Wow, thank you for that list! Some of those colleges we’ve heard about (Rose Hulman and Stevens visited my son’s high school), but a lot of new schools to look at.
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Thanks again everyone!
The $45K number is more of a guideline than a hard and fast number. But I think it makes sense. I have 2 more kids going to college and I’ve told them I would give them each a set amount to start life if they gave me a plan on how they want to spend it. College being the most straightforward. It seems like not a great idea to go into much debt for undergrad when there are so many good schools…
My son has done the math and said he could do 2 years at CC and then transfer to Virginia Tech and he’d have like $30-40K left over to go to grad school or buy a car or whatever else he needs. But it’s also hard to quantify what things like research opportunities and internships are worth, as well as being surrounded by like minded peers for a full four years.
When my two other kids go to school, I think we’ll qualify for more need based aid, but i’d rather not count on that.
Another fun fact, I looked up out of state scholarships for Michigan State and they have one for the children and grandchildren of Michigan State alums… and my mother-in-law graduated from there, as well as almost everyone on that side of the family. They’d love it if he went there.
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I think Florida offers in-state tuition if Grandparents live in FL. Might be competitive though.
I agree with your philosophy. Engineering is typically fair play with opportunities. As long as school is ABET accredited and student works hard the outcomes will even out.
S21 took a lower cost option and is keeping the money. Not a bad way to go. S20 spent his money but he upgraded to a better school by graduating in 3 years with AP and CC credits. Overall cost is same as our in-state.
I still think WVU would be a great safety or better. Low cost and Morgantown has changed in the last 20 years. They also have a med school on campus if he moves to biology. Pitt also would work but cost would be a little over $45k most likely. Research opportunities are fantastic. If interested apply ASAP.
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It’s interesting… in some ways since my son does not have a dream school, is really flexible, and has very little ego in terms of feeling like he needs to keep up with his peers in prestige - this makes it easier, in that he’s not going to be disappointed by not getting into his dream school or whatever. He has some friends who are amazing students and ambitious and are working on 6 hours of sleep or less a night and have tons of EC that are going to be a bit disappointed when they don’t get into XYZ school, b/c XYZ school has way more amazing applicants than space to give to amazing applicants.
On the other hand, I’m finding there are lots of very good choices out there, and narrowing it down to a manageable list is the challenge. LOL.
Cost and geography are two great ways to thin the herd. We used it as a guideline for schools. We budged on both but at least it helped to narrow the focus.
Set a budget and stick to it. If a school is over budget make sure merit is a possibility. We used our in-state flagship which is expensive (Pitt, Temple and PSU). S20 had two schools that were about $5k over budget but fantastic opportunities. We budged. He’s at Georgia Tech. Worth every penny so far.
We also used 5 hour drive or 2 hour direct flight. Kids get sick or hurt or they just need a weekend at home. They wreck cars too and need help. We budged again for S21. He had a great opportunity at FSU.
Remember to apply to Honors programs. Some are very good. Some not so much.
Good luck.
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There’s lots of “choices” out there any kid can thrive at - in large part that’s up to the kid.
Budget is the first qualifier. Set a $ - and flat out remove anything above that which has no merit.
You need at least one school - that’s a safety that’s a guarantee cost meet - whether it’s Bama, GMU, VCU - whatever.
Then the rest have to “potentially” meet budget. Example - Wash & Lee - we were full pay and I wasn’t paying $80K. But they have the Johnson Scholarship and others and it’s not impossible - so my daughter went for it. Didn’t get money - but it had potential whereas Cornell or Georgetown didn’t.
If your son likes a Michigan or UVA, he probably doesn’t like small or mid size schools - so take those off.
If he wants to be in warm weather, take off cold.
If he wants to be in society, take off rural, etc.
There are many ways to reduce the list.
Many schools require zero extra work other than a 10 minute questionnaire on common app - so those are easy applies and he might decide to go more. If you get on college’s info lists (if he’s a senior it may be too late), you’ll get some app waivers, etc.
