Looking for safety schools that offer Civil Engineering

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

My son’s GPA is 3.4 , 4.1 weighted, and has a 33 ACT. He is just a regular kid who plays a couple of varsity sports; no remarkable extracurriculars or accomplishments. His top schools based on campus visits are UW-Madison, Purdue, U Illinois, and Rose-Hulman. Cost is not a factor and we would like schools that have a focus on undergraduate teaching. He did not like MSOE. Any suggestions?

2

Does he want to stay in the midwest?

3

Well, the first three you mention are major research universities and probably don’t meet the “focus on undergraduate education” criterion very well. Rose Hulman certainly does and while he did not like MSOE, there are other [url="<a href=“http://theaitu.org%22%5DAITU%5B/url”>http://theaitu.org"]AITU[/url] schools which might be more compatible with him and offer a smaller, more student-focused environment.

4

Automatic admission at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, if he has the needed high school course work (which includes a year of art or a score of 3 on an AP art test): http://www.sdsmt.edu/Admissions/Apply/Admissions-Requirements/

Automatic full ride scholarship at Louisiana Tech University, and automatic full tuition scholarship at Howard University (first come first served), University of Mississippi, and Prairie View A&M University: http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/

University of Alabama would be an automatic full tuition scholarship plus $2,500 with a 3.5 GPA and 30 ACT for out-of-state engineering majors. Unusually(?), it considers weighted GPAs printed on high school transcripts, so he may make it.

5

Thanks for your replies:

  1. He is indifferent to location.
  2. The big schools I’ve listed are reaches for him, maybe Rose-Hulman as well. But they all were chosen for the reputation of the Civil Engineering programs plus convenience to our hometown near Chicago.
  3. Any east coast schools come to mind? Butler and Lehigh I think are reaches.Villanova or Lafayette?
  4. We know several people at Alabama but they report that it is hard to find revelant internships back home.
6

if you’re looking for a match, I’d look at WPI, IIT and Case Western, all AITU schools.

For safeties look at New Mexico Tech, Utah, Colorado State and Wyoming in addition to those already mentioned.

7

Missouri University of Science and Technology would be another good, solid safety while carrying the added benefit of staying relatively close.

8

For admissions only (not scholarships or financial aid), there is this list of schools with automatic admission criteria. You and he can go through the list to see what schools with civil engineering he qualifies for automatic admission at. If cost really is not a problem at any college, then such schools can be safeties if he like them:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1562918-updated-list-of-schools-with-auto-admit-guaranteed-admission-criteria-p1.html

9

IIT is definitely a match for him but that may be too close to home…

10

Any opinions about Bradley or Valparaiso?