<p>I am blown away by the Asian credentials in the "What are my chances?" threads. Any advice would be greatly appreciated on not only where I could get into an electrical engineering school with my resume, but more importantly where I would have a chance at actually finishing a degree with a 2.75 to a 3.1?
HERE GOES SIMPLE & SWEET:</p>
<p>Hispanic/NativeAmerican/Finnish Female
3.8GPA (4.0 max @ high school)
Math, Science, English Latin AP & AC classes
Expected ACT 26 to 29
Middle School Regional S.F. winner, Intel participant this year
4 years high school Ice Hockey + 2 yrs of season AAA (1st team League)
4 years golf (one of longest hitters in state @260 yds.)
4 years high school tennis
Level III ice hockey ref. (1st female ref in region)
Co-Founder/Chairman Alzheimers unit social Buddies (60 hours)</p>
<p>No robotics club, chess club, marching band, violin first chair, or 5 million other awards. I work extremely hard at skill-based sports and academics. </p>
<p>I might be able to get into U. of Michigan and do great in school of liberal studies, but I truly question surviving in the EE or any engineering department there. (I am a Michigan resident, and my High School is heavily recruited by Michigan). Could anyone suggest a tier of Engineering schools that might be a good fit or any programs in particular. </p>
<p>Iowa State?
Arizona State?
CalPoly?</p>
<p>I visited U of Texas, loved the school, EE dept., etc. I probably have no chance here as it may be ranked too high and my credentials too low. </p>
<p>It depends on the region. If you live in big cities, you will find a civil engineering job much more easily than an EE job. Overall, you will find civil engineering positions just about everywhere you go, while that isn't the case with some of the other engineering degrees. Every town, no matter how small, has at least one civil engineer working for the municipal gov't. CivE is pretty much the safest route you can take if you don't have a preference.</p>
<p>When I was going to career fairs in New York looking for internships, it was rare for less than 1/2 the companies to be civil engineering related. Maybe a handful were looking for EE's, and almost none were looking for chemEs. Of course, this is an extreme case, and I don't expect this at other places in the country, but civil engineering jobs are far from few.</p>
<p>First off do whatever kind of engineering interests you. If its civil do civil, if its EE do EE, do what you like. You're a step ahead of the game by having an engineering degree in the first place. </p>
<p>Anyway, you could get in to just about anywhere except maybe the CalTechs and MITs, and quite possibly even there (Hispanic/Native American girl in engineering, you could not possibly ASK for a better set up for admissions.) Texas might have weird admissions because of the 20% rule or whatever the number is but give it a shot, you might be surprised.</p>
<p>Now, I'll be the first to admit that engineering is hard. It's very hard. The work is challenging and there is a lot of it at times. Heck, theres a lot of it pretty much all the time. It's going to be hard anywhere thats worth going, though. Yes, it'll be harder at some schools, but if you can put forth the work it sounds like you're bright enough to do well. Make sure where you're looking has a good engineering school/career advising but "where would I be happy for 4+ years can move up your criteria list a bit here. If you're looking for something out east you should look at Virginia Tech. :) We've got an excellent engineering school and an excellent careers program. And I've pimped out VT enough for today so I'll go to sleep.</p>
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Anyway, you could get in to just about anywhere except maybe the CalTechs and MITs, and quite possibly even there (Hispanic/Native American girl in engineering, you could not possibly ASK for a better set up for admissions.)
