Engineering Schools in the Northeast

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>My D is senior and is putting together her list of her schools . She is interested in engineering but not certain so she would like a college or university where there are other majors that are offered in the sciences. We live in Connecticut and we do like the uconn engineering school. We have a high family contribution and can pay for our state school- otherwise loans for about half the cost. She wants to stay about 3 hours away from home. Her GPA is 3.8- not weighted ; top 10% of her class; sat scores for math - 620 and reading - 660 - writing - 760. The following is a list of schools we are considering.
UConn-
UMass
Drexel
U Deleware
BU- probably too expensive
UNH-safe
WPI_ reach - not sure if she wants a tech.<br>
Syracuse -probably to many $$
University of Scranton- she liked the rep. and may get some merit aid?</p>

<p>Are there any other good private engineering schools where she would be an over achiever so she would receive some merit aid? </p>

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<p>I like your list. </p>

<p>The 620 math is a bit of a concern in a hardcore engineering program. What kind of math student is she. I think WPI might be a good choice. Rochester Institute of Technology also kinder and gentler on the math expectations. </p>

<p>University of Maryland Baltimore County is a interesting potentially interesting option with a potential for a full-ride. Google and watch the 60 minutes episode about it. </p>

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<p>Stevens Institute of Technology. Tech, yes, but I believe there are some science majors as well.</p>

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<p>UMBC is a good school but if you’re looking for more local schools then I would look into Union College. While out there for a visit it would be worth looking into RPI. </p>

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<p>Good suggestions above. You might also look into Manhattan College (strong for engineering, has non-binding rolling admission and she could get merit money). Also NYS schools have good rates for OOS students so (I know you said private but…) perhaps SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Stony Brook are worth a look.</p>

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<p>Thanks-for your info. All honors Math Classes- A’s and B’s… algerbra 1 & 2 - geometary- now taking pre calc…</p>

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<p>That 620 math is below the 25th percentile for RPI, WPI, and Stevens.</p>

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<p>The 620 in math is a concern for engineering. If she’s only now taking pre-calc (as a senior), she could be behind at many schools. I think many/most engineering depts like to see a 700+ for math and many/most eng’g students will have already taken either Calc or AP Calc.</p>

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<p>She has a 1280 for her M+CR. (Schools don’t count the W score for merit). She’d have to go down the rankings ladder to get more than a token merit aid at a school that has engineering. </p>

<p>At Univ of Scranton, if she retests and brings up her score to a 1300, she may get more $</p>

<p>Dean’s Scholarship
These merit-based, partial-tuition scholarships are awarded to students who demonstrate the highest level of academic achievement. Recipients are typically in the top 20% of their class, with a minimum Math and Critical Reading SAT score of 1300 or 29 ACT (Composite score) and a 3.5 or higher (on a 4.0 scale), or are in the top 10% of their class, with a minimum Math and Critical Reading SAT score of 1200 or 26 ACT (Composite score) and a 3.8 GPA or higher (on a 4.0 scale). The average Dean’s scholarship award was $18,000 and ranged from $13,000 to $23,000 for the 2014-15 academic year.</p>

<p>Loyola Scholarship
These merit-based, partial-tuition scholarships are awarded to students who demonstrate a strong level of academic achievement, are in the top 30% of their high school class, have a minimum Math and Critical Reading SAT score of 1100 or 24 ACT (Composite score), and a 3.2 GPA or higher (on a 4.0 scale). The average Loyola’s scholarship award was $11,900 and ranged from $8,000 to $19,000 for the 2014-15 academic year.</p>

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<p>Worrisome is the fact that she’s only taking pre-calc in her senior year; combine that with her SAT M score and trouble is brewing for merit at any of these schools. Has she taken the SATII Math 1 or 2?</p>

<p>You might need a different approach to this list-making. If Scranton or Drexel offers you, say, 10K in merit, that money almost always goes toward your child’s loan first, and then toward any grant aid you’ve been offered by the school, before it has any impact on the EFC. In effect, merit aid could have zero impact on the EFC, the money your family is expected to pay. You need to know what that EFC is at any of these schools, but esp any from which you’re expecting merit. If the merit isn’t greater than grant-aid plus student loan, it amounts to nothing.</p>

<p>Run the net price calculators at each school to determine your EFC. Then consider merit aid. It may be that given your D’s weak-scores-for-merit that UConn or a CT state school will be the most affordable school. Get back to us after running the NPCs.</p>

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<p>Our EFC is $45K. Running the NPC for Scranton shows total tuition & Room and Board of $56K less a $20K Scholarship- net price of $36K - Are you saying that because our EFC is $45K… that the net price would be $45K? </p>

