Need advice on engineering schools (how am I doing in my search?)

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I've been wandering this boards for a month or two, and I've recently started my college search (I just finished my junior year). I like to think I have an idea of what I'm doing but just in case, I'm asking for advice. :D</p>

<p>So here's my info:
-Caucasian, Male
-Illinois resident
-My family brings in about 100k a year (not expecting need-based aid, but we already sent my older sibling through college, and I heard somewhere that makes a difference)</p>

<p>------Standardized Tests
-First ACT....... E:26, M:30, R:32, S:27, Composite: 29
-Second ACT... E:29, M:33, R:28, S:30, Composite 30
-SuperScored.. E:29, M:33, R:32, S:30, Composite 31
-SATII: Chemistry: 730
US History: 750</p>

<p>I'm taking Math I, Math II, and Literature next test date. I'll send whichever math is required or more impressive score-wise.</p>

<p>I just took the ACT again June 11th, I'm not going to speculate how I did because I have no idea honestly. I plan on taking it as many times as I can because I do not think these are accurate representations of me.</p>

<p>-------School Work
-Freshman: No honors (No AP offered)
-Sophomore: 1 honors (No AP offered)
-Junior: 3 honors, AP Chem, AP USH
-Senior: 2 honors, AP English Lit, AP Physics B, AP Calc AB, AP Bio
-Total UW GPA: 3.8
-Total W GPA: 4.4
-Barely making top 10% of my Class (19/220 I believe)</p>

<p>-I started out on the medium level math track at my school, and jumped up by taking CC math courses.</p>

<p>-------EC: not much compared to some people here :(
-Trumpet playing (7.5 years)
-Private Lessons (7 years)
-School Jazz band 9 10 11 12
-School Marching band 9 10 11 12
-School Wind Ensemble 9 10 11 12
-Marching band "Section Leader" 12
-Co-Principle trumpet in Illinois All-State orchestra (by audition) 11 (hopefully 12)
-Principle trumpet in District Orchestra (by audition)10 11 (most likely 12)
-Regional Youth Orchestra (audition) 10 11
-High school solo performance awards 9 10 11 (probably 12)
-I volunteer by playing taps at my local American Legion post for funerals, veterans day, and other memorial services
-Eastern Illinois University Chemistry Contest - 2nd Place Individual
-National Honor Society 11 12</p>

<p>-------Other things...
- As far as Recommendations go... they'll be pretty weak. I'm a pretty shy kid, and I don't think I've made any outstanding impressions on any of my teachers
- For essays, I like to think I'm a decent writer, and I already lined up a few of my school's English teachers who might read them over for me.</p>

<p>-----What I want in a college...
-I don't know which flavor of science I like the most yet but I know I'm interested in physics/astronomy/chemistry/practically any engineering major.
-Whatever it is I end up choosing I want the school to have a good amount of strength in my major.
-I would prefer a school with at least some name recognition, not a big deal if it doesn't though
-I'm not really a party person so I would like that to not be big part of my experience
-I live in a 98% white (No, I'm not a racist. I get asked this all the time.), semi-rural town of about 7,000. I want to live somewhere with a larger population, that is more diverse.</p>

<p>-----Colleges on my list as of now...
University of Washington Seattle - Safety
University of Colorado Boulder - Safety
Purdue -Match
Penn State - Match
North Carolina State - Match
RPI - Match
UC Davis - Match
UC Santa Barbara - Match
UC San Diego - High Match
University of Maryland College park - High Match
UIUC - High Match (First Choice)
RIT - High Match
UT Austin - High Match
University of Southern Cal - Low Reach
Virginia Tech - Low reach
Northwestern - Low Reach
UCLA - Reach
Carnegie Mellon - Reach
Cornell - High Reach
UC Berkeley - High Reach</p>

<p>----My questions for all of you are...
1. Am I being too ambitious with my college search? Should I be looking at lower tier engineering schools?
2. Am I accurately ranking these schools(match, reach, safety-wise) for my profile?
3. Do you recommend adding/removing schools from my list?
4. I have spoken to my father, and he said he would be comfortable with contributing 20k a year. Is there any chance of me getting some merit aid to reduce the total cost of some of these OOS colleges?
5. Any other advice you have to offer?</p>

<p>Thanks! I hope it wasn't too long :D</p>

2

<p>

Once your sib is through college they are not considered in FAFSA calculations. You have a lot of privates and OOS schools on your list, and you’re limited to $20K to pay? To my knowledge none of the OOS public Us you have listed will give you merit aid (definitely not the UCs).</p>

3

<p>You should have no trouble getting into UIUC with your stats. $20k leaves you about $13K short of the cost of attendance for UIUC instate engineering school. Add $5500 in Stafford loan, that still leaves you $7500 short. Given the current state financial situation, I wouldn’t count on any aid, either need-based or merit (though one never knows). Is either of your parents perhaps a veteran? If so, you might qualify for the children of veterans tuition waiver.</p>

<p>A private school might offer enough merit aid to make it competitive financially.</p>

