Glad your daughter applied only where she wants to go. That’s smart.
Her friend I don’t get. But she’s the exception.
When I read I’m sad my kid got into only three, that alarms me. You only need to get in one
A baseball player would love to have ten at bats and get 3 hits.
BTW engineers are looked at differently. Even at UF where you don’t get accepted by major. Except for the Santa Fe track they have for engineers. That doesn’t happen to the kid applying to geography. He gets rejected.
Even a school with less restrictive transfer policies, you’ll have needed a different level of math and science.
So if someone can back door and it’s unlikely at top schools, they’ll likely take longer to graduate. If I were to try this, I’d try to go in as a physics or math major. But I wouldn’t advise it given there are a boatload of like schools to get a degree from.
In other words, congrats to your daughter, but do you honestly think any company cares whether a grad is from UF or Auburn ?
Unless they have a school tie (I’ve seen some job listings - Michigan tech students only) they don’t or won’t.
Mostly bc Rutgers and other NJ public colleges are still not affordable or good deals. All in, we would pay just a few thousand dollars more for my daughter to go to UF over Rutgers.
I think your child can make a list of what he’s looking for and what is a deal breaker. If he doesn’t like cold weather, then there are a lot of that should come off the list (although, really, schools in cold areas are built for cold weather, some have tunnels, most have indoor activities and ways to deal with the cold weather). MIT can get pretty cold but people tend to overlook that if they want to go to MIT. If he doesn’t like the deep south (are Florida and Texas okay?), well cross those off. You’ll be losing some really good schools, but that’s okay, there are really good schools in other areas of the country.
You//he just need to decide which things are deal breakers. Do you prefer Maryland over Missouri? That’s great. Want a co-op requirement? Drexel or Cincinnati might be of interest. Looking for money over some other factor (ranking, sports, weather)? Then the NMF or some named scholarship might be better. I thought the Arizona suggestion was good for weather, money, close to So Cal but student may have another idea.
We aren’t discussing employers. Possibly your first employer cares about what school you went to? After that, none do. But that’s a separate issue and one that the original poster has to decide.
I have to say, I’m glad my post has created some controversy. There is a lot to consider and yes, maybe our culture pushes too much for the “name” schools.
USC’s NMF scholarship is half tuition. Housing is not included. USC also awards approximately 100 full-tuition Trustee scholarships/year. Obviously, it is very competitive. Your son has the academics to get in. He just needs to work on telling them why he would be a good fit.
I would suggest visiting campus, take both a general tour and the Viterbi (engineering) tour. Attend Discover USC in October. Have him work on his essays and really tell who he is and what he wants to do with his life. They know that things might change, but he should give them an idea of where his mind is at now. Make sure that his “Why USC” essay tells them how he sees himself on their campus and how he will add to their community. Look at Viterbi Voices, Engineering Plus and Grand Challenges.
For the UCs, he should use every possible space on that application to tell them who he is, what he did, what he can contribute to the campus community and, if possible, the larger, more global community.
UCSB Admissions You Tube - If you scroll down to the bottom, they have videos for counselors. They are long but they give good insight into the admissions process.
This video speaks specifically about they how might select one engineering applicant over another with equal stats.
The minimum GPA for cross campus transfer is 2.5. The minimum GPA for a transfer student from an outside institution is 3.0.
The minimum GPA is not a guarantee of admission to Michigan COE.
And with the new “advanced selection” policy for CS, I can’t imagine transfering into CS will be easy. Here’s the transfer brochure, but the new 2022-2023 CDS states the transfer acceptance rate as 37% is for ALL undergrads.
For enrolled 2021-2022 transfers, per the brochure, the average GPA was an uwGPA of 3.8.
I have not followed this thread but for interschool transfer at Michigan look at this.
So at Michigan they want their students taken care of. My son wanted to pursue Actuarial Science for a few minutes but once started knew he wanted to go into engineering instead so he did a cross campus transfer outlined above. He was accepted by Feb 1 of his Freshman year for the transfer for that upcoming fall. No big deal. You have to write another essay and meet the requirements. They are not always just the minimum. Everyone is looked at holistically (sound familiar). So you can meet the minimum and still not be accepted. Nothing in life is guaranteed.
Also Michigan is very hard. Especially engineering. Their saying is getting a B here is like getting an “A” almost anywhere else. So getting the minimum can be much harder then you think. This is very difficult to phantom for the these excellent students applying. Also get ready for your GPA to drop even with you studying all the time. Like I said. It’s a very hard school and it’s not said enough.
for aero, I would say just take the cheapest option in the colleges you suggested on the list. Most of these schools offer the same courses, labs, and clubs. All of them compete in the superport america tourney and the FSAE tourneys. The professors are usually adjuncts so the faculty is also shared throughout the year (not all but at least a good 40%). In your list, all the colleges are highly acclaimed and offer similar grad salary and feeds into top master programs too. My preferences here would be Gtech, Purdue, or an In-state option. Would not suggest UCB (it’s very mechanical engineering). I will mostly be committing to UIUC this fall and wish you the best off luck!
These are great tips since we are focused on California schools. So far we have visited USC and SLO with official tours but he has been to Berkeley (wife’s Alma mater), Stanford and UCLA for more casual looks. He walked around MIT and Harvard campuses during a trip to Boston last year. He has also been to my Alma mater Michigan. We have family in the Midwest which makes this region more familiar.
We did some thinking and talking today as a family and thought through S24s priorities….academics and being in a solid engineering program is number one. Prestige is not the draw for the big names but more what may come with those schools ie opportunities for research, etc.
A reasonable budget for us is around 40- 50 per year. We created a preliminary list of schools that meet his academic and location preferences:
Safeties:
Embry Riddle Florida
UC Boulder
Colorado Mines
RPI
Reach/target:
UCLA
UCB
UCSD
UCD
UCI
UCSC
USC
Cal Poly SLO
Purdue
Michigan
UW Madison
UIUC
Georgia tech
UT Austin
High reach:
MIT
CalTech
Stanford
Princeton
S24 is a very easy going kid and this makes it harder to decide on deal breakers other than his major but he is dead set on engineering so trying to transfer in is not an option he is willing to take but would rather go to a less prestigious school and learn what he wants.
I’ll defer to those who know more than me but I would put UCLA, Berkeley, and possibly UCSD engineering, in the high reach category as well. It will really come down to how he presents himself in the non academic portion of his application (PIQ, Activities & Awards and 2 additional comment sections).