<p>Hello CCers, I've been here a while (just lurking) and I'd like a little bit of input from you all. I'm currently a junior, and I'm currently thinking about majoring in engineering of some sort. I also really love watching football, it's probably my favorite sport. So my question to you is, what are some good engineering schools our there that have traditionally good football teams? Bonus points if they give out really good scholarships, especially to out of state students.</p>
<p>For an engineering school with traditionally good football and really good scholarships for out of state students, there is one clear cut winner–Alabama. It’s one of the 5 oldest engineering colleges in the US, and recently spent a fortune building a new state of the art engineering complex. It’s named after Senator Richard Shelby, the ranking member of the appropriations committee (the folks who decide how the government spends all our money), who does a great job sending earmarks back to his state and his alma mater. Anyway, the engineering college continues to grow, and with all their cash has been able to hire top professors (like the recently hired former head engineer for Mercedes Benz). As for scholarships, the school gives full tuition for 4 years with 3.5 GPA and 32 ACT (or 1400 SAT M+CR), plus the engineering college gives an additional $2500 per year. Total COA is about $10K. Smaller (though still large) scholarships are given with slightly lower stats. If you happen to be NMF, room and board is also free (total full ride). You will not find better out of state scholarships. You will also not find better football, which goes without saying.</p>
<p>Alabama has it all, a gorgeous campus, very nice dorms, a student-focused faculty, a very interesting Honors College, a brand new state of the art mega-sized Science and Eng’g complex, awesome scholarships, and championship football. </p>
<p>Bama also has a high OOS attendance. This year’s frosh class was over 50% OOS. So, you’ll meet kids from all over the US. </p>
<p>And, whether you’re a guy or gal, the students are really attractive. lol When my H is on campus, I keep blinders on him to minimize the drooling. ;)</p>
<p>What are your stats? </p>
<p>How much will your parents pay?</p>
<p>Bonus points if they give out really good scholarships, especially to out of state students.</p>
<p>Unless your stats are near perfect, don’t expect much from UMich. Even kids with ACT 35s can get nothing.</p>
<p>I’ve looked at OSU, Michigan, and A&M, and I just feel like those are way out of my comfort zone in terms of the size of the student body. I also feel like I wouldn’t get such great scholarships there, the $12000 scholarship doesn’t even cover half of the OOS tuition for OSU. UM is pretty pricey for OOS, and I’ve heard their scholarships aren’t very good either.</p>
<p>For reference, I got a 33 ACT (no writing) as a sophomore, and have a 4.0 GPA. I took the ACT w/ writing recently, and I’m looking forward to scores from that (fingers crossed). I scored a 199 on the PSAT/NMSQT, so I’m highly doubting national merit. Also, by “good” I mean “usually has a winning record, and has tons of fan and community support.”</p>
<p>If Alabama keeps the same scholarship offers, your stats automatically pick up the full tuition (+$2,500 for engineering majors) scholarship at Alabama, which certainly has football to watch. So perhaps that can be a safety if the remaining cost (about $13,000 per year) is affordable.</p>
<p>Most of the schools with engineering and good football to watch are large ones. Some smaller (though not really small like LACs) ones like Stanford, Northwestern, Notre Dame, and Vanderbilt are very selective, so they cannot be counted on as safeties or likelies.</p>
<p>My parents will probably contribute a fair amount, but not anywhere near as high as the government expects them to. I’m reluctant to say how much they make, or even how much the EFC is. One thing I’ve noticed here is that there are some people that are really good at counting other peoples’ money for them. All I’m saying is that while their contribution won’t be insubstantial, I’ll still be expected to pay for most of my education. I’m also avoiding loans at all cost. </p>
<p>I would like to visit 'Bama sometime, but it would be kind of costly. I live in Kansas, so there would be travel expenses, etc.</p>
<p>Also, of my list, SMU is the reach (for financial reasons, I bet I have a pretty good shot of getting in, but the only way I could pay it would be with a certain scholarship), WSU and K-State are safeties. I’m okay with schools up to about 30k students. More than that though and I start to feel uncomfortable.</p>
<p>I.e. AFC < EFC. (AFC = actual family contribution)</p>
<p>This means that your realistic choices are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Schools with list prices lower than AFC.</li>
<li>Schools with merit scholarships to bring the cost down to below AFC (but check for college GPA requirements to keep the scholarships).</li>
<li>Cheap community college (that costs much less than AFC) for two years followed by transfer to a four year school (allowing use of the money saved by going to cheap community college to increase the AFC for the last two years).</li>
</ul>
<p>I’d seen that list, but not that particular update. While there are a bunch of good Community Colleges around here and I understand that it is a tremendous value, Community college just isn’t right for me. My AFC would be enough to cover Alabama, with a little bit of help from some outside scholarships (of which, I’ve already received a few). Point being, the money won’t be too huge an issue if the school at least covers tuition.</p>
<p>My parents will probably contribute a fair amount, but not anywhere near as high as the government expects them to. I’m reluctant to say how much they make, or even how much the EFC is.</p>
<p>We don’t need to know what your EFC is or what your parent’s income is. However, if you can tell us how much they’ll pay each year towards college, then that will give us some idea of what is affordable. </p>
<p>A visit to Bama will cost your family some money BUT, if you end up attending Bama the cost of that visit will be NOTHING compared to the amount of scholarship money you’d get. If you fly out with a parent and get a good flight rate, stay in a hotel for one night, get a cheap car rental, the trip might not cost too much. If you drive, it could cost less.</p>
<p>another thing: bama’s app goes online in July. If you apply then, get quickly accepted, get your scholarship awards and you find that you really like the school, you would save money by not having to apply to or visiting as many schools.</p>
<p>Alabama is tier 2 for engineering. There is a reason they give free money so easily. Look at these colleges for good engineering program and football:
<p>Mom2collegekids: They haven’t told me anything concrete yet, but between 6-10K is likely. Plus it depends on who I ask. Mom wants me to get really good scholarships, dad’s all gung-ho that he finally has a kid going to college and he says that I can go wherever xP</p>
<p>I’m going to try and maybe visit during the summer, I have a pretty packed schedule through May.</p>
<p>Given the implied financial constraints (OP needs the AFC plus some outside scholarships to make up the remaining cost of Alabama after the full tuition scholarship, and AFC < EFC), these schools have very low likelihood of being affordable for the OP as an out-of-state student. Basically, they can only be possibly affordable with a large enough merit scholarship, if such even exists at each of them. Note that UIUC and Penn State are awful at financial aid even for in-state students.</p>
<p>Even with the full tuition scholarship at Alabama your costs are going to be $14,300 (not including personal expenses and travel). This is based on this years tuition which is subject to two more increases before the OP gets there (2013-14 & 2014-15 academic years). This is for 16 credits per semester. Each additional credit hour is $970 for OOS students. Most engineering students who complete their degrees in 4 years (what the scholarship covers) are going to be taking more then 16 credits/semester at least a couple of times unless they are coming in with a lot of AP credit.</p>
<p>Do your due diligence. Full tuition scholarship sounds awesome, but it’s not free and does add up, sometimes very close in price to your own state flagship. It can be a great option if your own flagship doesn’t have an engineering school.</p>
), but how are their out of state scholarships?</p>
When my H is on campus, I keep blinders on him to minimize the drooling. ;)</p>