Wow… okay so I think I would only need 1 safety and thats Alabama. Alabama would be much preferred over Arkansas. Im looking into Northeastern, Rochester, and RPI, but I don’t know what the chances of getting scholarships there are.
Run the NPC - although northeastern 's doesn’t include merit debit wouldn’t tell you what you’d get exactly.
You can apply to all three as an alternative to UT - both would be as good, and guarantee direct admit to the major, so they’d be good alternatives if you get UT but not engineering.
At this point…this student needs TWO lists. He needs one list with his current 31 ACT score…schools that are a reasonable expectation for those scores with engineering (and I personally would,suggest other options too…just in case he decides he hates engineering and wants to switch).
Then he needs a second list that has in hoped for ACT score of 33 or whatever. He can craft that list aiming a but higher.
Right now, he can apply to Alabama, and UT…because those will be on BOTH lists. Alabama has rolling admissions including merit aid award. Get that short application and short scholarship application done as soon as it is live (@mom2collegekids…is it live?).
I’d also recommend considering schools with engineering programs that also require co-ops. With a co-op leaving college, you will have had solid experience on your resume. I’m not promoting RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) for your specific needs, but it is a private college which gives automatic scholarship amounts for specific GPA + SAT/ACT combinations. There are required co-ops for engineering students. I’d also recommend being cautious of statistics about what graduating students “make” - different areas of the country have different income/costs, and often a greater proportion of students settle near where they received their degree, so the charts are skewed. If you graduate from an institution near Boston, for example, and work around Boston, your initial salary will be higher than if your first job was from around Rochester. However, the cost of living around Rochester is much, much lower than in Boston.
Here is a chart, in case you are interested, in how much students make on co-ops (and after school) with different majors: https://www.rit.edu/emcs/oce/employer/salary You need to take the “Min” and “Max” entry level salaries with a grain of salt, as people take jobs in San Francisco, or in Rochester. As said above, salaries vary a lot.
If you decide to go to a co-op school, make sure to ask if tuition is paid when a student is on co-op. RIT does not require this, and the money you make on co-op can be put towards your next tuition. When my son was looking at colleges, Drexel required tuition be paid on co-ops - things change, so they may not any more.
Also, different colleges have specific majors which are much more competitive to get into. Game Design and the Film program at RIT are highly competitive. That does not mean that they have the highest starting salaries.
We will spend less to send each of our kids to private schools than to our state flagship. Definitely run the NPC’s, and take a look here: http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=University+of+texas&s=all&id=228778
It gives you a great idea in the “net price” area for each school what you might pay (not taking into account any merit.) To give you a comparison:
University of Texas, Austin
AVERAGE NET PRICE BY INCOME
2012-2013 2013-2014 2014-2015
$0 – $30,000 $7,667 $10,696 $11,052
$30,001 – $48,000 $11,560 $12,335 $12,614
$48,001 – $75,000 $17,147 $16,295 $16,366
$75,001 – $110,000 $21,643 $21,737 $21,725
$110,001 and more $23,731 $24,614 $24,562
RIT
AVERAGE NET PRICE BY INCOME
2012-2013 2013-2014 2014-2015
$0 – $30,000 $20,818 $21,570 $22,215
$30,001 – $48,000 $22,455 $21,868 $22,489
$48,001 – $75,000 $22,558 $22,243 $22,993
$75,001 – $110,000 $25,246 $23,352 $23,936
$110,001 and more $31,556 $32,287 $33,313
While most will pay more to go to RIT, if your family makes between $75,001 and $110,000, it may actually cost you less in the grand scheme of things because most students put some of their co-op $ towards tuition - the office of financial aid does not count your co-op earnings against your award. If you can get a co-op near your parent’s home, you can live at home and save almost everything to put towards tuition. You also need to take into account travel expenses. Last, after freshman year, we are paying about $2,400 less, as there are many less expensive on-campus apartments (unfurnished it is less, furnished it is more.) Also less on food, as the required food plan is no longer required. This may be the same at University of Texas.
Lots of colleges offer formalized co-ops (particularly for engineering students) but do not require them. It is not necessary to go to a require-co-op school to do a co-op. Examples:
http://www.engr.utexas.edu/ecac/coop
http://coop.eng.ua.edu/
Even in the absence of a formalized co-op program, a college’s withdrawal and readmission policy may allow a student to do essentially the same thing (e.g. withdraw for the fall term to work at a “co-op job”, then return for the spring to continue school).
In all cases, check the details of the relevant co-op, withdrawal, and readmission policies at each school.
I just visited SMU and I LOVE it! The atmosphere, location, and fact that there are so many internship opportunities available being 5 minutes for Dtown Dallas. Campus is beautiful 6600 under grad 1000 in engineering undergrad… It’s amazing except 2 things. The price. The engineering program. I do have some advantages though. My scores and stuff will probably qualify me for 25ish k off their 45k tuition and there is a scholarship program in Dallas that my mom used to be the chairman of the board for the organization that ran it. If you get any scholarship from them, SMU will give 5k extra a year to you, so my mom will probably be able to make that work.
I know I’ve said that my budget changed, but that’s if I were to get into like Cornell it would be considered. Not at SMU. We talked about it and he said if I could get it down to like 35k a year it’s be a no brainier if I liked it that much and the engineering program were good he’d pay it without a negative thought.
Still on the researching side… Are there any schools similar to SMU but with a better engineering program?
SMU was saying how ranks can’t really judge their engineering ranks because most of it comes from peer assessment meaning other professors and graduates. They say their old engineering dean did not see a point in doing anything with those rankings because no one should let a magazine tell you where to go to school. He was saying how the current dean is working on that but he doesn’t feel that it should be a popularity contest. He doesn’t feel that he should have to pay professors from other schools to come look at their campus and judge their equipment, staff, and all that good stuff. With a valid point he was saying how they’d much rather put the money towards scholarships, updating equipment, and paying top dollar for the best professors.
Will anyone explain to me the whole process of undergrad engineering rankings? I don’t think they would be saying how ranking doesn’t really matter if they were ranked #1.
A valid point made by them though is that at a bigger shook they could spend 50 mil upgrading their equipment, but I should ask if undergrads will ever touch any of it. At SMU, there is an undergrad on ever single one of their research projects because they believe without experience like research, you are not a marketable student. They also said that they are in the top 20 highest paid engineering starting salaries for students out of college. To add onto that, 85% of their engineering students have a job lined up the day they graduate. Does anyone know if they could verify those facts?
Thanks!
I wouldn’t doubt that some of what was said at SMU is true. However you are going to be more concerned about your own education and experiences. You can get those experiences at other places.
The spread for starting engineering salaries is not super wide for various engineering degrees - and the cost/benefit for SMU can certainly be argued. However if parents can easily afford and student/parent wants to go there, makes the admission standards etc…
Also students that have internship and Co-op work experiences can far exceed what is purported as average starting salary from their particular field from their particular university - and keep in mind that in a tight job market (which one does not foresee), also for choice spots, what one learns in college and and how they can ‘sell themselves’ in an interview…
Some campus interviewing, a company may set a pretty high GPA requirement just because they have the interview slots fill so fast - also some companies will make sure to interview or go to job fairs to certain campuses, for whatever criteria the company has.
UA has an Honors program called Emerging Scholars - and students in that fairly large honors program get involved in research in their field of study freshman year at UA.
Key with engineering is ABET accredited, and having the school be a match for what student is looking for and what fits in their family budget.