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<p>Yeah, but, honestly, would she really be able to get a 2.75-3.1 GPA at MIT or Caltech? I don't want to be overly harsh to the OP, but her ACT score would, frankly, put her in a rather low percentile relative to most other students at those 2 schools. Even the top students often get quite poor grades in engineering at those schools, with a significant percentage of them flunking out entirely. </p>
<p>What I would say is that, if I was her, even if I did get into MIT or Caltech, I wouldn't go. Don't get me wrong. I like those 2 schools a lot. But for most people, they're just too hard. That is, unless you're a super-genius, you should probably not consider these schools.</p>
<p>sakky, I don't think MIT or Caltech is a lot harder than other schools. I'm currently at a state school (ranked 30th in the nation, one of the best state schools in the NE USA... in other words, no where near MIT) and I think I would be a decent student had I got in. Why? I've compared my coursework/exams/quizzes with those posted on MIT OCW's website... not much difference. I'm learning the same thing. Now, it may also depend on the professor's teaching style, but in the end - I'm the type of person where I learn by myself on my own structured time. I could also do at least 85% of the questions posed in those exams. I've looked through their labs... somewhat of the same complexity. I've looked through their lecture notes... they were comparable. In some cases, I think my courses had better lecture notes in almost all the EE classes.</p>
<p>No doubt MIT is great for college, but material wise, you should be learning the same thing. The thing that would matter other than that is the quality of teaching by the professors, research currently going on (but as an undergraduate, it's a little more harder to do research with a professor, but still attainable), and prestige amongst employers. It's not the school that determines what you learn, it is solely dependent on the individual.</p>
<p>And also, if I'm interpretting this correctly, her ACT scores will say NOTHING about her ability to succeed in engineering. My history: I got a 1110 two times on the SATs (when they were out of 1600)... not that good, actually probably below average. My AP classes were good, but my SAT wasn't that good. I still got into a decent engineering school (which is heavily recruited by many employers and has decent research going on) and I'm doing really well. I've learned to adjust my attitude and know when and how to study. That is the most important element. SAT or ACT scores will tell you literally NOTHING about how you will do in college. It's just one of those tests you have to get out of the way.</p>
<p>OP, would you be interested in IE? UMich's IE program is ranked 2nd in the country and I see plenty of girls there so you should fit right in. I like your thread title btw.</p>
<p>In every company that I've been to, IE's have been useless. It isn't very much technical and pretty boring. If you're thinking about EE/ChemE/ME, then stay on that track. You will not enjoy IE if you're interested in the other fields. IE is booring. When I interned last summer with some IEs, it was almost stupid. They knew what the problems were, but didn't fix them! They just sat down in their 4 person cubicle... complaining. You don't need an IE degree to do IE work in real life, seriously.</p>
<p>undefined, I know some hardcore engineers have a negative view of IEs due to various reasons. The most obvious one IMO is that the effort vs. reward ratio for IE's is higher than most other engineering majors. If IEs are truly that "useless" like you described, how come so many companies offer IEs similar salaries as other engineering majors? Calling something boring is totally a personal opinion, i.e. I think Nascar is very boring but I think many will disagree with me. Have you looked at the IE curriculum? Do you understand what kind of things IEs study? When I was undecided last year, an ME told me that he could IE stuff. I've been taking several ME classes and none of them talks about supply chain management, probability and stats, or finance. I agree that IE isn't very good if you plan on doing very technical engineering stuff but it's very good for finance, management, or general engineering stuff.</p>
<p>Ok, I know I was being a little biased in my post above :)</p>
<p>But... I hardly see any openings for IEs (barely a few). There aren't many employers looking for people with experience in "general engineering stuff." </p>
<p>Usually, when you want an engineering manager to manage a project, it will be someone who has direct technical experience in that field. For example, if you work at Intel and you want someone to lead your Wireless Technology Group, you'll want someone who has experience in the field (most likely an EE who has worked as a wireless engineer for a considerable amount of time in the field).</p>
<p>Also, what type of engineering school do you go to where they do not have EE/MEs/CEs take probability & statistics? That's kind of odd. I had to take it too (with the IE dept), and god let me tell you - the professor was terrible at teaching. The MEs had to take it and the CEs had to take it.</p>
<p>Supply chain management isn't engineering. This is why I'm skeptical as to why IEs are even engineers...? Okay... maybe they can be, because they "optimize" stuff. But, I have friends in Accounting who work with SCM... so where's the engineering really?</p>
<p>Also, where are you getting this ratio about it being better than other engineering majors? Can you provide sources? I'm really interested in reading about this.</p>
<p>And I also agree with you on another thing: Nascar >is< boring.</p>
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But... I hardly see any openings for IEs (barely a few). There aren't many employers looking for people with experience in "general engineering stuff."
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<p>oh really? I wonder why Honda and BMW specify they want IEs?</p>
<p>OK, MEs and other engineers take one probability and stats class (at my school) but IEs take several. I wouldn't say I could do someone else's job if I only had taken one class in that subject. Engineering is a very broad term. I can't think of an engineering major that covers everything in an IE curriculum. Calling another major useless and hopeless simply makes yourself sound arrogant and ignorant. What happens if your future boss is a BBA major and knows jack about what you do? You're gonna tell him the same thing that you posted here today? I doubt it because your paycheck is in his hand. At the end, not everyone wants to be a hardcore engineer. Some people prefer to meet people and make money. :)</p>
<p>edit: sorry to the OP for going off topic. i think UMich is a good deal/fit if you're in-state regardless of what (engin) majors you pursue. another nice thing about Michigan is that most programs are highly ranked in case you decide to switch major.</p>
<p>There definitely are plenty of openings for industrial engineering majors. Was it redbeard that made a post about that a little while back? Many positions that IE's take probably aren't engineering specific, but may be in the finance or consulting field. Those are industrial engineering jobs, but they hire plenty of IEs for them. </p>
<p>undefined, I'm not sure where you're getting all these ideas about employment in the industrial engineering and civil engineering fields. Here are the numbers of workers in industrial, civil, and electrical engineering that I got from the BLS:</p>