<p>I read the description of your son and he reminded me of the schools I am looking for. I have found colorado school of mines, which I have fallen in love with and will be attending this coming fall.</p>
<p>colorado_mom: Thanks, He has been receiving and answering the question of the day for some time now. Hopefully that reading score will bump up a little next time.</p>
<p>eyemgh: So true…</p>
<p>berzelio: Good luck next year at CSM. I’ve met several graduates and I know that engineers in my community speak very highly of the school. Negatives for us are rge weather and high OOS tuition. We certainly haven’t ruled it out.</p>
<p>It has been a while so I thought I would post an update (and summary).</p>
<p>My son, who is entering his senior year in HS is still planning on pursuing a degree in ME. In the past 12 months we have visited 10 universities, all while classes were in session. (Miraculously without taking any days off from HS!) We picked the schools considering our sons stated preference for smaller schools as well as his academic record (3.8+W GPA approximately 3.7 U/W, 1320 SAT and 30 ACT (more on this in a moment). Our son has been active in multiple ECs and two varsity sports and has held several elected positions in student government at his school. He is active at our church youth group and has been an Altar Server for 7 years. Since his faith life has been very important we made it a point to visit the Catholic communities on all campuses we visited.</p>
<p>The schools we visited were:</p>
<p>Georgia Institute of Technology
Texas A&M University
Saint Louis University
Texas Tech University
Baylor University
University of Tulsa
Missouri S&T (Rolla)
Rose Hulman Institute of Technology
Colorado School of Mines
Clemson University</p>
<p>Texas A&M is relatively close and a popular choice at my sons HS and Texas Tech is the smallest (student body) of the large Texas public universities strong in engineering so they were included to get a sense of his maximum size threshold. I had mentioned previously that my son prefers a warmer climate but we had to look further north as smaller size was more important to him than staying warm!</p>
<p>The visits were very helpful not only in evaluating the universities visited, but in helping to clarify what were the characteristics he valued the most. To summarize, he wants a smaller university that focuses on engineering or has engineering as one of the universitys most highly regarded areas of study. He wants to be able to have close interaction/relationships with his professors and a supportive career services department to aid in obtaining internships and permanent employment. Academic support is important and weed-out programs are a big negative. The school should have an active Catholic campus community that is located on or near campus. Warm climate is a plus!</p>
<p>After visiting the schools, he eliminated some schools and tentatively ranked the remainders in order of preference. The results:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>University of Tulsa (All around great experience welcoming ME department, perfect size, 50/50 male/female ratio, Catholic church and active Catholic community on campus, Division 1 athletics, etc)</p></li>
<li><p>Clemson University (Strong engineering, warm climate, beautiful campus, incredible school spirit, extremely welcoming environment , Catholic community center near campus)</p></li>
<li><p>Baylor University (tie) Nearby Texas school with welcoming environment, acceptable size with roughly 50/50 male /female ratio, strong Catholic community on campus with a lot of $$$ being put into the engineering programs and facilities.</p></li>
<li><p>Rose Hulman Institute of Technology (tie) Complete engineering focus with Impressive academic and recreation facilities for such a small school. Administration very approachable and faculty is most accessible and focused on teaching over research, though research opportunities are abundant. Impressive career services department. The Catholic community is small and the church some distance away from campus, but administration is supportive of trying to develop a stringer group. </p></li>
<li><p>Missouri S&T - Engineering focused school with low key, down to earth student population, strong career services department, strong, welcoming catholic community on campus and attractive price tag.</p></li>
<li><p>Texas Tech University Large, friendly school with excellent career services, nearby Catholic Church and HUGE campus. The least expensive but largest school by far.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>At the beginning of the summer, our son took both the SAT and ACT a second time. While the SAT score remained relatively unchanged, the ACT composite jumped from 30 to 34! He will also receive recognition for being a National Hispanic Scholar in the fall. The plan is that he will be apply to the six schools above and we will likely have him do some overnight and classroom visits if and when possible after acceptances come in. We are not likely to qualify for any need based aid, but we are hoping for some decent merit awards. With his latest ACT scores, it has been suggested that some higher ranked, more prestigious schools may be options now, but I question whether those schools are likely to give any non need based aid. </p>
<p>Does anyone have any insight or recommendations as to schools that might deserve a look? Any other comments?</p>
<p>Thanks for your help!</p>
<p>The University of Texas at Austin. You get to attend one of the best public schools in the US for 10k a year. With a 34 SAT and 3.7 UW GPA, your son is in. Now, I would only look at other top private colleges like Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, CalTech etc. </p>
<p>There is absolutely no reason to pay 40k a year and attend colleges like Clemson, Colorado School of Mines, Missouri S&T etc. These colleges are either peer institutions of UT-Austin or below UT-Austin.</p>