In the end, he can only go to one - but it’s not as if only one out there will satisfy him.
So you chop that way - if he’s not been to a mid or smaller school, take him to one local. If he’s not been to a rural school, take him to radford or Frostburg - just to see what one is like, etc. Once he says - oh yeah - just large schools - then figure a weather or distance - and make a list. Cost them out to see if they work…and you’ll have a great list.
Doesn’t have to be huge - if it’s got one he’ll like (has he been to VCU) and it will be affordable.
Does he have any specific interests - cars, aerospace - there are some schools maybe that have a better track record than others in certain areas. For cars, many have Formula SAE but not everyone has ecoCAR which is super cool - as an example -they’re working on an EV for the challenge that just started, using a Cadillac Lyric.
That’s just an example - but if he has a specific interest, he might be able to find a school with activities to help grow it outside the classroom, etc.
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Wow, Georgia Tech is a great school, congratulations. I’d agree that that’s worth a $5K budge. It’s a far reach for my son, but we have family in Atlanta. Given the odds of getting in he probably won’t apply, but it’s a great school that would be in a great location for him.
Good point about location… we could try limiting to a couple hours drive from where we have family. DC area, Atlanta area, Phoenix area, Los Angeles Area, San Fran area, Traverse City Michigan, Flint and Lansing.
I’m bummed Georgetown didn’t have better scholarship opportunities for your daughter. My wife and both went there and we donate to their scholarship fund (we don’t donate a lot, they aren’t naming buildings after us) since that’s how my wife was able to afford to go there (her family couldn’t afford to pay anything, so she did it through a bunch of scholarships and work studies and only had like $20K in debt). I was hoping there’d be more opportunities for people to go there now.
I also got my master’s degree from UVA engineering and I donate to their scholarship fund… I’d like to think they’d offer more merit scholarships for kids that earn it (as well as need based scholarships)
It’s fine - we went on the tour (and GW and AU - we missed UMD unfortunately) - and they said, we are need based only. It’s their right - it’s their school.
It’s how you learn - there’s always something to learn. So that night in the hotel I found and eliminated all the same schools off the list -goodbye Franklin & Marshall, goodbye Cornell, etc. It’s a way to cut the list.
She also took off NYU and BU - because she hated GW. She loved AU - so we knew suburban and/or close to city access could work, etc.
There’s always something to learn - why it’s important to visit - even schools not on your list if you are nearby.
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Atlanta opens up UGA, Clemson and Auburn. All are probably around two hour drives or less. Lots of direct flights to Atlanta.
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My son has a soccer teammate who has an older sister who was a near 4.0 student with high test scores, who did not plan for a safety school and didn’t get into any of her schools. She had to scramble at the last minute and got into VCU’s engineering program for biomedical engineering and apparently loves it – she’s gotten to participate in some brain research as a freshman, and has now gotten into their honors program as a sophomore. So that’s how it made our list.
My brother went there for grad school and loved it so we’ve been a few times, my son thought it was fine. Neither loved it nor hated it.
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How would you differentiate having “earned it” amongst a candidate pool that a majority has near perfect credentials? Schools such as Georgetown or UVA are in the enviable position of drawing an applicant pool from which they could populate their incoming classes multiple times over with students in the top 10% of most objective measures such as GPA, test scores etc.
It seems most equitable and institutionally well serving within a pool such as this to make the school more accessible to a broader number of students based on meeting financial need versus having to somewhat arbitrarily dole out merit amongst comparably qualified students.
For what it is worth I was on the wrong side of this financial dynamic personally but I believe my children benefited by sharing an academic community with kids that otherwise couldn’t afford to attend their schools.
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I agree that Speed is a great choice. They modeled their program on Cal Poly’s Learn by Doing
I also agree with many others who have said stick to the budget that works for your family. Engineering is meritocratic. Those hiring base the bulk of their decisions on classes, jobs and projects, more than school name.
