Engineering schools generous with merit aid?

My daughter is looking at industrial/systems engineering schools. I’ve been told by multiple people and universities that we will not qualify for any financial aid, but because I will have 3 kids in college I can’t figure out how I will do it because our income fluctuates so greatly from year to year and we don’t have any savings. She’s going to apply to Purdue, WIP, RPI, USC, Lehigh, USD, Case Western, NC State, Valparaiso, Butler, Bradley, U of Chicago and Northwestern … none of which appear to give much merit aid for 34 ACT and 4.7 weighted GPA (3.95 UW). My son (whose qualifications weren’t quite as good - 3.8 GPA and 33 ACT - didn’t get a dime from Case Western or Purdue, where he will be attending in the fall, but it doesn’t look like his major, business, is nearly as competitive which should have made it easier). Any schools we are missing that give good merit aid? (She’s looking for a collaborative, not overly competitive environment and although she’s not an athlete she is extremely well rounded with speech, debate, and philanthropy). Thanks!

Doesn’t UChicago only have one engineering major? Molecular or something? And it’s not accredited?

Check out Alabama’s automatic full tuition. http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.php

Wow @bodangles that one is AMAZING!!! Thank you!

Didn’t check if they have that exact engineering major but if she’s applying to UChicago then maybe she’s okay branching out from industrial?

Others to investigate: http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com

WPI, RPI and Case all gave my son significant merit aid with similar stats to your daughter. Utah gave him a free year followed by three years instate. Merit aid at some, RPI for sure, is highly associated with demonstrated interest.

Alabama Huntsville. Tuition plus housing for those stats, IIRC.
I took some graduate IE classes from New Mexico State like 25 years ago, and use the material regularly. Will be rereading one of the texts next week. Very pleased with what it gave me. Not flashy, but IMO a solid value. Should be pretty reasonable for those stats too.

I was not under the impression that U of Chicago had much merit aid, but no personal experience. DS (an IB student) had an excellent scholarship offer from Case with 35 ACT (and near perfect SAT and GPA). but that was 7 years ago - things may have changed.

SMU has a decent program, and you’d be in the running for the full tuition scholarship with your 34 ACT. The engineering department gives out a lot of money as well I personally only got the 22.5k university scholarship, but an extra 14k/yr from engineering. If you got the full tuition +engineering scholarships, you could potentionally have a full ride.

Union college

Louisiana tech … They have a good out of state tuition waiver in addition to merit that is automatic and strictly by the numbers. Your student would be at 9000-9500 merit. This would cover almost all of tuition. Just keep it in mind as a safety if nothing else. $25(?) app, no essay. Not a top school but the engineering Dept is supposed supposedly good. We r crossing our fingers for it.

My daughter went to WPI. We didn’t qualify for any need based aid. WPI did give her/us some decent merit aid. It still cost a fair amount out of our pocket, but I was glad for the aid they did give. I don’t know WPI’s policy on giving aid and showing interest but we are from CA and did an official admissions tour of the school, which I take as showing some serious interest.

BTW, she really liked WPI. She majored in mechanical engineering and graduated in 2014.

My S got 10k/yr from WPI and 20k from RPI, Stevens Institute.
Not very high stats, but also very good EC (athlete and robotics club leadership role).

We had a girl from the HS robotics club who got a full scholarship from WPI,
a year before my son, she had better stat than my S, and no doubt, girls have an advantage at the
tech schools. Should give you some reason for optimism.

Still I would be concerned if you have no savings.
Given that fact, I would lean towards the most economical solution.
A safety school that really wants her may not only give money, but be less pressure,
as she seems to prefer.

Several of the schools already mentioned above don’t offer Industrial Engineering. If that’s important, make sure to research what degree programs are offered at each school.

This website is handy to determine what degree programs are offered, and other engineering department related details.

http://profiles.asee.org/

With merit aid, you can break it down into two different categories. The first is the automatic (admissions) scholarships, that are usually award based on stats.

For example, Alabama’s Presidential Scholar ( 32-36 ACT, 1400-1600 old SAT score or 1450-1600 new SAT score and at least a 3.5 GPA). Some schools don’t publish the requirements. You should research the schools forums here on CC, to see the typical stats of students who are receiving the OOS scholarships. For example, at FSU, OOS students with 30+ ACT scores are getting OOS tuition waivers (bring the cost down to $6.3K a year for tuition), but at UCF, they are receiving $44,000 scholarships with stats in line with your daughter.

The other category of awards are the high end competitive scholarships. Think Stamps scholarships. These are hard to land, use a holistic evaluation, and usually require a separate application, however, they are often the only way to get significant merit aid at more selective universities.

Good Luck!

Illinois Institute of Technology offers competitive full tuition scholarships which are available for five years/co-terminal master’s degree. Your daughter’s stats are in the right range. My D is there and doing very well with many great opportunities. She’s had an internship every summer and a part-time internship one semester, and has had the opportunity to do research as well.

U Alabama will give her generous merit aid.

http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/

But check school web sites for any changes.

Obviously, you need to check on whether the school has the desired major; see http://main.abet.org/aps/Accreditedprogramsearch.aspx . However, note that some schools do offer a non-engineering operations research major, or subarea within math or statistics.

For 3.95 HS GPA and 34 ACT, schools with industrial engineering include:

Alabama - Huntsville (automatic full tuition scholarship)
Florida A&M (automatic full tuition scholarship)
Louisiana Tech (automatic $9,500 scholarship, which is almost full tuition)

Your other posts suggest that you may live in California. Can you afford UCB, CPSLO, CPP, SJSU, CSUEB, which are the California public universities with industrial engineering?

You may want to check each college’s net price calculator to see what need based financial aid it may offer. You may want to run both a high and low income scenario for each college to see what your fluctuating income may result in for financial aid.

Steven Institute of Technology in NJ, which has a great view of the Manhattan skyline by the way. They have Engineering Management which I think is their version of Industrial Engineering.

@newjerseydad888 Steven’s has a great location (and a great record at placing graduates into NY area based jobs), but isn’t it a bit pricy? Does it offer much in merit (or need-based) aid?

Steven’s program does raise a good point. Not all Industrial Engineering curriculum’s are the same. Make sure to check out what classes are being offered. A “Engineering Management” type major may work for you, and be offered at a school that offers good merit based awards.

You also may want to consider Operations Management or Logistic & Supply chain majors, which are usually offered within the Business School. These are business degree’s, not engineering, but cover similar fields and roles.

For example, the University of Alabama doesn’t have an Industrial Engineering program, but they do offer a Operations Management BS.

https://catalog.ua.edu/undergraduate/commerce-business-administration/information-systems-statistics-management-science/om-bs/

“generous aid” seems vague to me.
If two schools each give 20k in merit, but one has a tuition of $45000/year and the other of $21000/year, I have real trouble seeing both of them as generous. The largest award DD got was in the range of $34000/year, but it left a remainder of $31000/year. That’s a lot of zeros on both sides of the equation.

Some of the schools recommended will be similar. Don’t be too impressed by $25000 or even $40000 if the resulting obligation is $25000/year. That’s still one brand new Honda into the lake every year.

What is your instate option? We’ve toured many private and state public school engineering programs and generally think the public ones have very robust programs and superior facilities and research. Don’t leave off your in state public option in case the private school aid doesn’t offset the higher initial price tag and the student in the end may prefer the large and strong engineering programs in the public university.