<p>XtremePower: I am aware of UT Austin’s rankings and reputation in the country for engineering. I also have several friends and colleagues that are happy and successful graduates. However, the school is huge (significantly larger than TTU and even A&M) and we have recent (current and last year) accounts of students we personally know showing up on campus to move in and the school not having dorm rooms identified for them. An incoming freshman we know tried to register for classes during orientation this summer and all sections of her desired classes were closed within 5 minutes when they opened registration during her session. She is trying to work through an advisor to see if she can get in the classes she needs. It is obviously a great school but it doe snot seem to be the right fit for my son and our family. BTW, we are not considering Mines and Missour S&T would be about 10K tuition a year with the scholarship he should receive. (I know that the two schools do not share the same reputation.) Clemson is more of a crap shoot as they are not as generous with OOS merit aid. It could be 20K to 25K tuition a year.</p>
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<p>Sequenced prerequisites which are common in engineering are inherently “weed out” courses.</p>
<p>So happy to hear an update! Congratulations on the excellent scores!</p>
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<p>Point taken!</p>
<p>Still, there seemed to be clear differences between schools in the willingness to aid or resources available to students that might struggling or in need of academic assistance.</p>
<p>With a 34 score, you may be missing out on some major automatic scholarship money (not sure if any of your current schools do that based on ACT score).</p>
<p>I would suggest University of Alabama in this category but it is not small. I suspect Texas Tech probably gives out a big chunk of money. UT Dallas or University of Houston also give large amounts (not on your list either).</p>
<p>If you are looking for scholarship money you need to check if superscores are accepted. University of Alabama for example takes the highest composite score from any one test date.</p>
<p>Montegut: Thanks, He is really excited AND relieved to have that behind him!</p>
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<p>His June ACT was higher in all sections except one so his superscore is still a 34.</p>
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<p>With his grades and the National Hispanic Scholar recognition, he will be eligible to apply to University of Tulsa Presidential Scholarship which provides for full tuition, basic dorm and 19 meal/week plan renewable for a total of four years provided a 3.25 GPA is maintained.</p>
<p>Texas tech shows a $6000 year scholarship though it’s Red Raider (net price) calculator.</p>
<p>I have not looked into University of Houston as I have not heard much mentioned of it’s engineering programs, it’s large size and reputation as being more of a commuter school.</p>
<p>We have considered BAMA and it looks like he might qualify for full tuition unless programs change next year. It is much larger than ideal and some feedback I have received has me wondering if it would be a good “fit.”</p>
<p>I have heard good things about UT Dallas as of late, but need to look into it some more - especially as far as ME is concerned.</p>
<p>Happy independence day everyone!</p>
<p>University of Houston does have the label of commuter school but that is in spite of a large contingent of residents on or around campus. I just looked up TIER ONE scholars which seems quite close to national merit full ride (only catch - asks for top 10% instead of GPA). The school is big on energy and health and they are spending a lot of money on building research facilities and dorms at the moment.</p>
<p>[Eligibility</a> Requirements - University of Houston](<a href=“http://www.uh.edu/tieronescholars/eligibility/index.php]Eligibility”>Eligibility Requirements - University of Houston)</p>
<p>The engineering school is quite good. There is a very popular item on NPR called Engines of Our Ingenuity presented by John Lienhard for a very long time.</p>
<p>[Dr</a>. John Lienhard | UH Department of Mechanical Engineering](<a href=“http://www.me.uh.edu/faculty/lienhard]Dr”>John Lienhard | UH Department of Mechanical Engineering)</p>
<p>Their faculty seems very well rounded and rounded up from some top schools.</p>
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<p>As of this year A&M is larger than Texas.
A&M 52,378
UT 52,213</p>
<p>If you are considering TAMU, I don’t understand why you are not considering UT-Austin ?
Actually, TAMU has more undergrads.
Classes will fill up quickly, there will be classes with 400 people, you might have to live with 7 other people or find an apartment off campus. This is the case at both UT-Austin and Texas A&M for the first two years. So, don’t let that scare you from attending a top University like UT-Austin. I highly recommend adding UT-Austin and UT-Dallas.</p>
<p>I wasn’t aware that TAMU was now equal or larger than UT in terms of undergraduate numbers…</p>
<p>While we visited TAMU, my son is not applying there. He was not comfortable with the size. Currently, he only intends to apply to the six schools that I listed as his “rankings.”</p>
<p>He does not care for TTU either, but we wanted him to apply to at least one state school.</p>
<p>University of Houston may be a great value and UT Austin may be that and more, but if he does not feel comfortable with schools with over 30K undergrads, we are not going to force him to attend. Fortunately he has demonstrated a great work ethic, having commuted 80 miles a day to high school while succeeding in a tough college preparatory curriculum balancing school work, faith life, ECs and varsity sports. While we don’t want to throw money to the wind, we are willing to pay more for a solid education from a school where he is likely to be happy and successful in his academic pursuits, social life and career opportunities. </p>
<p>I will take a look at UT Dallas.</p>
<p>In short, unless a school is simply a “loser” from an engineering career services standpoint, we would prefer a “lesser” smaller school over a “great” huge school.</p>
<p>While Rice University may hit a lot of the right buttons, it would likely be a reach and as such I would guess that he would be unlikely to get any merit based aid. The ROI may not make it worthwhile, from what I hear…</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the feedback!</p>
<p>Definitely take a look at UT-Dallas. A very good engineering school and it fits the small college requirement.</p>