<p>Thanks for your help. </p>

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<p>Contrary to common opinion on these forums, taking precalculus as a high school senior is not “behind” for engineering majors at the vast majority of schools in the US, since the usual engineering major curriculum starts with calculus 1. It is true, however, that starting in calculus 2 or higher can increase schedule flexibility, since the math sequence is at the head of a long prerequisite sequence. It is also true that the student must have a strong knowledge of algebra, geometry, and trigonometry going into calculus 1; schools usually have math placement tests for those without AP calculus credit, and engineering majors who are placed into precalculus instead of calculus 1 will probably have difficulty graduating in 8 semesters.</p>

<p>Here are some math placement tests that she can try (at least for the algebra and geometry material that she has already had in previous math courses):
<a href=“http://math.tntech.edu/e-math/placement/index.html”>http://math.tntech.edu/e-math/placement/index.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/placement-exam”>http://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/placement-exam&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Each school may have its own financial aid methodology. For example, a school may calculate EFC differently from federal EFC and from other schools. It will likely also expect a student contribution of federal loans and/or work earnings. It may also throw in merit scholarships that will reduce the net price more than need-based financial aid alone will. So do not expect federal EFC to be a reliable guide for each school’s net price. Use each school’s net price calculator instead. Of course, you also need to figure out your AFC (actual family contribution), which is not necessarily the same as federal EFC or any school’s EFC.</p>

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<p>We suggested that she take calculus 1 at the uconn branch during the summer. Thank you for your input.</p>

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<p>Manhattan College is not a bad recommendation at all. A lot of companies recruit there and among engineers that I know in the NY area hold the program in high regard.</p>

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<p>As usual, @ucbalumnus’ advice is corrective of errors, but a student’s having taken calculus before going off to college is often an indication of the student’s math aptitude as recognized by the student’s guidance counselors and teachers from a middle school on. that is why her absence of calc courses in high school is worrisome and possibly a threat to merit. when it comes to merit, schools are often looking for weaknesses or possible red flags to bounce a candidate from the merit pool. given the engineering applicant who’s passed AP Calc (i.e., shown demonstrated strengths in her future major and heightened flexibility in scheduling) and the otherwise equal applicant who’s passed pre-calc, which applicant should get the merit?</p>

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<p>Therefore, when all is said and done, there are two flanks to the issue of Calculus preparation for Freshmen. UCB is correct in that the lack of Calc 1 won’t stop an entering Freshman from going forward in a university engineering department. On the other hand, jkeil911’s point about the generosity, or lack thereof, of a scholarship offer should be part of the deliberative process.</p>

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<p>francesca97 wrote:
Our EFC is $45K. Running the NPC for Scranton shows total tuition & Room and Board of $56K less a $20K Scholarship- net price of $36K - Are you saying that because our EFC is $45K… that the net price would be $45K?</p>

<p>As I suspected, your family income seems to put you in a middle- to upper-middle-class income bubble where you make too much money for need-based aid and not enough to be able to swing the EFC. Scranton’s cost of attendance is actually about 57K. In your case, this means that Scranton has offered your child about $5500 in student loans plus, perhaps, a couple thousand in work study and another 4-6K in grants to get your EFC to 45K. If your child qualifies for 20K in merit award, usually this will go first to paying off any student loan, the work study, and the grant. That leaves your family with a bill of (20K minus 5500 minus 2K minus 4-6K) subtracted from 45K. So (45K minus 7K) or 38K. Or thereabouts. Every school does this arithmetic in their own way. There is a financial aid and scholarship forum link on the left side of this page.</p>

<p>If you cannot swing 38K/yr, and most of us in the bubble cannot, you can borrow against your house if you have one, take out a home equity loan, borrow from your pension or 401K, borrow from your parents, etc. In addition, you can shift some of this burden over to your child by asking them to borrow money and/or work during the school year and summer (this seems only fair to many parents) and contribute 4-5K. In addition, the child can raise outside and intramural merit awards each year. Or you can look for a school with a lower total cost to you. </p>

<p>What total cost to you might UConn provide or Central CT State, for example? Regardless of your child’s desire to attendance schools A or B, the child must realize there might not be any reasonable way for the family to do that and the child will have to live with that reality. If this is the child’s first lesson in the finite nature of any resource, the child has been very lucky indeed. It won’t be the last lesson, will it? :-< </p>

