Yes, MSEP does help. IUPUI is very affordable, and I know other Chicago suburbanites who sent their kids their and had great things to say about the school. We are going to visit a few this year. My son is going to do some early College classes his summer at Alabama at Tuscaloosa, maybe he will fall in love with it.
I get frustrated when people question the lack of prestige with the schools we are looking at. I just can’t see taking on heavy debt for an undergrad degree. I know some people do it for their kids, but I just can’t imagine doing that at this stage in our lives.
It may come down to getting much better merit at a school that doesn’t have his exact desired major, but does have Chem E and courses in bio-medicial. With the money saved in undergrad, a grad degree is affordable.
Please…just stop talking to others about the college search and selection process. If anyone asks…just say “DS is looking at a variety of colleges. He will let everyone know when he makes his final choice in May.”
Repeat as often as necessary.
If you don’t engage in conversations about college with others…you won’t have the frustration of them critiquing your options.
The big takeaway for me is that I will need to get my son to broaden his horizons on major choice, and not rule out a school because the don’t offer biomedical engineering. I really like the idea of exploring other ways of getting close to what he wants. He will be coming in as a freshman with quite a few credits, so he can easily finish in 3 years or less. He can go for biomedical degrees for graduate school, and be done right around the same time.
Be cautious about pinning your hopes on 3 years or less for any engineering degree: even if he has a enough of the right credits to knock out any distribution requirements, and the uni allows major pre-reqs to be credited through APs (not a guarantee), there are a lot of requirements, the course load is heavy and there are often experience intervals. It could happen- just don’t go in counting on it.
Also, engineering in general is a relatively ‘flat’ course b/c of ABET, so ‘prestige’ is different.
Yes, as above you might not even want to use the credits if allowed, engineering GPA is tough. You may well be advised to not take credit on calc, physics, chem etc. Use the gen eds for sure, but not eng cores unless it is really obvious that your student is going to be successful starting off in the higher level classes. 5s on all solid APs might be worthy of assessment, but less than that, be cautious. .
My daughter is finishing a civil engineering degree. We were talking about what we would have done differently ‘if only we’d known.’
She had no credits going in and was starting at the beginning of everything (calc 1, chem, physics). We both wish we’d understood about DE. She would have knocked off all the writing (English) and history type requirements. I don’t think she would have graduated earlier, but she could have taken fewer credits each semester or she could have taken a few business classes or tried a minor in some other type of engineering or a concentration (environ, water, materials). She’s made it work and will get a job, but it might have been a little more fun if she’d had more wiggle room. She had to take exactly what they told her to take when they told her to take it.
My kid did a bioengineering major…double major with biology. She did have to take a course one summer to graduate in four years…but she made it work. The OP’s kid could do the same.
And my kid had NO credits coming in to apply towards her degree.
Have your son take the ACT. If he is math/science oriented he may do better. The SAT of 1450 is just under what he needs to get the top scholarships. Both my son’s scored a 33 on the ACT. The older one chose to go to Univeristy of Alabama for the full scholarship, plus an additional $2500/year from the College of Engineering. He received scholarship offers from other schools but even with $20,000+/yr the cost was still exorbitant. There are A LOT of students there from out of state because of their generous scholarships, so he is among other top students. They fall into the same financial category, make too much for aid but not enough to pay for tuition. If your son is planning on getting a higher degree, where he gets his undergrad is fairly irrelevant. Save your money for the higher degrees.
Mine also brought in a lot of credits from AP and DE. UA took all of his credits where most of the others wouldn’t, especially the private schools. This knocked out virtually all of his general ed requirements. The only bad aspect of this is this is where you meet other freshmen and mix with students from different majors. My DS is a Computer Science major and has found the others are not as outgoing as he is. This has been a problem for him. Another consideration is UA Tuscaloosa is one of the only schools we found that will let you rolll your unused scholarship semesters toward law and grad school! This is only with their top Presidential Scholarship that requires a 33 ACT/1490 SAT and a 3.5 weighted GPA. This means you could potentially graduate with a undergrad degree and a masters degree covered under scholarship. This would take very careful planning though.
All that being said, he believes the University of Alabama campus in Huntsville is better for science and technology degrees. They also offer full tuition for those stats and even housing for slightly better stats. I believe the campus in Birmingham has a medical school. I am not familiar with that school as much but it might be worth looking into. Dare I say to check out Auburn, Clemson and Univ of Georgia? All also have good scholarships. Mississippi State and Ole Miss also have GUARANTEED scholarships you can look up in charts on their websites, lIke U of Alabama Tuscaloosa and Huntsville.
How much do the family members who think you are “aiming too low” want to contribute?? And do any of them have professional expertise or a kid with similar stats/issues that went through the process recently? Sheesh! Family dynamics can be tricky and not very helpful.
The transfer scholarships are not as good as incoming freshman scholarships. This student sounds like he would qualify for some good freshman scholarships that would save money in the end. Also, he may already have a lot of general education requirements already. The Engineering program coursework has a lot of prerequisite requirements that start freshman year. This would not be a good major to try to cut down time by attending a community college, it likely would cost you more in the end.
I would look at Missouri Science and Technology, Michigan Tech, University of Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Miami Ohio. Some of these don’t have exact major, but close. All offer good (and some very good) merit.
I can say for sure you would get great merit at Kansas State and they have the major. We were lucky and people were happy with our decision. Son is pre-vet and loved the opportunities K-State has to offer. His friends are high performing engineering majors and they all love it there! I get frustrated here when everyone talks so much about the prestige and “lesser” colleges. I see kids getting great jobs all over out of K-State and Iowa State and Oklahoma State and Miami of Ohio. Don’t let it get to you. Go where you find the right price and the right match!
Check out those schools in the Mid west tuition exchange program that would give your son in state tuition rate. Also, Purdue is not far off from UIUC and they do have a lot of merit aids. It may bring the CoA down to your in state level.