Our D wants to pursue engineering, but wants to got to a small college where the arts has a strong presence. LACs with engineering are rare birds (Union College, Lafayette). And she’s not interested in women’s colleges (so scratch Smith off the list). But there are quite a few LACs that have 3-2 programs where students finish their undergrad at a different school with an engineering program. Would love to hear anyone’s experience with such programs.
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I’m not a fan of the 3-2 programs. The biggest drawback is paying for an extra year of undergrad. My understanding is that they also have lower completion rates than a traditional 4 year degree.
Trinity, Bucknell, Richmond, W&L, and Swat all have engineering majors in a traditional 4 year format.
If engineering is really the goal, don’t rule out larger schools with honors colleges. They can make a big school feel much smaller but students still have access to all the coold engineering facilities and cutting edge technology.
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Considered this for our S20 - the Fordham/Columbia program. The Fordham majors you can pursue are fairly limited (Chem, Physics, Math, CompSci) before the switch to Columbia. He wasn’t crazy about any of those options.
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if she’s seriously considering such a program, be sure to have her talk to kids in the program at places she’s considering. From what I’ve heard, few actually complete them. Often the number is zero. What happens is that you’re in your 3rd year at a school you love, surrounded by friends you’ve made over the 3 years. If you just spend 1 more year there you’ll get your degree, a prospect everyone else seems pretty happy with. Or you can pack up and go to a new school where you start from scratch – don’t know the area, profs, have a circle of friends, etc. Most people pack it in and stay.
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I am going to agree with @momofboiler1. We briefly looked into 3-2 programs with my S17. It seems for the most part to be a marketing ploy for colleges that don’t offer engineering. In addition to adding an extra year to undergrad education, a lot of students don’t want to leave their LAC after 3 years. If you do a deeper dive into how many students actually complete these programs, you will most likely find it is close to none.
My S17 also ended up in an honors college at a big public. He found that many of the smaller schools lacked the state of the art facilities and many only offered a couple of engineering majors. Would your D consider a mid sized school? A Case Western or Lehigh might give her the best of both worlds. FWIW, my S22 also loves the small LACs. His plan is to major in physics. If he decides he wants to go in an engineering direction, he will get a masters in engineering afterwards.
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What about Harvey Mudd?
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From the title, I though this would be about 3-2 programs to get both a BS and MS.
Spending 5 years on a Bachelor’s degree when there are so many good 4 year programs (and 5 year dual MS programs) does’t make sense to me.
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The biggest reason for the poor completion rate for 3-2 engineering programs is that many, many people that age would like to graduate with their baccalaureate degree friends. For this reason, Dartmouth and about a dozen LACs have instituted a slight variation called, the 2-1-1-1 dual degree where the undergraduate college (Wesleyan, et al.) alternates the student’s last three years with the engineering school (Thayer) allowing her to graduate with her class in everyone’s fourth year.
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When we were first looking at schools, went to a very (very) small college and daughter mentioned she was interested in engineering. Oh, they had a wonderful program with several big named schools (Georgia Tech, Clemson). As we toured the school, I noticed they had FIVE professors in the physics dept and about the same number in math. What if you don’t get along with one of those? What if you take all classes offered?
This school was rural, so no ability to take classes at another school. There is no way it would have worked.
Daughter ended up at a tech school which didn’t have a lot of art classes but did have a very cool textiles museum and several faculty/student music groups, a theater group, and other opportunities for creative fine arts. Engineers do tend to have fine arts interests
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A 3+2 program means that she would have to transfer away from the small college that she wanted. In addition, there are some other disadvantages:
- Extra year of costs.
- Admission to the “2” school may be difficult or competitive.
- Financial aid at the “2” school is not known up front.
- Some “3” schools limit the choice of majors.
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For so many reasons, most of which have already been stated, not a fan. Primarily, your student misses out on their biggest year at their small, intimate school, and has to transfer into a class that has been dealing with likely higher rigor already two years in.
Pick a school like WPI, Olin, Rose, or Harvey-Mudd, to name a few, that is small, emphasizes arts, history and humanities (all ABET engineering programs do BTW), that doesn’t cost an additional year and doesn’t compromise the engineering.
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Also not a fan. A few reasons include:
– Extra year of tuition for a BS degree.
–Not every student ends up meeting the requirements to move on to the engineering part of the program.
–Some students decide they simply don’t want to leave their LAC before graduation and don’t complete the engineering part of the program.
In addition to colleges mentioned above I’d look at Clarkson, Trinity (CT), Stevens, and Manhattan College. Mid-sized schools like WPI and RPI may be worth a look as well.
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Let’s add University of Portland, Seattle University, Santa Clara, LMU, Case Western, Bucknell, Lehigh and Gonzaga too. There are LOTS of decent small schools that offer reasonably high quality ABET accredited engineering.
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Add New Mexico Tech (small school in a small town with only 1300 students) Tech offers plenty of arts options (the most popular class on campus: bellydancing).
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Haverford offer a 4+1 BS/MS program with Penn in which the 5th year is a master’s in Engineering. The major for the Bachelor’s may vary. That seems like a 5th year worth paying for - which you have to do because the 5th year at Penn comes with no financial aid.
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I’m wondering if a significant number of students
(1) don’t qualify to transfer to the engineering program, or
(2) transfer and find it’s too difficult. Coming from a SLAC where most of the kids are not very mathy, into the junior year of an engineering program with the survivors of their often vigorous weedout program, might not work for some students. It could be intimidating.
So then they might run back to their original college and finish in time to graduate in their original major with their old friends.
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You mention Lehigh, which is a good example of a research university that has an enrollment of only about 5000. Not all research universities are big, and some with engineering are in fact surprisingly small:
Cal Tech (900)
Rice (4000)
Worcester Tech (WPI) (4200)
Dartmouth (4500)
MIT (4500)
Case Western Reserve (5200)
Colorado School of Mines (5200)
Princeton (5400)
Tufts (5800)
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My son’s counselor keeps on pushing for this for my son. He is both STEM and liberal arts focused, so I can see her pushing this. However, my son is a major procrastinator and it’s hard enough getting him motivated to do 1 round of college apps- I certainly don’t want to have to think about it a second time for the +2 school. We are looking for a school that maybe has options for Econ, finance, etc.
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Many moons ago around 2005 when mathy/sciencey S was searching and applying for schools, we got similar advice and discouragement from considering a 3-2 type program. S ultimately ended up applying fir engineering and getting an EE degree, while taking a number of courses he enjoyed in other fields and helping with a poster he presented at a geology conference. He ultimately got an EE degree at USoCal. Even though the U is quite huge, the college of engineering is smaller and the EE department even smaller.
The good thing about a larger U was he had a pretty wide choice of profs and courses and was able to do research and be a listed author as an undergrad.
The summer of HS JR year, he attended a BS camp with a scout who was attending a smaller U who was disappointed it was so small and he had already exhausted the knowledge his profs in his field had as the department was small. Transferring was too daunting so he was plodding along but wished he had attended a larger U. I believe S took these thoughts seriously in choosing his U.
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There are great art options at colleges with engineering without having to look at 5 year programs for undergrad.
RIT had a very impressive College of Art and Design in the heart of their campus. College of Art and Design | RIT
UMiami has some interesting flexibility with majors and concentrations. They meet 100% of demonstrated need.
Larger and medium size state schools can offer the best of both options and create communities where they feel much smaller.
There are also colleges with regional partnerships where they can take classes at nearby campuses. Make sure to ask how many actually take advantage of this though.
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