Neither Randall Research nor Blount Scholars are specific to a particular major. In fact, Blount has a strong liberal arts focus! Those programs don’t exclude engineers, and both programs were offered as a way to expand the breadth of an engineering major. Diversification is a fabulous thing. Most of the cohorts at Ole Miss (I am not talking about a scholarship cohort because that is not the kind of cohort we want) are only for specific majors, and engineers are not included in any of them. At the end of the day, we are moving on from Ole Miss for a variety of reasons.
I think we are going to try. With Notre Dame potentially coming off our list, we want to add some smaller schools. Vandy and Rice may end up on her final list.
Your student wasn’t interested in the Center for Manufacturing Excellence at Ole Miss? It’s an amazing cohort program with many engineering students.
Actually, that was the only thing that caught our attention, but it’s only open to manufacturing students. I wonder if that is a recent change.
I don’t want to delineate all of the reasons that we are moving on. At the end of the day, Ole Miss is a good school, but it’s just not the right one for my DD. And that is okay! Almost 5,000 new undergrads call it home each year.
We enjoyed our visit, and Oxford was adorable! It’s just not where DD will land.
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My daughter’s school had FIG (freshmen interest groups) where the group lived together in the dorms and took at least one course together but could have up to 3 together. She started as a theater major but did not want to be in the FIG. She was glad she didn’t. She ended up with a dance major roommate (who could have lived in the honors house but didn’t want to) so they had a lot of friends in common, but their mutual friend in the FIG hated it. Too much togetherness. Classes together, eating together, living together.
My engineering daughter’s school didn’t have cohorts by major, but her group, civil engineering, was so small that the 25 or so in her year were usually together in the same classes anyway.
@Dis3456 , in re Miss State, one of my co-workers sent his two sons there. Both were National Merit Finalists with great grades from an excellent private OOS HS. One studied engineering and the other went to medical school. They were very happy with education they received, as well as the value. It’s a decent size school, so I am sure there are enough smart kids there such that your D would not feel alone.
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Good morning! I went to send you a PM, but it looks like you may not be accepting messages. If you would be willing to PM me, I would appreciate it.
I don’t worry about how many smart kids there will be at MSU (it is a campus of 22K students), but I worry about the concentration of students who are really academically curious. In the absence of some of the cohort programs, will they be spread out all over campus? My daughter locked in on some of the cohort programs at UA because of her belief that they would attract similar type of kids. When we spoke to the UA student ambassador, who was fabulous by the way, he brought up this point on his own! The cohort programs bring all of these academically curious kids from across campus together in a very intimate way. And I just wonder if any program at MSU would be able to do the same.
The one thing that our recent campus visits made very clear is that it is of vital importance to find your small group on these massive campuses. My daughter gets along well with everyone, but her people are the intellectually curious (not necessarily smart or high stats, but those kids who have a passion for what they study). And making sure those students are “accessible” to her is part of finding the right fit.
Can you please update your end result, we are in similar situation love to know ur success story.
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I will definitely keep sharing new information. My DD is finishing up her junior year so I don’t have any updates at the moment. Honestly, I feel a bit more lost than when we started. We are looking for some smaller schools to fill out her list. I still don’t feel as if we have found the “perfect” school for her (cost aside).
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My DS is Junior too, I’m looking for merit based on NMF.
We looked at Alabama, Mississippi State University, and Ole Miss because of their very generous NMF packages. I left a review of our campus visits above. DD wants to apply to UA and MSU after our trip.
Yes I did read that, for now we are sticking with north east driving distance from NYC. She doesn’t want to apply for Fordham. I am reading other thread which has good information. Let’s hope for the best.
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We will likely be focusing on the SE, mainly because the schools there offer the most merit money. My daughter’s guidance counselor sent us a list of colleges where the recent NMFs from our school enrolled:
Boston University
Florida State
University of Florida
Fordham
*U. of Alabama
*Ole Miss
University of South Carolina
Northeastern
**Looks like these two gave the most money
As I am sure you know, the future of the Benacquisto is in doubt, but FL schools don’t meet your geographical preference.
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If you are looking at merit based on NMF status…look at University of Alabama, Arizona, University of New Mexico, and the Florida publics where the Benecquisto award is a full ride to public universities for NMF. Apply to University of South Carolina and do the scholarship/honors college application.
Check Miami of Ohio as well.
Read the thread posted upstream by @KevinFromOC who was also looking for merit for a strong engineering major…who wasn’t a NMF but got some good offers.
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With all likelihood, Benequisto will no longer be available to OOS as of fall 2022. All that’s missing is DeSantis’s signature on a new piece of legislation.
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That’s unfortunate for those NMSF who would be considering FL schools as OOS students.
Oh well…then Arizona, Alabama, New Mexico still seem like decent bets.
It’s been a while, and I wanted to give an update. My daughter has submitted applications to Alabama, Mississippi State (MSU), and Clemson. She will be submitting her applications to UGA and Georgia Tech by the end of the month. MIT is still on her list, and Notre Dame is on the maybe list for the time being. I was not thrilled with how ND handled C19 last year so we are going to see if this year is different. If not, my DD will dropping ND from her list.
We are still struggling to find smaller, residential colleges with engineering that offer merit aid. We desperately want at least one of those schools on her list. It’s a glaring weakness in her school list.
As an aside, my daughter was formally accepted into MSU this week.
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Sorry, have not read every suggestion. But have you checked Florida Tech yet? I loved this school. It is small, but with NASA ties and has merit scholarships. My daughter ruled it out due to the size, but I was really excited about it. Also, we are applying to U of Alabama Huntsville and they do give you free ride for the first year, plus $0 tuition for the other 3 years for being NMF (should be listed on their website). This is our safety school and I am actually impressed with it (i.e. program quality vs. cost) and ties with NASA again 
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here’s a program that’s well-respected in our neck of the woods. kids can choose their own majors (like engineering) and still be part of this co-hort.
https://raikes.unl.edu/
I hope you keep posting as I’d like to hear what she ends up choosing. She sounds quite sharp; I’m sure she’ll have some great opps. I also hope you tour Bama; they roll out the red carpet for NMF kids!
My daughter’s choice came down to Mississippi State, Alabama-Huntsville, and St Mary’s in Texas. The latter has ABET-accredited programs in industrial—my daughter’s field—, electrical, computer, and mechanical, so the options are limited, but their merit aid is good (though not worldbeating), and it might could fit into your niche of smaller residential (51% of undergrads live on campus, another solid chunk nearby) colleges.
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