We are beginning search for our high school juniors to study engineering. They would like to attend state school with variety of people, big sports teams, etc. We live in MO and are not interested in S&T.
Stats:
Females interested in mechanical engineering
4.2 GPA
33 ACT
So far we have visited: University of Alabama, Mississippi State, Kansas State, Mizzou, u. Of Arkansas, Iowa State, u of Nebraska.
We will only consider schools that offer significant merit. While Mizzou would obviously be cheapest, we are open to others if tuition is reasonable.
Would love to hear from anyone that decided among these schools and or other ideas that we haven’t considered. While AL and MS give lots of $$$, we aren’t sure about the South and the weather/storms there. My girls are not religious and are liberal.
Thank you!
What budget are you looking to stay under?
Purdue and UMD run around $40k for OOS applicants.
What’s her unweighted gpa. Arizona, u of SC, Arizona state…not as good. But those are great
You won’t beat Bama, U of A, and Miss St on pure merit. New Mexico too. UAH too. If smaller ok, check out SD School of Mines.
U said public but check out Bradley…private regional. You can see her merit aid on their website.
As a female she might get merit from private ranging from WUSTL to Case Western to other fine schools.
We’d like to stay around 30k since everything is x 2
4.0
Def az uah and Bama MS Stare. WVU. Purdue gave my son $10k so could be a flyer. Look at Bradley. And apply to a couple traditional like CWRU or WPI and hope.
My son from OOS chose Kansas State. He was not engineering but a lot of his fraternity brothers were. They loved their time there and all found very good jobs all over the country. He was given great scholarships and the cost of living there is VERY cheap. We were under your budget per year. He has stayed there for vet school and still enjoys it. Even though a lot of the reports say the school is conservative there is a large percentage of the students and faculty that are liberal. We viewed it as welcoming to all viewpoints but not a school that has large protests etc. Politics stay more in the background in general. Great research available for engineers and other students.
I know Iowa State has an excellent engineering program. I had an intern from there in my office and thought he was outstanding. He loved the school.
Iowa State and Michigan State would be worth a look.
I would second Iowa State and also suggest University of Dayton.
UMaine has a flagship match program.
Take a look at University of New Mexico.
Automatic scholarship for stats.
Amigo Scholarship: https://scholarship.unm.edu
Will give you in-state costs plus a $100/semester stipend.
UNM costs about $18K/year for tuition, fees, room & board.
Plus there are additional scholarships for engineers:
http://www.unm.edu/~soeschol/freshmanSOE.html
ABET accredited in engineering. ABQ is a mid sized city, low cost of living, excellent climate. Mild winters, warm to hot (but low humidity!) summers. Spring and fall have glorious weather. Plenty of engineering internship opportunities at the nearby National Labs (Los Alamos and Sandia), KirtlandAir Force Base, Intel, Netflix.
midwest here with 4 kids and extremely merit/budget focused; my S20 in engineering looked at many of those (34/3.95) - he wanted all merit and no essay schools. KU (not KSU) gave him in-state tuition, Tulsa University was <10K tuition; and texas tech was very generous (maybe like a total of $3k in tuition). FSU gave in-state tuition and it was low but the engineering program wasnt of interest. Miami of OH was around $9K tuition; AZ 3k; ASU 13K; CO S of Mines $43K total COA; UNL full tuition; Bama ended up full tuition plus. he’s liberal, but loved his time there last year.
Do they have any PSAT based status (National Merit or College Board National Recognition)? If so, some colleges attach (more) scholarship money to those statuses (e.g. Arizona State).
You might look at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC. They can be generous to OOS applicants regarding merit scholarships and tuition reductions:
The College of Engineering and Computing also has scholarships that can be applied for.
Both ASU and UofA (ranked in the 40’s) are in a similar tier for engineering. not sure how their merit awards compare - but check out both.
KState, KU, Mizzou are in the same tier (ranked in the 90’s)
That said, all of these are very good engineering schools and their engineering reputation outshines their overall ranking. Here’s the link for rankings. The way to interpret them is to look at bands of universities in a numerical range rather than individual rankings.
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate
U of A with a 4.0 UW will give a $35K scholarship vs. $37K tuition - + an upfront $1K one time.
ASU is not near as generous - but it’s Honors College is considered superior. The U of A Honors dorm just opened (we toured), it’s nicer than my house (which is nice), has a dining hall on the bottom floor and a full size gym and mental health/counseling center adjacent. It’s unbelievable.
UAH, Alabama, and MS State will have the best pure merit in addition to U of Az. South Carolina - you can get down to about $12K tuition, FSU $7K but it’s engineering school is shared with Florida A&M and not on campus.
Bradley posts their merit - you fill out a form as does ASU, Ms State vs. Bama and Arizona which post a table. I know Nebraska and Arkansas offer great merit and if you want to stay with state schools and solid merit, add UTK. Miami of Ohio is nice but not a large program. U Kentucky has good aid, WVU does, You might try U of Cincinnati too. LSU is another.
As a female, I still say look at (to see if a fit) Case Western, RPI, WPI, Miami (FL), and WUSTL.
If you get on email lists, some schools will send you free apps - such as WUSTL. Also, Embry Riddle in Daytona and Florida Tech will come in at your cost after scholarship - and if you have an aero interest, they’re very good schools.