Of the Fortune 100 CEOs that are leading tech companies, nearly all of them have undergraduate engineering degrees.
You are really not getting my point about the value of a LAC science + Eng degree. It transcends metrics and data points based on titles and $$. It is definitely true if all you care about is money and big titles get a BSEng and an MBA. Leadership doesn’t equate to CEO. (But we digress from assisting the OP.)
Except that high per capita percentages of future PhDs in specialized fields come from LACs:
Completely agree! Undergrads should not be specializing anyway. That’s what grad school is for. And a LAC is a great place to get a sound education in the fundamentals.
You might try running the NPC for Notre Dame. They allow non-majors to audition for ensembles and take lessons and have an excellent engineering program.
My D is a freshman at UMD CP this year in the Honors college for Biomed Eng she had similiar GPA; SAT was I think 1460. She got Pres Sch for 12.5K year. Can you consider you might also get merit $ to UMD? She got 88K Merit to go to Case last year as well. Good luck to you and your son!
So? Perhaps more of them realized that they need more specialized skills?
So everyone should go to grad school? LACs are fine and great fits for some students, but not suitable for others.
To me, LACs are really college versions of boarding schools. Boarding schools are also great for general education, but do you want your kids to have four (or four more) years at a “boarding school”? Or do you want your kids to sharpen up their skills at one or two specialized areas within the next four years?
This. There is no one size fits all.
@Techno13 - If your student wants to be an engineer, I strongly recommend starting out in engineering school and getting an ABET accredited undergraduate engineering degree. You do not have the same preparation with a non-engineering bachelor’s degree and an engineering master’s degree as with a bachelor’s degree in engineering (the reasons have been discussed in other threads). I am not a fan of 3-2 programs. Many students do not complete them for various reasons, and the opportunity (and tuition) cost of a year lost from the professional work force is significant.
@Chompers I would urge him to prepare as much as possible for the PSAT. If he gets a National Merit qualifying score, that can be a path to large merit scholarships at some schools, particularly large publics in the west and south.
I don’t know the specifics of engineering programs at the following but for merit awards, you might want to check out Texas Tech (good merit for high stats out of state students), U of Arizona, and Arizona State. UNM offers a full ride for National Merit Finalists. U of Alabama - Tuscaloosa or Huntsville also offer sizable merit, the latter being somewhat more generous than the former.
As for budget - if he can get a full tuition award somewhere, federal student loan, plus work study, plus summer earnings might extend to cover room/board/books, especially if there is any way that you could top up a bit.
Good luck!
Almost every college, including LACs, requires a major for a bachelor’s degree. I.e. some specialization is required to earn a bachelor’s degree.
Obviously you have a major! But you also get to experience other subjects. And overall much less specialized than pre-professional university programs. There’s some real LAC-haters on this thread and we are just going to have to agree to disagree. I am in the Engineering profession and know tons of people who started at LACs and are very successful Engineers. They are also interesting and well-read people.
I was not on here to ask anyone’s advice about LAC/Eng for my son-- I was offering MY opinion and advice based on MY experience to the OP.
@Techno13 - In my opinion, one is not an engineer without an undergraduate engineering degree, which is the “first professional” credential in engineering (regardless of what an employer may title an employee as, in fact legally, one is not an engineer without a Professional Engineer license as well). A master’s degree in engineering is not a replacement for a bachelor’s degree, because it is typically specialized in one area of engineering and does not include the fundamental interdisciplinary and discipline specific courses, labs, and especially, the design courses that are required for accredited undergraduate programs. A specific body of knowledge and skill set is required, and that is the purpose of the undergraduate professional curriculum. All accredited schools of engineering require a significant liberal arts component. One does not take exclusively engineering courses as an engineering major. Some engineering graduate schools may accept non-engineering undergraduates into their programs, but typically require makeup coursework (for no credit) to remedy what they did not have as non-engineering undergraduates, however, that is minimal and doesn’t replace the entire foundation of the undergrad program.
There are fields in which much or all of the professional training is conducted at a postgraduate or master’s level (medicine, law, etc), but that’s not the case in engineering which has been an undergraduate professional course practically since the first engineering schools began. Had engineering begun as a graduate field (that is, go to college for 4 years then to engineering school for the “first professional” credential) that would have been another story (there have been proposals to do this in the US, but never became popular).
Most of the engineering Ph.D.s I work with - including myself - have undergraduate engineering degrees.
Engineers who graduated from engineering school as undergraduates are well read too. That is not the exclusive domain of LAC graduates.
Somebody could also attend Harvey Mudd College, which is both a LAC and has one of the best engineering undergraduate programs in the world.
However, as big a fan as I am of LACs, most LACs are not the best places for kids who want to become engineers. They are excellent for training scientists, social scientists, scholars, teachers, and many other disciplines, but, aside from HMC or participating in one of the 3+2 programs (which have issues of their own), they are not very good at training engineers.
Of course, they are Liberal Arts colleges, and therefore, of course, focus on the Liberal Arts. Since engineering is not one of the liberal arts, it is to be expected that these type of colleges would not be very strong in these fields.
Thanks for the unsolicited and completely unnecessary primer on engineering school. Please respond to OP. I am not asking for anyone’s advice or opinions on this topic.
I certainly am not a LAC hater. There are many great liberal arts colleges out there. For the right person, they offer a wonderful, well rounded education.
My only point was, and this clarification is for the OP’s benefit, is that a non-engineering degree from anywhere and a MS in engineering, again, from anywhere, will have major drawbacks. Anyone without an undergraduate engineering degree will have to take remedial coursework, even physics and math majors, if they want to do an engineering MS. They will also always be more scrutinized than those with undergraduate engineering degrees. It will impact their employability. There may be very well reasoned arguments as to why an LAC BS and an engineering MS are better, but there’s no arguing that that route isn’t without very real compromise.
Some of the argument in favor of LACs over engineering for undergrad is also a little misguided. All ABET accredited programs have a non-technical requirement. My son’s ME curriculum (200 quarter hours) had 40 hours of General Education including expository writing, oral communications, literature, philosophy, fine arts, and political science. He also was required to take at least 36 hours of math and physics, both liberal arts. Close to 40% of his coursework was “liberal arts.”
@Chompers I hope you don’t run away bc of the responses on this thread.
FWIW, a 3+2 path should not be considered by a family with no college savings and in bankruptcy. I’m in the not a fan in general camp, but no way for your financial situation. It adds another yr, makes co-op experience difficult, etc
I hope you find a good match. W/o test scores, though, it can be difficult to make accurate ones. Tests scores will matter for merit or competitive admissions.
Would you be open to schools like ND? Mentioning additional factors would help, too.
OP, I’m wondering if you could meet a doab!e price with a “meets full needs” school. Two colleges I suggest you investigate, IFF your son is interested in LACs, are Trinity (CT) and Union (NY). They are both LACs that offer four year ABET accredited undergrad engineering programs, as well as music major/minor/participation options.
I’d put them in the “reach” category. They want high SAT/ACT, high UW GPA, high academic rigor students, but also are looking at how each potential student fits in/contributes to their desired new class. They look at ECs, essay, recommendations, demonstrated interest, etc.
For potential safeties/matches, I suggest looking at ABET accredited In-State non-flagship colleges. The non-flagships might offer better merit possibilities for high stat students that work for you. The Community College>In-State path could be the most affordable.
If he’s going for engineering, get him talking with the right people and see if the service academies or the military is an option. Yes, there are risks, but the military always loves to recruit those interested in STEM. He can go active duty for a few years then get college largely paid. It should also help him develop a sense of discipline if he needs it, which imo, is a huge advantage for getting through engineering school.