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Apply to “lower-ranked” universities (in terms of engineering) out of state who are likely to offer her bigger $ – U of Alabama, Mississippi State, Auburn, etc… Trade off here is the much greater distance from home (travel costs, and is she really ready to be that far away?), and the fact that these programs are less well known so might be less challenging (that might be a good thing, as far as maintaining GPA goes) and give her a less marketable degree. Example, MSU only requires a 23 ACT/1060 SAT for admission to engineering. On the other hand, she might be a “big fish” in these programs…
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You have some mistaken premises. These programs won’t be “less challenging.” They will be tough.
Who cares WHAT minimum score a school requires for ADMISSION into eng’g. I can almost guarantee you that if that person can’t cut it, he/she will be weeded out the first semester or two. The school isn’t going to cheapen its program so that a modest stats student can thrive. One reason that southern public schools have such minimums is that these are holdover guidelines (and some laws) that prevent them from raising the bar too high in order to exclude AA students. The average AA ACT score in the United States is about an ACT 17…so if a southern public were to require - say - an ACT 28 minimum to get into eng’g, guess which group would be largely shut out? Do you want that? So…schools like MSU have low minimums.
You may be shocked that Bama has NO MINIMUM to get into eng’g. If you can get into the school, you can try eng’g if you’d like. Of course, the reality is that those with low test scores often don’t try eng’g or if they do, they are often weeded out after taking Calculus, Gen Chem and/or Physics.
The degrees will NOT be “less marketable” (who the heck told you that???) MSU has a very respected eng’g program, as do the other mentioned schools.
Rankings for eng’g are almost worthless. This country and each state needs a huge number of engineers graduating each year. So, each state has a vested interest in having at least a few, but often SEVERAL or MANY very good eng’g programs. The state of Calif ALONE has about 25 very good eng’g programs (I guess you might say that some provide “less marketable degrees,” but you’d be wrong). As a Calif native working in the aerospace industry I regularly saw eng’g grads from CSULB, CSUF, UCLA, UCB, Santa Clara, Cornell, Purdue, UMich…all get hired at the SAME PAY RATE. And those who got promoted didn’t get selected because of their schools’ names, they got promoted based on their performances.
Anyway…if the state of Calif alone can have around 25 or so very good eng’g programs, can you see how rankings are meaningless? Makes little to no difference if a program is ranked number 25 or 125.
so, don’t be afraid to have your DD apply to some schools that give large merit for stats. Visit these schools and you’ll be impressed with their facilities. Bama has a new Science and Engineering Complex which added 900,000 sq ft of new STEM academic space. Truly amazing with all the state of the art equipment and labs.