My son is an engineer. He chose to pass up an opportunity to go to Stanford for his MS because the finances didn’t make sense. It didn’t seem to hurt him. He’s been out a little over 3 years. He’s at a startup, but is being routinely headhunted by multiple FAANG companies.
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No, this is fair… I just get hung up on the overall costs of these schools. It seems crazy to me most of the times.
There are a bunch of kids that fall into the category of not qualifying for financial aid, but paying $300K for 4 years of education is a huge burden. But the truth of the matter is if a kid is that smart and driven that they got into those schools and they come from a nice enough home that they didn’t qualify for financial aid, they’re probably going to be fine at other more affordable institutions and giving money to a kid from less favorable economic backgrounds would do more “good”.
I guess what I’m really saying is I wish these schools would just cost a lot less in general… but supply and demand is a real thing.
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The infamous donuthole conundrum. It can be a little frustrating at first glance but I’d rather fall in that bucket. Especially when you see family and friends scrambling to pay for college.
You just have to look a little harder and set a hard budget. There’s still plenty of top-notch schools that fill the need.
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If you wanted to base college selections on geographic proximity to family, these are the ABET-accredited schools in bio/biological engineering that are within 3 hours of the cities mentioned (or are in-state Virginia publics). I ignored schools that you mentioned were out (Georgia Tech) or that were unlikely to be acceptances or in-budget (like Johns Hopkins).
D.C. area (used Fairfax, VA as location for mapping purposes)
- Catholic U.: 46m
- U. of Delaware: 2h49m
- U. of the District of Columbia: 39m
- Drexel: 2h53mm
- George Mason
- George Washington
- U. of Maryland – College Park
- Rowan: 2h59m
- Temple: 3h1m
- Virginia Commonwealth: 1h47m
- Virginia Tech: 4h3m
- U. of Virginia: 1h57m
- Widener: 2h35m
Atlanta area
- U. of Alabama – Birmingham: Well-known for medical/biomedical fields. 2h15m from Atlanta
- Auburn: 1h46m to Atlanta
- Clemson: 2h18m to Atlanta
- U. of Georgia
Phoenix area
- Arizona State: 18m to Phoenix
- U. of Arizona: 1h43m to Phoenix
- Grand Canyon
Los Angeles area
- California Baptist: 1h28m to L.A.
San Francisco area
- U. of the Pacific: 1h50m
Traverse City, MI area
Flint, MI area
- U. of Michigan – Dearborn: 1h13m (1h23m to Lansing)
- U. of Toledo: 1h37m (1h49m to Lansing)
- Wayne State: 1h2m (1h25m from Lansing)
Lansing, MI area
- Indiana Institute of Technology: 2h10m
- Lawrence Technological (1h13m from Lansing or 1h1m from Flint)
- Michigan State
- Trine (1h28m)
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Wow! You are a rock star… thank you!
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Someone mentioned Louisville (ie Speed) earlier… I just looked it up, and this is also an interesting option. Probably already known to people who helped out but in case someone else is browsing this and had questions similar to mine… they estimate … so, basically, at first they estimate that it would be about $20K per semester, which is under my budget, but more expensive than other comparable programs… plus they put a summer semester in year 1… but then you start getting into Co-ops where the student gets paid by companies and they estimate a net profit for students even after room and board. They do anticipate summer co-ops and summer semesters during your 4 years, so the kids don’t have a long break. But it seems like an interesting way to switch from classroom to experiential learning. They estimate the whole thing would cost about $140K (or about $35K per year). Not bad.
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You can co op at most any school. My kid just wanted to intern. Schools like Northeastern, Cincinnati and Drexel are known for them but my son’s school pushes them, one of his intern colleagues was actually an ole miss co op. If he wants to co op, he will be able to at pretty much any school I think.
Some want to. Some don’t. They want to stay traditional.
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There are 16 round trip shuttles from the Atlanta Airport to Auburn University daily plus an additional 3 more on Friday through Monday. Easy to get to/from Auburn.
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