<p>That said, it’s hard to beat the quality of the engineering school at UIUC.</p>

4

<p>you have toomany schools. if you must get some aid, remove ALL OOS publics. </p>

<p>match for uiuc and purdue, both good eng. schools (purdue OOS public, but close to home) will all you need. you need to go down in quality a lot to get aid, but not worth in engineering.</p>

5

<p>Agree w/ Annasdad … you’d be modestly crazy to go to most of the OOS publics you’ve noted when you’ve in-state publics with terrific engineering school reputations. Plan on virtually no aid from either,btw. You’ll be working on the “gross” cost. And it is, but what are you gonna do?</p>

6

<p>If your in-state public is your first-choice… why would you even consider so many other schools? If I were you, I would just apply to UIUC and a safety and call it a day.</p>

7

<p>Thanks for replying everyone.</p>

<p>The reason I’m considering so many out of state schools is because I’m not really impressed with any of the other public schools in my state with the exception of UIUC of course.</p>

<p>I would just apply to UIUC and not have any worries… BUT… It’s uncomfortably close to home (5-10min). I’ve heard much criticism from almost all of my friends who go there for engineering. They have called it degree factory where they don’t really get an education, just a degree. I hear a lot that all of my classes freshman and sophomore year will have 100+ people. 2 of my friends can’t stand it and they are both transferring out.</p>

<p>There are other small things that I don’t think I would like about it that aren’t really worth mentioning</p>

<p>Really, the only reason UIUC is my first choice is because it’s the cheapest, it has high rankings, and my parents are really pushing for it because they don’t want me to leave home. I’m taking a few “official” student student visits this summer so maybe I’ll get a more accurate representation of it. However, at the moment, I just don’t feel like I would be happy there.</p>

<p>Also sorry if this was confusing, but I’m not strictly limited to 20k a year, we could push 30k if needed.</p>

8

<p>Well, you can subtract $8-10K or so from that $33K if you commute. But if you’re not going to be happy there, then absolutely, find another alternative.</p>

<p>I would guess that at any large engineering school, the basic level classes are going to be large lecture sessions. Have you considered a smaller school with an engineering program? Lafayette, for example, where your stats might qualify you for some merit aid.</p>

9

<p>Let me shorten the list for you. Drop the University of California at anything. They are very expensive and given California budget woes, I wouldn’t pay extra to go there. You don’t really need a safety because you will have rolling admissions schools and you should get into Purdue. I added Minnesota because at list price, even OOS, it’s a great deal. </p>

<p>UIUC - match
University of Minnesota Twin Cities - Great school, you should get in, costs same as UIUC
Purdue - rolling safety, very highly ranked, a little pricier than UMTC
North Carolina State - safety, cheaper than Purdue, not as cheap as UMTC</p>

<p>I think you have a decent chance at any of these privates, and I dropped RIT because I think you can do better. </p>

<p>RPI - match
University of Southern Cal
Northwestern
Cornell
Carnegie-Mellon</p>

<p>I might also add Case Western because they are very good, it’s probably a safety, and they are very generous with Merit aid. </p>

<p>Apply to all of the public schools as early as possible, by Nov 1 at the latest. When you get in, you have safeties. Make sure that you can afford Minnesota at list price. If you can’t, you need to add a financial safety. You might even hear from UIUC before you need to complete the applications for privates. Case Western also has Early Action. </p>

<p>Good luck</p>

10

<p>@Annasdad Hm, I’ll look into that one…</p>

<p>I thought merit aid was a bit easier to get than it actually is apparently. I was under the impression that if you were in the top 25% of their freshman profile that you had a decent shot at some money at any school. Maybe I should be doing some more research on financial stuff haha</p>

<p>@ClassicRockerDad</p>

<p>Thanks for the info, I’ll definitely consider University of Minnesota, and Case Western.</p>

11

<p>How about Cal Poly? I heard that their engineering is pretty good, plus they’re more about “hands-on experience.” There was someone from my school who turned down UCB, UCLA, and UCSD to go there because she wanted that experience. She’s also an engineer major.</p>

12

<p>

Then drop the UCs. You’ll pay 50K as an OOS student for the same overcrowded classes the 1st 2 years you can get for 20K in Illinois.</p>

13

<p>Some classes at Case Western are the large lecture model - at least that’s what our tour guide told us when we visited this spring.</p>

14

<p>Cal Poly SLO is good, and its list price is cheaper than the UCs (it is part of the cheaper CSU system), but it may not be any more generous with financial aid to OOS students than UCs will be. Virginia Tech is another OOS public that has a relatively low OOS list price.</p>

<p>For generous merit aid, you may have to look at deep safeties, such as [url=&lt;a href=“http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out_of_state.html]Presidential”&gt;http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out_of_state.html]Presidential</a> Scholarship at the University of Alabama<a href=“full%20tuition%20paid%20if%20you%20can%20get%20your%20ACT%20up%20to%2032%20or%20SAT%20CR+M%20to%201400;%20leaves%20about%20$15,000%20per%20year%20other%20expenses”>/url</a>.</p>

