Hi all - my son (current HS Sophomore) is interested in Construction Management as a potential major. If he stays in-state (we live in VA) then VA Tech has a strong program in this. But it seems like a lot of other schools Construction Management is a minor, or a certificate appended to a CivE major. He’d be fine with that, but I don’t know how to differentiate from a school that really supports it vs. a school that sort of put it up on their webpage to catch some interest.
Any suggestions for how to identify schools that might have something related to Construction Management that might be good for him?
Other things to know:
I don’t think he wants an exclusively STEM school (my older son is at WPI - great fit for him, would not be right for my younger son); he really loves his “social studies” type classes and would likely want to take those to fill in other humanities requirements (or for fun if he had room in his schedule)
I think he’d like a school that has some school spirit, but I worry about the behemoth 30k plus student schools - if he’s in all huge classes I could see him not focusing on what’s going on in class or blowing them off (it’s not attractive, but it’s true)
He is your totally stereotypical Does Really Well At What Interests Him, Is Barely Bothered To Turn In Homework For What Doesn’t kid.
He’s also smart. He’s got straight A’s so far, is in one AP History as a sophomore and pre-calc honors this year. We just heard he’s been recommended for BC Calc and AP Physics for his Junior year so we’ll see how those go.
He’s finished two years of engineering in HS and will do a third year next year.
He runs on the track team, but is more of a “social athlete” than a committed training all the time type.
He loves the outdoors, mountains, ocean - anything nature (he’s an Eagle Scout)
He doesn’t want to be too far from a city center, and would prefer closer rather than farther.
Just wanted to say that if Virginia Tech works out, Christine Williamson (of Building Science Fight Club) is starting as a professor there in the fall, and she’ll be an absolutely excellent addition to their department.
Somewhat relevant: looking up schools with “Building Science” or “Building Science and Technology” as a concentration area might also help expand your searching.
This is a fantastic program and checks so many of his boxes. Western Carolina is a great school and tuition is $5000 per year with COA around $17K. Beautiful area and the school is full of outdoorsy kids. And last but not least, construction is booming in western NC. Lots of great jobs. Not too far from cities but I’d say it is fairly remote.
If going across the country works, then consider University of Washington. My husband has his BS in Construction Management from UW and it has helped him build a remarkably strong network and career, especially after adding on an MBA mid-career. Outstanding program.
There are some great suggestions here. Do you have an annual amount you can contribute for college costs? This could influence whether some of these colleges will work…or not.
And…this is my opinion only…I believe your son will need some experience related to this field NOT as an actual construction manager.
It’s still a bit early - he may yet change his interests a few times before he start applying for college. His GPA is also just from his first three semesters of high school, and there will be four more which will be considered in his applications. Those four semesters will include the more challenging classes of junior and senior years.
Preliminary inquiries are a good idea, and it is a good idea to check out examples of different general types of universities and college, to get a general idea of the characteristics of the different types. Having an idea of what HS courses are prefered by these types of programs is also good. However, I think that it’s best to hold off on focussing on specific colleges and programs for another year, when you have a clearer idea of what your son’t college application will look like, and what his interests will be when he graduates.
I’ve suggested Cal Poly - the issue with it (and all the other California schools) is that he’s going to graduate without a fine arts class, which I gather they need. He’ll have three years of engineering and a year of robotics, but no art/music/drama. I’ve heard that some other VA students can ask for a waiver of the fine arts requirement since our schools don’t require it, but I’d hate to pin hopes on that. Other than that, though, I don’t think West Coast is too far.
Re: $$, I’d love to stay competitive with what an in-state rate would be for VA Tech ($30kish) but I recognize that’s not realistic in most cases. If we apply to the high cost schools we’d need merit aid, we won’t qualify for need based. I don’t think more than $55k (tuition + room/board) would be doable, and that would be a stretch.
I agree, he may change his mind. This is my second child going through this, so we’ve certainly done that rodeo before! He got dragged along while his brother was looking at colleges, so that has helped him frame a general idea of size, community, characeristics that he’s interested in etc. We’re starting to think about things now, hope to use Spring Break as a time to do some visits - if he ends up interested in schools all over the country he will either (a) not visit until after he gets accepted; or (b) need to do some visits on the earlier side, as we have limited vacation days we can take each year.
He has been talking about Construction Management for a few years now, so this seems like something he’s seriously interested in, and since it’s a little more niche than some other things, we thought we’d start nosing around now.
He’s starting to prepare in general (he actually has more than three semesters of HS credit, he took six HS credit classes in middle school and he’s taken an initial SAT - we’re hoping that with a little practice his score will go up, but he got a 1470 first try with no prep) so it seemed reasonable to be thinking about schools to look at. If some of them do have specific HS requirements (like the California schools needing a fine arts requirement) then he might be able to tailor his schedule a bit, but we need to start thinking about that now, as course requests for Junior year are due in the next few weeks.
The challenge with the arts class is that he REALLY wants to get in the AP science classes that require two class periods because of lab. Junior year he has one elective space (after the AP class/lab) but he wants to fill it with Engineering 3 and the year-long capstone project. Senior year he wants to take two AP science classes, which will use up four of seven class periods (and the other three would be math, english, history). As it is, he’s planning on taking a required economics/personal finance class in the summer. I’m trying to convince him he really doesn’t need AP French his Junior year, if he drops that then there would be room for an art class, but unless I manage to get him sold on the idea of a CA school, he would rather slot the required econ class in there and not do summer school.
I think he would love so much about Colorado. He’s going to Philmont with his Scout troop this summer and they are flying into Denver then acclimating for 3-4 days in CO. I expect he’ll come home wanting to apply only to CO schools.
Purdue is on our list for sure. We looked there (closely) for my older son who ended up at WPI. I think it would’ve been way too big for older kid, but more in line with what younger kid wants/needs.
He got dragged along while his brother was looking at colleges, so that has helped him frame a general idea of size, community, characeristics that he’s interested in etc. We’re starting to think about things now, hope to use Spring Break as a time to do some visits - if he ends up interested in schools all over the country he will either (a) not visit until after he gets accepted; or (b) need to do some visits on the earlier side, as we have limited vacation days we can take each year.