You should really check out Smith. They have good merit (up to $25,000/year) with many of the merit awards including a two year paid research position (STRIDE) starting at the beginning of first year: https://www.smith.edu/academics/applied-learning-research/stride-program. Given that only half the HS population is eligible to apply to Smith (females), the chances of getting merit are that much greater. Good engineering program (general engineering) with solid majors across the board if she decides to switch out. It’s also a very supportive place for women in engineering which not every school can claim. And it’s part of a consortium with Amherst, UMass Amherst, Hampshire and Mount Holyoke. I think it’s a free application, too, with only one short Smith-specific essay added on to the Common App, although an interview might increase her chances for merit.
My D (rising junior) didn’t think she would consider a women’s college either at first. But once she visited one, she was hooked. I strongly encourage you to visit. Many who visit women’s colleges actually end up liking them even after initially thinking there was no way they would apply.
Regarding Swarthmore: in 2017-18, the acceptance rate for women was 9.4% according to the common data set. That’s a reach for anyone. For most liberal arts colleges, there are more female than male applicants, so it’s harder for females to be accepted. Note that it’s generally the opposite for most universities (broad generalization here, so check the common data sets for the individual schools).
If she’s a National Merit Semifinalist, your options expand enormously. 15,000 out of 16,000 Semifinalists become Finalists. Although the actual NM scholarships are quite small, there are a bunch of schools that give HUGE merit scholarship money for National Merit Finalists. Huge, as in, full ride huge. They aren’t going to be the schools at the top of her list, but they have honors colleges, so check them out. There’s a whole forum on CC about this.
This is a brutally busy time for rising seniors. There’s no need for her to visit every school that she eventually applies to.
Point her to information about the Purdue first year engineering program and Case Western’s flexible major options since these are programs that seem to fit her current goals. Encourage her to apply with the understanding that she can visit in the spring after acceptances come out if she’s interested.
@Springbird I hadn’t thought about the difference in acceptance rates for women between the LACs and Universities. Good info.
She’s not a “jock” but she’s athletic and enjoys being a spectator too. She certainly has a nerdy side but I’m not sure I can see her fitting in at a Bryn Mawr type school.
@Otterma, we had kind of planned to do that with Duke. Her lacrosse team stopped their on their teams Spring Break and my daughter loved it, but we decided to hold off on an official visit to see if she gets in. Maybe it’s not a bad plan to apply to a few more without the official visit, then go onsite if she gets accepted.
Some schools’ engineering divisions do not start frosh students in a declared major. Students declare major later after deciding.
However, some of these schools have high college GPA requirements or competitive admission to get into engineering majors that are filled to capacity. Penn State is such a school, as are Purdue and Virginia Tech.
With her stats and your income, they should pile up at least another $15-20K on top of the Medalist. They are really trying to get more girls into the school.
The only caveat is if she is thinking about going into CS, it is tough to transfer in to that major.
Our D is down there on a full tuition plus room and board stipend scholarship. UK wasn’t even on our radar until we heard about the big merit money.
It’s just starting to get the attention of Chicago area students. Almost everyone we know who has been to campus (new buildings everywhere), and seen Lexington was impressed.
I don’t think anyone mentioned this yet, but if your D gets a full tuition or full tuition plus scholarship at a perfectly good, but “lower tier” school, will you still want to spend $20-25K per year for her undergrad degree? It’s something to think about ahead of time and discuss with your student.
We had U Arizona, U New Mexico, ASU, U Alabama and U Kentucky on our short list in 2016 because at that time, all of these schools were offering full tuition or full tuition plus scholarships to our D. Frankly, at the time?, she turned her nose up at all of them.
She tells us she likes UK a lot now, and even stayed down there this past summer with her friends, her job, and her apartment. She went in with enough AP and CLEP credits that she could graduate in 3 years. She will have completed her major this coming year, her junior year. She is planning to add a minor and study abroad next year, “just for fun”. We support that 100% because her generous scholarship keeps costs extremely low.
We are now in a position to help her grad school since we were spared expenses for her UG degree.
@NoKillli, I saw a lot of good things with RPI, but I was discouraged by the NPC. It makes it more interesting if there would be additional merit. My daughters fallback if engineering does not work out is probably a hard science, definitely not CS, so that’s why RPI dropped off.
@Midwest67 that is awesome! Sounds like your D found a great fit. What we’ve discussed with our D is that if she reduces her costs, then the money we would have used for undergrad can be used for grad school.
@prodesse we’ve started looking a little at NMF, but it seems most of the schools are not in her preferred Northeast location. Whenever we get mail from Oklahoma, I smile at her and say, “Go Sooners”? It hasn’t worked yet though.
While this violates her ‘not west of Pittsburgh’ rule, I wanted to suggest USC. They offer a full tuition scholarship
to 100 students and a half tuition to 200 students. The half tuition is automatic, if admitted, for NMF. The full tuition is awarded after an invitational on-campus interview. They are also some other modest awards (extra $5-6K/year) in addition to the full tuition, but I do not know widespread those are.
Both of these schools require early application for scholarship consideration but this application is not considered ED or EA, so does not keep one from applying SCEA elsewhere.
A step back for a moment. What makes her interested in engineering? Any experience? Any of the ECs a top college may look for, to show she’s tested this interest and been honing skills? Collaborative math and science ECs in high school, maybe some outside stem-ish experiences?
I hate to be blunt, but lots of options will be off the table. If you can only pay $100k, but you make over $100k, you’ll be looking at merit aid only. Most privates are $250k or more. Medalist or not (congrats to her, my son was a Medalist too), they aren’t going to give anyone $170k. No highly selective schools will. Why? They don’t need to. Admission is reward enough in their minds. The sweet spot is finding schools she’d like that are buying high stats to climb the rankings. Alabama is a classic example.
As for engineering, if she has ANY inkling, she should start in engineering. it is FAR easier to change majors out of than into engineering.
Lastly, some schools have engineering, but that doesnt mean she’d be well served going there. There’s a massive difference between schools like Smith, Swarthmore and Union, and schools like Purdue. Pitt has a far more robust program as measured by facilities and curriculum than any of those small programs.
Pittsburgh may be a good choice for an undecided engineering student. Students start in a common first year engineering program, with a freshman engineering seminar to help them decide. Unlike Penn State and some other schools, frosh engineering students just need to earn a 2.0 college GPA to choose any engineering major, meaning that should avoid a weed-out or cutthroat-competitive atmosphere.