Helping a friend put together a college list. She is senior, attends an STEM magnet in VA (not Thomas Jefferson) and wants to study either biomedical engineering or mechanical. Runs cross country (20:48 5K, 12:00 3200 and 5:38 mile) and is just starting to look into running in college.
Will be applying to VA Tech and possibly VCU. Would need merit to go out of state, may or may not qualify for financial aid due to divorced parents. Mom just learned about NPC today so will have to run #s. Is open to anything size and locations wise, but is planning on grad school in orthotics and prosthetics.
Academics: Weighted GPA 4.07 (doesn’t have unweighted GPA but 4.2 is straight As with lots of AP courses) , 11 APs by graduation, SATs 770 Math, 610 English, retaking in October, took SAT2 in Math2 and Physics today. EC: Cross country, indoor/outdoor track, NHS, Volunteers SPCA, works 10 hrs a week since 11, babysit 3 younger brothers, one with severe disability, plays guitar, 8yrs.
Budget about 30K, less is always better. Thanks for any suggestions
My niece majored in mech e and minored in biomedical engineering at Clarkson and is now going to UWashington for her PhD (also focusing on prosthetics). Clarkson is a fabulous school for gaining research and internship experience and gives great merit for talented female students. My daughter’s friend got a free ride plus with similar GPA but higher SAT scores. WPI also a good option for merit. Both have cross country teams.
Case Western and URochester might work. Both are DIII athletics and have engineering and she may be able to get enough merit to get it into range. My D met the cross country coach at CWRU and she liked him at the time, don’t know if he’s still there.
The problem is that most DIII schools are private schools with a high sticker price. She’s a strong candidate who could attract merit, and being a desirable track prospect could enhance that merit potential. If she had a $45-50K price point, she would have many great options. Getting down to $40K narrow the field. $30K may be difficult to achieve, as merit maxes out at less than this at many schools. If engineering weren’t a requirement, then sure, there are many good LAC’s where she could get merit at this level; but for engineering it is tougher. As suggested above, Clarkson might be one of the few where this could happen.
In DII, for the most part she’d be looking at less academically competitive schools than she’s qualified for. Colorado Mines does give some athletic and academic merit money, and it’s a terrific engineering school, so that could be worth a look… but their OOS sticker price is over 50K so I don’t know if shaving $20K+ off of that is feasible or not. Worth checking, though - there’s hardly a more beautiful place to run cross-country, and the engineering is top-notch.
For the most part, though, she may be better off looking for good deals at D1 schools with club XC/track opportunities.
She might want to look into this engineering major at WVU: https://admissions.wvu.edu/academics/majors/biometric-systems It could lay an excellent foundation for an orthotics/prosthetics career. And because it’s an unusual major that no public university in Virginia offers, it qualifies for Academic Common Market reciprocity: http://home.sreb.org/acm/ProgramDetail.aspx?id=1340&state=VA This would be a fantastic bargain at under $23K/year (and merit $ off of that might be possible - I’m not familiar with whether SREB and merit can “stack.”). The downside is that she couldn’t change engineering majors (other than to Aerospace, which also qualifies) without losing the discount.
With her times, the running piece shouldn’t be a big part of the equation. I agree with looking at D1 schools and exploring their running clubs. With such good schools in VA it’d be a shame to go elsewhere just to run. She would not be highly recruited at the ‘name’ D2/3 schools, and running isn’t going to get her opportunities that her academics won’t.
ETA: the clubs can be a great experience at bigger schools (for many runners, a better experience than varsity at D1/2/3)
Check out the NCAA Division 3 women’s cross country rankings. https://www.ncaa.com/rankings/cross-country-women/d3/ustfccca
There are several excellent engineering schools on that list. I would recommend running the net price calculator for some of those schools. Also it would be a good idea to practice a bit for the verbal SAT. Getting her verbal score up might make this young woman become competitive at some of the most selective engineering schools.