Engineering Program

Hi everyone!

I fell in love with Washington & Lee when visiting a friend, but I want to be an engineering major. Is there anyone who can tell me how difficult the engineering program is to get into/the quality of the program itself? The only other schools I’m applying to are large state schools and I liked the vibe of W&L, but I’m not sure what I’ve be giving up if I went to a well-known liberal arts college to study engineering. My SATs are slightly below average for W&L right now (1410 on the new test, retaking in December) and my GPA stands at 4.21.

I’d greatly appreciate any feedback, thanks in advance!

@EM24601 Did you get in?

I do not think that the W&L engineering program is ABET accredited. This could be a problem professionally and for graduate schools.

Looks like W&L has decent placement especially for grad school but if you don’t want grad school this probably isn’t a good option.
https://www.wlu.edu/physics-and-engineering-department/after-graduation

My kid just got in W&L but the information on the engineering program, its statistics, grad school acceptance, job placement is limited. Even on a Google search or on the various ranking sites. Frustrating. Do you go to a top tier school like this but not know for engineering or do you go to a larger, maybe lower ranked school with a large dedicated engineer school.

I have a friend and she and her husband are doctors. She says you need “geeks who speak,” and when their math/science kid was going to college, they intentionally only looked at LACs. She wanted him to have all around educated. He is going on to get his masters in engineering at an “engineering” school. W&L is amazing. Plus, the alumnae network can’t be beat.

Thanks for the reply luckymama64. I heard W&L alumnae is awesome, but is it for engineering? It’s not easy trying to show your kid other paths to what they want to do. I maybe a bit over the top, but I have been to every site I can lay my eyes on over college rankings and post graduate stats. W&L doesn’t seem to have a lot of info on their engineering program. You see W&L at the top of most of them like Brookings Institute , The economist, UNWR, Forbes, Money, and kiplinger’s just to name a few. LOL! But, the main issue is the post college rankings are over all subjects not engineering specific. So far my kid has been accepted to UMD clark school of engineering and honors college, Case Western Reserve, Northeastern, SUNY Binghamton, Clarkson, and u Richmond if she went 3/2 program. Some very big schools and some smaller, but none except maybe Richmond that are like W&L. My gut tells me W&L is the special one of the bunch. But we are talking Engineering here not humanities. Costs are about the same except Northeastern, but they tout CO-OP as a way to pay that down. This is my first of five. I probably will be quite different by number four and five. LOL!