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<p>Scranton was placed on the list because we felt D was an overachiever there- her first preference is actually UConn- @ $23K per year for IS. We were impressed with the engineering dept. there. Our concern is a: she may not get in; b: large class size with some professors who are difficult to understand…Uconn tells me that they look for 600 in math and 1234 for the overall score… she just makes it. Thanks for your help. </p>

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<p>spoken like a lawyer, LakeSr., while I had you figured for the engineers. well done.</p>

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<p>Here are the 75th/25th percentiles for SAT math for the engineering programs on your list (2013) as reported to the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). With a 620 Math SAT getting into most of the colleges on your list is going to be hard, although being a female will help. One thing to be aware of is that attrition rates out of some engineering schools are over 30% which could be students on the lower end of the math SAT distribution (or just those with less developed study habits).</p>

<p>UConn 710/640
UMass (Amherst) 720/650
Drexel 710/640
UDel 672/?
BU 740/660
UNH 613/?
WPI 740/650
Syrac 680/600</p>

<p>Here are some privates where you might be able to get merit (ideally you would want to be in the 75th percentile). I don’t know much about the Engineering Dept. at Merrimac, but the school is getting lots of good press. At Wentworth, it will be 80% men, but that will make your daughter a more desirable candidate. I am not sure how well the “Fenway consortium of colleges” that it belongs to works, but you could look into that. RIT was a good suggestion, but the Math SAT is 700/620, so it will be a little harder to get into merit territory and I’m guessing it will have the same sort of gender imbalance.</p>

<p>Manhattan 650/560
Wentworth 650/570
Merrimac (no data)
Western New England 640/580
NJIT 670/570</p>

<p>Here are some Publics that might be cheaper. If you are not familiar with the NERSP program, you should look into it. It allows students that live in the New England states to attend other New England state colleges for close to in-state rates (for majors that their local school does not offer). UMass Lowell has strong/unique engineering programs available to CT residents through this program (Computer Engineering, Plastics Engineering, Nuclear Engineering). UMass Amherst (Computer, Chemical and Industrial Engineering) and UMass Dartmouth (Biomedical Engineering) also have engineering programs available. UMass Lowell is getting lots of good press, so even outside these majors it could turn out to be a good value. UMBC, recommended above has an amazing reputation in STEM education circles.
The SUNY system has low out of state rates and some have reasonable Math SAT scores. Everybody I know who has attended UVM raves about it, and they tend to give good merit for out of state students.</p>

<p>UMass (Lowell) 660/580
UMBC 1300/1130 (from their web page) My best guess would be 700/620 for math.
SUNY (Stony Brook) 710/570
SUNY (Buffalo) 690/620
UVM 680/590 </p>

<p><a href=“Post-graduation salaries: Show me the money - The Boston Globe”>Post-graduation salaries: Show me the money - The Boston Globe;

<p>Does your daughter know what type(s) of engineering she might be interested in? Some of these schools don’t have a full array of offerings and quality can vary between offerings within a school. The type of engineering is also important if you use the NERSP program.</p>

<p>Also check out the percentage of students that commute at each school. Some schools empty out on weekends, which is a different college experience than what most kids envision. </p>

<p>Good Luck!</p>

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<p>Did the U Scranton NPC ask for stats or does it have a merit calculator?</p>

<p>Dean’s Scholarship</p>

<p>These merit-based, partial-tuition scholarships are awarded to students who demonstrate the highest level of academic achievement. Recipients are typically in the top 20% of their class, with a minimum Math and Critical Reading SAT score of 1300 or 29 ACT (Composite score) and a 3.5 or higher (on a 4.0 scale), or are in the top 10% of their class, with a minimum Math and Critical Reading SAT score of 1200 or 26 ACT (Composite score) and a 3.8 GPA or higher (on a 4.0 scale). The average Dean’s scholarship award was $18,000 and ranged from $13,000 to $23,000 for the 2014-15 academic year.</p>

<p>The upper quartile at Scranton has a M+CR of 1220+, so your D’s 1280 does put her in the upper quartile, but I wouldn’t say that would make her an “over-achiever” for the school. I think a 1280 would mean that in eng’g classes, she would have a good number of similarly-strong students. She does have a chance for good merit there. </p>

<p>@ucbalumnus‌ is right that many eng’g programs do start with Calc 1. That does not mean that someone who has taken pre-calc in high school will automatically get placed into Calc I in college. The issue is that many students who’ve only taken pre-calc in high school do not “test” into Calc I in college…largely because so many high schools have rather lousy math programs…so those students often do start “behind”. Glad to hear that the OPS says that her D will take Calc I over the summer.</p>