Hi all. Would really appreciate some advice on some engineering schools to add to my son’s list. He has good stats (1550 SAT, 800math 2, 780 physics and 35 composite on ACT) GPA 3.95, co-valedictorian of very competitive High School, will have done 14 AP courses by end of Senior year, all 5s in the 7 exams he has done so far. ECs are solid but not exceptional - summer job for 4 years, volunteer hours, usual NHS and school based clubs.
We live in Texas so has auto admit to UT so will be applying to UT Austin for mechanical engineering (the actual school is not auto admit so that’s not a done deal). He is very happy to attend UT Austin but is also going to apply to MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Rice as he might as well shoot for it now but he is very aware that they are such low admit rates that they are long shots.
The big thing is he really is not entirely sure what kind of engineering he would like to do so a program with a general first year would really appeal to him and make it worthwhile to look at OOS / private schools. Purdue has come up as a good one for him to add to his list. Georgia Tech also suggestion but that is specialized in the first year - he is still going to apply. He has a preference for city not a big campus in the middle of nowhere, and a medium size school like about 8,000 but realizes there are always going to be compromises so he’s happy to apply for things not exactly like that (UTA is obviously enormous).
Money wise we are very unlikely to get need based aid so would need some merit or something special about the program to choose it over Austin - he is unlikely to choose somewhere OOS that gives exactly the same as there that will cost twice as much because he knows he will probably want to go to grad school so might as well keep his money for that.
The main thing it boils down to I think is the general first year of engineering. We are not from the US so it is overwhelming to know anything about the places and schools that come up on the lists. Any suggestions wise people?
Many of the flagship publics have general first year engineering curriculums. You are going to be hard pressed though to beat UT Austin’s instate cost. It’s great that he’s auto admit to an awesome school!
RPI has a decent amount of flexibility to explore disciplines in their engineering curriculum, so even though it’s not a general first year engineering curriculum per se, it would probably work for students who aren’t fully committed to a major, and your son should see good merit there.
My first thought is Texas A&M; there is a general freshman engineering curriculum, and the brand new Zachry Engineering Complex is phenominal https://zachry.tamu.edu/
Purdue doesn’t generally offer much in the way of merit to out-of-state students. It is a large school in a small town (like TAMU) so I don’t see how it has any advantage over your Texas schools.
I would look at CWRU. It fits his city and size criteria. Good chance at merit (max $30k). You will have to decide if it fits budget. They have a single door admission policy that sounds right for your DS. It even extends beyond engineering.
Be careful in that many of the popular state flagships’ first year general pre-engineering programs are also weed-out programs, where a high GPA or competitive admission is needed to declare an actual engineering major after the first year.
Michigan is probably the best known school which has a first year general pre-engineering program but where declaring an actual engineering major is not competitive (need only 2.0 GPA and C grades in prerequisites): https://advising.engin.umich.edu/declaring-or-changing-major/
Texas A&M, Purdue, Minnesota, Virginia Tech, and many others have higher grade/GPA thresholds or competitive admission to get into at least some engineering majors after enrolling in first year general pre-engineering. Check school and engineering division web sites carefully.
He does not want to apply to A&M as half his high school end up there and there is no escape to anything else in College Station. It’s a shame as it does have that first year general program. The sort of military approach is really not his scene. Also Aggies are overwhelmingly devoted to their college and sort of rule our town - many of his teachers have been from there over the years and I think he has been turned off by their fervor - I think he would be ok in a similar size/ situation place that has not been shoved down his throat for years
I would anticipate he would not ever have a problem meeting a GPA threshold to get into a second year program - though of course who knows how it all goes when they head to college. But really he is a diligent student and I can’t see him going too far off the rails even when he is cut loose.
They have a very flexible curriculum overall so I bet he could do a pretty general freshman year. URoch is a nicely defined campus in a city, about 6500 undergrads.
UMaine isn’t quite the same caliber, but they offer an exploratory program where you go in undeclared engineering. They match your instate university’s tuition, though your son would likely receive even more merit. Not in a city but close, with about 9000 undergrad.
As suggested above, both URochester and Case Western are schools that meet his size and city-environment criteria, have great curriculum flexibility, and offer merit aid for which your son would be a strong candidate.
In the same spirit as the Interdepartmental Engineering recommendation above for UR, he could look at the Engineering Physics program at CWRU. If he started out in this major and made an early determination that he wanted to switch into another engineering specialty, he would be free to do so. But he could also stay in the engineering physics major, which requires its students to take a concentration in one of: biomedical, civil, mechanical/aerospace, EECS, materials, or macromolecular science/engineering. His concentration of choice would qualify him to continue into a grad program in that concentration even if he didn’t switch into the fully-specialized major.
UW Seattle admits students into general engineering before they choose a specialty, but it’s fairly expensive OOS so perhaps unlikely he’d go there over UT.
Harvey Mudd starts out with a rigorous shared freshman core that might be a good fit. Mudd itself has less than a thousand students, but the five undergraduate Claremont Colleges are very closely intertwined, with substantial cross-registration and shared extracurricular/athletic programs, and an overall undergraduate population of >6000. It’s in the LA suburbs (about 25 miles from Caltech - similar suburban-ness). If he’s interested in Caltech and Stanford then looking at Mudd makes sense as well.
Depends on the threshold. A 2.5 threshold is not that hard to meet (and many of those falling below 2.5 lose interest in the subject because it is too hard for them). But a 3.5 threshold means playing the GPA game like a pre-med, which may be more stressful, and can create a more competitive or cutthroat environment in courses “graded on a curve”.
Remember that most students find it harder to maintain the same GPA in college that they did in high school.
