Midwest Engineering School? Ohio State?

Parents Forum
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Hi Parents.

I went to an informational at teen’s school and they mentioned that it doesn’t hurt to have geographic diversity on your college list. Thus far all the schools on our list are in state and east coast because we don’t want teen too far. But that means teen is competing with all the other east coast kids for spots in the same school. I am thinking we should add at least one or two schools that are not in our geographic comfort zone. I think the closest midwestern state to us is Ohio (eight hour drive). I was looking at their engineering program. Does anyone know anything about Ohio State and their engineering program. Are there other fairly close midwestern engineering schools we should investigate?

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Ohio State has some engineering majors that have direct admission, but other majors admit to a pre-major after which the student must go through secondary admission to get into the major.

https://engineering.osu.edu/undergraduate/future-students/admissions/new-students
https://advising.engineering.osu.edu/current-students/applying-your-major

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Excellent school.

What type of engineering ?

What type of stats ? What’s the budget ? WhTz your home state ?

I’m not sure I agree with the counselor. There are plenty of fine east coast engineering schools where the student can likely access and while I don’t know stats, would often be easier admits than OSU.

Part of fit is budget. But part of fit is being comfortable geographically.

Now one could argue a four or five hour flight is as close.

But give us more info.

There’s lots of fine engineering schools.

Ohio State as a university is hige, excellent abd will provide a fine education but if it’s not right for the family, then it’s not right.

Columbus has an easily accessible airport.

Please provide more info as asked and will have ideas. Does the student have preference as to size or urban vs suburban etc.

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U of Pittsburgh has a solid engineering program worth looking into. Extra bonus that they do rolling admission. U of Cincinnati has a great coop based engineering program.

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Teen is interested in Chem Engineering. I try not to put too much of teen’s personal academic info on forums without teen’s permission but I can tell you we are in NY. Our list so far consists of our state flagship schools and some other east coast schools going as far south as NC where we have trusted family members. I think we have a decent mix of target schools; close match (my name for safeties) and one school which is considered a reach by definition. But it occurred to me that every NY aspiring engineer, including those in his H.S. will probably apply to many of these same schools so I want to expand the geographic area a little. I hope that makes sense.

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Yes. It is on our list.

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Teen wants a campus feel. So teen would probably prefer not Urban and teen wouldn’t mind a larger student body.

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As the parent, have you done the financial planning to know what you can afford and communicated the budget to the student?

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New York state schools with chemical engineering appear to be Buffalo, CUNY-CC, SUNY-ESF*, and Stony Brook. Are all of these on the application list?

*Bioprocess engineering at SUNY-ESF is ABET accredited as chemical, biochemical, biomolecular engineering.

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Have done the financial planning. Haven’t communicated budget to teen yet. Just started Junior year. Only at preliminary stage of making list.

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Buffalo and Stonybrook are.

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You may want to ensure that colleges are likely to be affordable (check their net price calculators) before suggesting them. No point in suggesting a college and then telling the student that it is too expensive after the student is admitted.

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I don’t even know what colleges to begin to investigate in the midwest for affordability. That is why I am seeking you all’s suggestions as to what colleges to look into.:blush:

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Actually Pittsburg is on list. Not Cincinnati. I will look into that one. Thanks!

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Start with the net price calculator at each college that you may consider. For example:

https://my.pitt.edu/task/all/oir-npc
https://www.uc.edu/about/financial-aid/tools-resources/net-price-calculator.html

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Will use the price calculator. Thanks! If you know of any colleges in the midwest at which I should look, that would be great.

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If you are willing to go a bit further, Purdue has an excellent Chem E department.

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Some of the usual Midwest suspects:

  • Michigan: enter as engineering undeclared, but need only C grades in prerequisites and 2.0 college GPA to declare a major.
  • Purdue, Minnesota: enter as engineering undeclared; secondary admission automatically admits with a 3.2 college GPA, otherwise competitive.
  • Illinois: admits to major, but changing major later can be highly competitive to some majors.
  • Wisconsin: has weed-out policy; chemical engineering recently required 3.3 technical and 3.0 overall college GPA to stay in the major.
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Unfortunately, if you won’t give the level of stats, etc., it’s sort of hard to make a list. But here’s an all encompassing.

So you can start with the ABET approved schools - and then go toward not “urban” and larger - which would eliminate Pitt. And don’t forget, in some cases flying is better than driving. So let’s say you have a “small budget” and the student had a 4.0 - well maybe U of Arizona with, at today’s $$ and it might change - would be less than $25K for that student and it’s “closer” than driving 8 hours to Columbus…but forgetting that, here’s a list for residing in NY.

But again, I’d say -

  1. You have to be in your comfort zone - so you needn’t “spread” out if it’s not comfortable.

So if I picked and chose states that might be of interest, I see the following and I bolded ones that might deserve more attention (but if we had stats and budget we could then better tie in).

Connecticut - UCONN - ) + U of New Haven and Yale

Delaware - U of Delaware - while it’s not that urban sense, it’s one of the top ChemE programs in the country

DC - Howard - an HBCU

Maine - U Maine - Orono is close to Bangor - not a big area but not nothing - and will likely be inexpensive

Maryland - Johns Hopkins, UMBC, UMD

Mass - UMASS, MIT, UMass Lowell, Northeastern, Tufts

Michigan - depending where in NY you are - Kettering, Michigan State, Michigan Tech, U Michigan, Wayne State

Minnesota - not close - but easy access via plane and a top Chem E so I included

New Hampshire - UNH - train direct to Boston

New Jersey - NJIT, Princeton, Rowan, Rutgers

New York - SUNY Buff, Clarkson (too rural/small), Columbia, Cooper Union, Cornelll, Manhattan, Stony Brook, ESF, NYU, Polytechnic, RPI, RIT, U Rochester, Stony Brook, Syracuse

North Carolina - NC A&T (HBCU) and NC State - Raleigh easy plane access

Ohio - Akron (closer to NY), Case Western, Cincinnati, CWRU, Cleveland State, Dayton (might be too small for your son)?, Miami (rural), Ohio State, Ohio U (rural), Toledo, Youngstown

Pennsylvania - Bucknell (too small), CMU, Drexel, Lafayette, Lehigh, Penn State, Pitt Johnstown, Pitt, Villanova, Widener

Rhode Island - Brown, URI

Virginia - Hampton (HBCU), VCU, Va Tech, UVA

West Virginia - WVU

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Again - this is hard - we don’t know the budget or stats.

I appreciate your wanting privacy - but if your student is a 3.0, it eliminates schools (like Ohio State) or if the budget is $30K, you’ll get a different list than $50K or $80K, etc.

We don’t know your student - so giving random figures (a GPA, I assume a test hasn’t yet happened) - and a budget figure - will get you a more targeted list…

Thanks