<p>What east coast colleges and universities have engineering schools, departments, or 3/2 programs? I am interested in non-Tier I schools and especially those in the mid-Atlantic area. Any thoughts or recommendations on the schools/programs would also be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>I'll give you all the schools I applied for engineering last year. All are on the East Coast except one.</p>
<ol>
<li>Fairfield University</li>
<li>Villanova U</li>
<li>Laffayette U</li>
<li>Syracuse U</li>
<li>Columbia U</li>
<li>Bucknell U</li>
<li>Rennselear Poly Tech Institute</li>
<li>Valpariso U (In Indiana)</li>
</ol>
<p>Also I think U Pittsburg, Boston College, Boston U, Northeastern U, and LeHigh have engineering programs.</p>
<p>Important thing is make sure the program you are looking at in the school is ABET accredited. That mean's that companies are more willing to hire someone that went to a school in which the program is ABET accredited. </p>
<p>I'm a freshman Mechanical Engineering student at Fairfield University. The best part I like about it is that the engineering school here is not too big so they have tutors that are in the engineering building every night so it's easy for a student to get help. Big schools like Purdue are not the best for engineering beacuse there are so many students that most students are on their own when they strugle. So Fairfield had everything that I wanted in an engineering program ( Fairfield has mechanical, electrical, software, and computer engineering (I think but double check) and all are ABET accredited). School also has a good reputation with companies in the north east which is very important.</p>
<p>Definitely look into these schools and visit the ones that look good.
If you have any questions about Fairfield I'll answer them.</p>
<p>I appreciate the list and will start looking into it. How generous is Fairfield when it comes to financial aid? I am looking on behalf of a URM senior, first-generation college who wants to go into engineering but has very limited resources. His home state does not have a state school with an engineering program. </p>
<p>If costs for a four-year program are too high, is community college with transfer an option for engineering at Fairfield?</p>
<p>Thank you again for taking the time to respond.</p>
<p>You should check into Univ of Pittsburgh for sure. They offer merit money for URM's, and in engineering for URM's as well. It's an impressive program at an underrated school (IMHO).</p>
<p>I don't know if it's in your region but Clemson is another school to look at. Well respected engineering program, not too big, not too small (~18000). I just finished my first semester in engineering there, and it is challenging but rewarding. At least look at it. Peace</p>
<p>If you are comming from a far away state they will probably give a scholarship and Fairfield does have financial aid. When I applied to Valpariso in Indiana they gave me a 20,000 dollar scholarship beacuse I was from a distant state (NY).</p>
<p>Also definitely call Fairfield to ask them questions about financial aid.</p>
<p>A good place to start is <a href="http://www.abet.org/accrediteac.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.abet.org/accrediteac.asp</a>.</p>
<p>On that site you can search for engineering schools by disciplines offered, by state, by region, or a combination of discipline and location. The good thing about abet.org is that all of the schools and programs listed on the site are fully accredited by ABET, so you can ensure that only programs meeting the ABET's standards receive your attention.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the information. It will be very helpful in our search.</p>
<p>cornell putting a lot into getting more diversity in engineering, so as a urm, you'd have a slight advantage. you might want to look into it. (its expensive though...)</p>
<p>penn state?</p>
<p>Pitt, CMU, Case, Penn State, Virginia Tech. Washington and Jefferson College has a 3-2 program with the final two years of engineering at either Case or WUSTL.</p>
<p>Hey there, everyone. I recently graduated from Pitt engineering after spending two years at Penn State. I left Penn State because I could not stand the "party environment." I just started a well-paying job in New York that I found through Pitt's alumni network. I got a great education and really enjoyed the school and city. Hope that helps. Any other questions, just let me know.</p>
<p>Following up to the previous comment about Pitt , my son was accepted by their engineering school in October and also was accepted to their Honors College, given a $10,000 a year merit scholarship from the university (with invitation to apply for a full ride scholarship) and a $2000 a year merit scholarship from the engineering school. We are from out of state so this certainly helps to bring the costs down for us. We originally travelled to Pittsburgh to tour CMU (excellent engineering school, of course) but decided to tour Pitt during the same trip. We were impressed with the programs and facilities. Pitt's Medical Center is world renowned and the engineering school helps to link students up with internships and unique study opportunities at the Medical Center. My son is interested in biomedical or chemical engineering so this is a very enticing thing as he thinks about what school he will eventually end up at. (My son is a huge sports fan so the strong sports programs at Pitt as well as the overall sports scene in the City of Pittsburgh are a great attraction to him as well!)</p>
<p>Fairfield is not exactly known as an engineering powerhouse - I don't even see it on the US News engineering rankings. They also do not guarantee to meet 100% of financial need (EFC).</p>
<p>There is generally the feeling that the 3/2 programs are not the best way to go for engineering. A few kids make them work, but most don't want to leave their schools junior year and lose interest in engineering because of the lack of focus/peer group.</p>
<p>Engineering is tricky, because it has a pretty high attrition rate BUT many of the strong programs are in schools whose focus is clearly technical. </p>
<p>Community college transfer is probably not the best idea either. How are his grades and test scores? What is his home state?</p>
<p>So, I guess my question is, how sure is he that he wants to go the engineering route? Also, does he anticipate qualifying for need-based aid, or is he going to be seeking out merit money?</p>
<p>I agree with weenie. My son decided against a 3/2 program for a few reasons. (1) not wanting to leave at the end of junior year and start all over somewhere else, (2) not wanting to wait three years to take engineering classes, where he might move and THEN find out he doesn't really like engineering, and (3) not wanting to spend five years on two bachelors degrees when that 5th year could go towards MBA or MS degrees.</p>
<p>FWIW, Pitt's engineering program is challanging, the students are friendly and not cut-throat, the faculty is accessible and there seems to be much focus on co-ops, internships and study abroad.</p>
<p>My son's have applied to schools where there are engineering floors in the dorms. First year engineering students are housed together with special computer lab access and TA help nearby. Since the schools are in the western half of the US they are no help to you but that might be something to look for as well and it helps bring down the size of the big schools.</p>
<p>3-2 programs were of no interest to my son's for many of the reasons mentioned above but to each their own.</p>
<p>Drizzit - My d is only a sophomore but looking at an engineering major
in college. Intrigued by your comment re engineering students having
their own floor in regular dorms. May I ask what schools you have looked
at with this type of arrangement? Thanks much.</p>
<p>Pitt has the special engineering floors. They have organized study sessions and test preparation. My son did not live there, but rather on the honors floors. I would say that there are pros and cons to each.</p>
<p>many of the larger universities offer living/learning communities; this is a very trendy feature that schools offer to help make the transition to college easier especially at larger schools and allows students in a specific major or interest to have dorm rooms next to each other. One place to get a list of some schools that have learning communities is the USNEWS rankings under the category Honor Roll - Special Programs to Look For. And even this is far from complete. My son applied to 2 universities last year that are not on this list that had both men's engineering floors and women's engineering floors (Northeastern Univ in Boston and Univ of Minn).</p>