@colcon101, looking over your curricula maps it doesn’t look like you’d actually realize two years of advancement, even if they did take all the credit, either at UW or at Cal Poly. Then comes the issue of whether or not you really do want to take all the credit or not. It’s really a matter of whether or not those classes sufficiently prepared you to move forward with them as your foundation. The only way to know is to do what @ucbalumnus recommends, download tests and syllabi from the courses you’d skip that are in series and see if you would be able to pass them. If not, bone up, or repeat if you have to and don’t use the credit. Calculus and Physics are SO important to the rest of engineering that everything else will fall apart if those skills are lacking.
There is another point embedded in @chardo 's message.
An engineering degree from any school works out usually because they spend longer at the school, get professors/school to get them internships and develop a resume. A person not having a major during the first year and trying to finish after the second year, does not have the luxury of developing relationships, getting recommendations, internships etc in their major to get the full exposure. My guess is that OP should plan on spending 3 years even if he attends UW.
A true sophomore at a college will be looking for internships at this time for summer.
UW apparently forces most frosh engineering aspirants to compete for space in its mostly undersized engineering programs, regardless of college credit earned while in high school (only a few get direct admission).
@texaspg You bring up a really good point, I’ve been trying to take advantage of the oppurtunities I’ve been given as a “college student” here (academic internship, president of a club, etc.), but I feel that I’m being revoked of a big pro in my book.
I don’t want to force myself into finishing in 2 years or anything, I just don’t want to repeat those credits that are non-major, or VLPA electives.
@colcon101 - Does UW have a 5th year masters?
Unforunately no, not for EE
UW has not released any admissions decisions. OP, if you are eventually admitted to pre-engineering, you should consider where you stand academically in relation to the incoming class. You are from Washington, so you should have a pretty good idea. If you are at the top end of the class, you should be fine if you continue to apply yourself to your studies. If you are not, and you are worried that it will be hard for you to earn a 3.4 to 3.6 GPA in the major’s prerequisites, then you should enroll elsewhere.
UW has over 4,500 undergraduates pursuing engineering degrees at any given time and graduates almost 1,000 per year, so apparently it is possible.
Maintaining a 3.4-3.6 in engineering is not easy anywhere. If that’s the hurdle, that’s sufficient enough reason to possibly look elsewhere. I’m not saying you can’t do it, but life gets in the way sometimes. Things like mono, depression, a few bad test, etc. are very much in the realm of possibilities no matter how well prepared you are in HS. For example, on the first test in my son’s honors Calc III class, multiple students scored in the 30s. They weren’t invited into the class unless they got a 5 on the BC AP test. Engineering is hard and that’s a very high standard to set unless they have grade inflation at UW. It’s the main reason I counsel students who don’t get direct admits to look elsewhere. It’s a BIG risk.
For the students getting 30s on tests, their “direct admission” may be short lived. :-S
Saying that students got 30s on the test does not indicate what grades they got. I.e. does 30 correspond to an A, B, C, D, F grade?
In any case, students who are in the major typically just need 2.0 GPA and C grades to stay in, while students on the outside trying to get in may face much higher GPA and grade minimums if the major is not large enough to accommodate all who are interested.
Yes, the world needs more engineers with 2.0 GPAs. =D>
@ucbalumnus, on that particular test, in that particular class, it was an F. My point being that unless you verify, ideally by the method you’ve outlined, you can’t be certain that your HS experience has adequately prepared you to skip collegiate foundation classes. I know many of those students recovered and did fine. CP is not know for grade inflation, maybe actually for a little deflation. Students everywhere every year with very high stats and AP scores are faced with the same thing, college testing is generally harder than high school testing.
How about a 3.0 GPA? That would be enough to graduate from a school where s/he was direct-admitted to the major, but would likely result in being weeded out if s/he entered without direct-admission to UW.
Nope. Not good enough. [-(
So after getting everyone’s input on the matter, could anyone post a final verdict? Just the school they would pick based off the secnario, and why.
Thanks for all the advice, I’ll update on my decisions the first week of April!
Really, it depends on how much you value the lower cost versus the direct admission to your major.
None of us are in your or your family’s exact financial situation. And none of us have your exact level of risk seeking or risk adversity with respect to getting into your major, nor are we the same as you in how we deal with the additional competitiveness when chasing grades to get into your major (i.e. would you thrive in a competitive environment, or would you get overstressed about the possibility of being weeded out?).
Of course, if you do somehow get direct admission to EE at Washington, then the decision becomes easy.
Not sure if this was asked, but why EE? Have you ruled out other disciplines (why)?
I agree with @ucbalumnus. You’re to the point where only you and your family can weight the pluses and minuses of each. Also, there’s the point of “what does YOUR gut tell you?” None of it matters if the UW alternatives aren’t affordable. In the end, you have a really enviable dilemma. You have been accepted into three good schools. Congratulations!
@Chardo, this ties to my ulterior career goal of developing bio-medical instruments. I know the first thought that will come to your mind is “why not BME itself?”, well to answer that I don’t want to limit my college education to an aspiration that I have at this moment of my life. I see BME as a field too narrow to work with should i ever want to create devices for other purposes. Electrical engineering, on the other hand as a very open-source field, which is why I am pursuing a bachelor’s degree in it instead. Picking EE over alternatives such as mechanical engineering or chemical engineering was just my personal preference.
How likely do you think it is that you will want to change majors? If likely, also consider how difficult it would be to change to any other possible major of interest.