<p>Cooper Union is an engineering oriented school that offers full tuition scholarships, but there are still other expenses of about $21,000 per year.</p>

15

<p>Cooper Union = 9% admissions rate.</p>

16

<p>Tri-State, Angola IN …</p>

<p>Olin, MA if you’re a monster brain and intrigued with a grand experiment.</p>

17

<p>For generous merit aid, you may have to look at deep safeties, such as Presidential Scholarship at the University of Alabama (full tuition paid if you can get your ACT up to 32 or SAT CR+M to 1400; leaves about $15,000 per year other expenses).</p>

<p>ACTUALLY…as an engineering major, you would ALREADY have free tuition AND you’d also get 2500 per year…with your ACT 30 and grades. </p>

<p>Your “out of pocket costs” would be about $10k per year at most…and that would be if you chose the best dorms. The College of Engineering boosts the school’s scholarships to these amounts. So…that is a very good financial safety.</p>

<p>Here is the College of Engineering scholarship that you would get from Bama…</p>

<p>Students who have a 30-31 ACT or 1330-1390 SAT (math and verbal scores only) and at least a 3.5 cumulative GPA will receive a tuition supplement to bring their University-level scholarship offer up to the value of tuition. In addition, they will receive $2,500 per year for four years.</p>

<p>*Also sorry if this was confusing, but I’m not strictly limited to 20k a year, we could push 30k if needed. *</p>

<p>:)</p>

<p>Ok…not to be funny, but you’re either a child who has no idea of how a family who makes $100k per year could afford $30k per year…or…your family has a lot of savings which would further boost your EFC. </p>

<p>PLEASE…ask your parents for an amount that they can pay. If they don’t have a good amount of savings to use towards your college costs, then I strongly doubt that they can pay $30k per year out of CURRENT income. They may not even be able to pay $20k per year without using savings.</p>

<p>my parents are really pushing for [UIUC] because they don’t want me to leave home.</p>

<p>Ok…that’s a red flag that they can’t/won’t pay $30k for you to go elsewhere. They may be thinking that commuting to UICU is all they will pay.</p>

18

<p>"PLEASE…ask your parents for an amount that they can pay. If they don’t have a good amount of savings to use towards your college costs, then I strongly doubt that they can pay $30k per year out of CURRENT income. They may not even be able to pay $20k per year without using savings.</p>

<p>Ok…that’s a red flag that they can’t/won’t pay $30k for you to go elsewhere. They may be thinking that commuting to UICU is all they will pay. "</p>

<p>I didn’t really want to flaunt this, but my grandfather was a very wealthy man and he generously left behind a great deal of money for my education. I’ve discussed this with my parents a great deal and I gave it to my father to manage for me since quite frankly, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I do have 100% control over which college to spend it, he was just making a suggestion. I do know for a fact that 30k is a possibility, however I wouldn’t have much left over for grad school.</p>

19

<p>Engineering majors usually don’t have to worry too much about funding graduate school.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>In most cases, you can get a decent job with a bachelor’s degree in engineering (of course, economic and industry cycles matter – civil engineering graduates in 2009 had a bad time, as did computer science / engineering graduates in 2002).</p></li>
<li><p>Studying to a PhD in engineering is usually funded by fellowships, research assistantships, and/or teaching assistantships.</p></li>
<li><p>Many engineers study to master’s degrees part time, paid for by their employers.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Of course, if “graduate school” means medical school, law school, or business school, that is a different story – those types of graduate school can be very expensive.</p>

20

<p>*or…your family has a lot of savings which would further boost your EFC. *</p>

<p>I didn’t really want to flaunt this, but my grandfather was a very wealthy man and he generously left behind a great deal of money for my education.</p>

<p>Ok…good! there is a bunch of savings! :slight_smile: :slight_smile: Lucky you!!! Your situation sounds like my uncle…he left each of his grandchildren a $100k for their education. Very nice!</p>

<p>*I do know for a fact that 30k is a possibility, however I wouldn’t have much left over for grad school. *</p>

<p>Well, much of what UCB is very right. </p>

<p>Studying to a PhD in engineering is usually funded by fellowships, research assistantships, and/or teaching assistantships.</p>

<p>This is the part that needs clarification since we just went thru this with our son. Yes, his PhD will be fully funded. However, acceptance is super, super hard. Even at his “safeties,” they only accepted 10% or less of applicants. At his top choice (where he’ll be going), they only accepted 10 students out of hundreds of applicants. </p>

<p>So, at this point, no one can count on a funded PhD program.</p>

<p>What do you mean by grad school? med school? B-school? masters in engineering? </p>

<p>You would have to pay for B-school or med school. You might have to pay for your masters in engineering if your company doesn’t do that…or requires some kind of contract that you’ll stay with them afterwards for a certain number of years.</p>

<p>And…if you don’t use the money for education, can you use it LATER (after grad) to buy a home? :slight_smile: That may be a very good consideration! :)</p>

<p>But you do realize that that acct means that you won’t qualify for need-based aid. Right? You could get merit scholarships from schools that give them. :)</p>