combined Plan a viable option? Acceptance rate? I heard that it looks worse on job applications, is that true? How is their engineering compared to GA Tech’s?
Thank you to all who read this. I really appreciate it.
You need to speak with the people at Davidson, and get some completion numbers from them about the 3/2 program and the 4/1 or 2 program. Some institutions are better at getting students through the combined programs.
The standard advice that someone who is serious about engineering is better off beginning in an engineering program. Many students who start out planning on a 3/2 program decide to stay at their home institution rather than leave for what would be the senior year at that place.
@happymomof1 I will be going on a visit in about 2 weeks and so I will ask them then.
I will take their Applied Math and Computer Science major if I do choose to go to Davidson, so it won’t just be liberal arts (thank God). I did like the school when I visited, but the main reason for me attending is football - so if I do decide to go on the 3(4)/2(1) track, I will definitely complete it. I also visited Columbia this summer and really liked NY, so I wouldn’t mind attending.
I know you said that certain schools have an easier time getting people into the Combined Plan Program, but any idea of the range of acceptance? I read somewhere that if you have a 3.5+ then you are pretty much in, but I’m taking that statement with a grain of salt.
Remember that it is also an extra year of cost, and Columbia does not offer as good financial aid to combined plan students as to other students. There are also strict grade requirements to transfer. All of this can be found on Columbia’s combined plan web page.
@ucbalumnus My parents and I are willing to pay the extra cost since I will complete my masters @ Columbia. The requirements are a B average and 3.30 UW GPA for which I am willing to work. I could not find the financial aid information about the Combined Plan, but don’t CP students get the same aid opportunities as regular students?
This is apparently different from the claim it makes for regular frosh and transfer students.
Note also that all pre-engineering science and math courses must be completed with a B (3.0) or higher on the first try in order to retain combined plan transfer eligibility.
You need to contact the financial aid office at Columbia, and ask specifically about how aid works for the Combined Plan. Find out whether you would be classified as an undergraduate or as a graduate student, or if one year would be undergrad and one graduate in the 3/2 plan. Most places do not offer one cent of aid for an MS Eng program, so you and your parents could be on the hook for something like $75k for one year of MS Eng by the time you would get there four years from now.
There are two separate programs. The 3/2 program does not grant you a master’s degree at the end. You get a BA from Davidson and a BS in engineering from Columbia (or WUSTL).
The 4/2 option at WUSTL and Columbia don’t seem to lead to an MS either. They seem to mostly be based upon how long the student wants to stay at the affiliate school. You could probably take some graduate classes, but if you arranged an MS program you’d have to be admitted separately by a graduate MS program at Columbia, and that’s not guaranteed admission. You have to compete for admission into the master’s program, and there’s no formal agreement with specific colleges to do it. It’s not really a whole lot different from applying for a master’s program in your senior year from anywhere else.
So make sure your parents are still willing to pay knowing that you will be getting two bachelor’s degrees, and not a BA and an MS.
The way that combined 3/2 engineering plans work is that these colleges have cooperative agreements with the schools for the engineering school to accept students who meet [certain minimum requirements](Engineering). For example, at Columbia, you have to have earned a B or higher on the first attempt in your pre-engineering classes and achieve an average 3.30 GPA in all of your pre-engineering classes. Washington U has slightly more relaxed requirements: a 3.25 GPA (but a letter from your school can mitigate a lower GPA on a case-by-case basis) and no specific grade requirements in your classes (in other words, you can get a C or two). The point is, if you achieve these minimums, you are guaranteed admission.
When happymomof1 refers to some schools having an easier time getting people through, she literally means getting them through - at some schools more students decide not to transfer to the engineering school (for a variety of reasons), whereas at others more students move on. For example, at my undergraduate alma mater the engineering 3/2 program was very popular. The 3/2 students were a tight-knit group of people, and we were in a consortium with two other schools who also had DDEPs, so they had lots of people to share the experience with and motivate each other. We were right around the corner from one of our biggest partners in that program, Georgia Tech - meaning that students could 1) get familiar with the campus earlier in their college career and 2) still participate in senior-year stuff with their classmates during senior year, since they were still in the same city. Thus my LAC was really successful in people finishing the 3/2 program (most of them went to Tech to finish, although we partnered with several campuses).
You’d want to ask the coordinator of the 3/2 program at Davidson what percentage of students who start the 3/2 program actually transfer onto one of the partner schools, and when they don’t, why they choose not to. I do have to say that I am wary of a DDEP that only has connections with two schools, both of which seem to have really high standards for guaranteed admission. I think one of the reasons my undergrad was successful is that they paired with 13 different schools that had different standards for guaranteed admission.
(As an aside, I’m kind of surprised that Davidson doesn’t have a 3/2 agreement with some NC state universities, or even GT, who has the agreement with a lot of colleges.)
If you want varsity football at an excellent engineering school with a small college feel and experience, you might investigate these places;
Rose Hulman Institute
South Dakota School of Mines & Technology
Colorado School of Mines
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
U of Tulsa
Washington University
Case Western Reserve University
Missouri University of Science & Technology
Just chiming in here that the University of Tulsa is a great, small, d1 school with engineering. My son ended up there similarly, he wanted an engineering major and d1 track. The athletic programs are extremely professional and well-funded. The average ACT is 29 so the academics aren’t shabby either. In addition, scholarships are FAR more generous than Davidson. Check it out.
@juillet Thanks for the great information. I called Columbia and Davidson and concluded that Davidson is not the right choice for me. Most students at Davidson do not do or finish the Combined Plan and the financial aid at Columbia, while available, is not near the same for Combined Plan students as it is for regular students. I’d rather go to a school with a solid engineering program where I can enjoy all 4-5 years of my undergrad and a worse football program than vice versa.
I’m going to take @deborahb and @LakeWashington 's advice and reach out to other engineering-based schools that have a football program and see if I can play there instead. I’ve reached out to RPI (who seems to be responding), U Penn (who also responded), Cornell, MIT, and a few others.
RPI just won their conference championship (well, co-champions) and will play an NCAA playoff game this weekend. Also, a 2015 RPI alum is on the Miami Dolphins roster.
