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Parents Forum
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<p>My twin sons, wife, and I have visited 10 colleges this summer and covered over 3,000 miles. Man the west is spread out :)</p>

<p>I asked the boys to take a week, review the visits and review their pre-visit choices. They needed to still include any colleges they are still interested in but we are unable to visit. These included out of the way schools, like Alaska -Fairbanks lol, or reach colleges that we could visit if they are accepted and a money offer is included. I asked them to focus on the Enginering programs not an overall school ranking or other mumbo jumbo.</p>

<p>They came up with these guidlines</p>

<p>1) Engineering major must be ABET certified (amazing that this eliminated quite a few schools)</p>

<p>2) Must be above average on the number of students passing the engineering exams.</p>

<p>3) A good track record of placing graduates into the top graduate engineering programs.</p>

<p>4) A good opportunity for some research work as a junior or senior. (this really hurts some of the large public state schools)</p>

<p>5) Students have solid internship oppotunites available to them. </p>

<p>6) Job placement history is good upon receiving the BS degree.</p>

<p>7) Loans will be saved for Graduate school so a minimum of debt is occured during the undergraduate years.</p>

<p>I thought this was a good list. We were suprised on our visits on how many of the professors, even at the large highly ranked schools, told us where you got your undergraduate degree is important and we are the best but the Graduate College choice is way more important than the undergraduate.</p>

<p>I think the boys are down to about 10 -12 schools. At least now they are ready to begin looking at applications and a few essays to write. I hope they apply to no more than 8. </p>

<p>They would like to get some merit aid so there are some 2nd and 3rd tier schools included that have well regarded engineering programs and that give money to OOS high acheiving students. </p>

<p>Anyway just sharing my experiences.</p>

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<p>What is ABET? Is it necessary to get an advanced engineering degree? I'm sorry to be ignorant, but I just don't know, and we've been tossing the idea around that our son might be interested in engineering in that he loves math and science. thanks.</p>

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<p>ABET is:
ABET, Inc., the recognized accreditor for college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and technology, is a federation of 28 professional and technical societies representing these fields. Among the most respected accreditation organizations in the U.S., ABET has provided leadership and quality assurance in higher education for over 70 years.</p>

<p>ABET currently accredits some 2,700 programs at over 550 colleges and universities nationwide. Over 1,500 dedicated volunteers participate annually in ABET activities. </p>

<p>Here is an info page:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.abet.org/why_choose.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.abet.org/why_choose.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

4

<p>Interesting to hear experience of another family with twins. Sounds like your twins have more convergent interests than our boy-girl twins. Any info on what it's been like for you to deal with college planning for twins? Do they have similar GPA's?</p>

<p>And based on my experience with our oldest non-twin, you might want to loosen up a bit on the 8 school goal. You're likely to be really surprised at the schools that were a good fit that they DON'T get into. Things are just so competitive and there is almost zero rhyme and reason going on in the admissions process. If they don't do ED you're going to want to give yourselves sufficient acceptances to choose from.</p>

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<p>drizzit,
I think you approached your search in a logical manner. One question I have is why you had a requirement for research. I can understand internships but not research for engineering. My husband is an engineer and did not do any research but did have an internship and an opportunity to work on a mini-baja car, which was a highlight of his college days.</p>

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<p>From what I've understood from talking to professors at my university and at other schools, doing some sort of research in college is becoming more important for grad school admissions. I've been told that in the past, grad school was really the first time most people started doing reserach, but now, grad schools are looking for research experience in their applicants.</p>

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<p>drizzit, were the professors you spoke with referring to careers in academia by any chance? I'm only going on personal knowledge, so it's anecdotal I know. But my H has worked in engineering for about 25 years and not one of his colleagues has gone on for a graduate degree in engineering. Plenty of MBAs and law degrees, though. For the BS, nobody really cares where it was earned. And this applies to upper management spots at huge pharmaceuticals & CEO of cutting edge upstarts. H is a director & hires engineers from all schools. His state school BS never held him back.</p>

<p>Both research & intern opportunities are important, though. He just hired an engineer who was offered a prestigious research spot at the last minute. H gave his blessings & told the candidate that a job would be found when the research project was completed.</p>

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<p>Did you find that the schools doing well on your criteria #3 and #6 were the same schools, as a rule, or different? Just curious whether the ones tending to send the kids right out into the Engineering workplace are the same with good grad school placement rates.</p>

<p>dke - Engineering grads can and do get well-paying jobs right out of college (BS/BA). Many do go on to get MS degrees, but not necessarily right out of school. Others get MBAs.... Don't know the percentages who don't get an advanced degree at all. Then there is somewhat of a different career path, involving the PhD degree, about which I know even less than re Masters ;). DH went to work with his BSEE and got his MSEE shortly after, in a situation where his employer paid for the MSEE degree as well as paying him a salary while he pursued it. Don't know how much of that still goes on, as this was in that infamous era when dinosaurs still roamed the earth.</p>

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<p>Hi soproudofkids. Yes my sons do have similiar interests and yet very different personalities. They both have 3.95/4.0 GPA and scored a 32 on the ACT lol. The toughest part, other than the finances of having two in at the same time, is that I think they will go to different schools. I wanted them to go to the same school for visits and a possible shared car. I didn't think they would be roommates, in fact, I reccommended against that, but they are fiercely independent.</p>

<p>Hi kathiep. The research became important to them early on. As a science teacher at a local HS I went with a group of kids on a visit to Montana State. The engineering students, mostly undergrads, were building their own satellite in a joint NASA project. It was just launched btw. They also heard about a group of undergrads in a neighboring state working on a space suit with NASA being developed for use on Mars. I think it just got them excited. As we visited some of the larger schools they had no programs in place for undergrads to get involved and that sort of turned them off to that school. Utah, for example, has a specific program in place to get undergrads involved early on with professors and research. It was good stuff.</p>

<p>Hi stickershock. I do believe they were talking about their experiences and how important grad school was for academia career paths. One son is talking about a business minor or a masters in business after the engineering degree. I was suprised how little importance any of them put on the school where you got the BS.</p>

<p>jmom we are still looking at that question and so far I haven't really seen a big difference. Seems the solid schools do OK at either grad school or job placement but we have only glanced at that info and there is more to come.</p>

<p>Heck we will do all this work and they will probalby go where they think the tour guide girl was the cutest or something LOL</p>

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<p>ABET certification isn't necessary. Look at Harvey Mudd. It has one of the best, if not the best, undergraduate engineering programs in the world and it isn't certified. However, most good schools are certified.</p>

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<p>yeah. if what slorg says is true about hmc, that would be a shame to throw out hmc based upon ABET certification.</p>

<p>we get really great research, internship, and job offers even after only one year of school. in addition, hmc pioneered the undergrad clinic program...where juniors and seniors to company-sponsored real-life research.</p>

<p>PM me if you would like to hear some of the job offers that i've gotten in the last 3 months.</p>

12

<p>HM is a great school and we talked about it when they sent us some brochures. The boys are a little undecided on major though with one thinking about a business minor and another contemplating somehow getting a music minor to go with engineering. They are not even sure that is possible to do yet although several collegs mentioned they had seen students do it before. HM is probably a little to focused for them as they may change their minds as to course of study.</p>

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<p>jeez, I can't even get my daughter to open the Fiske book.</p>

<p>Care to share their choices?</p>

14

<p>drizzit,
So when you say research, you are talking about a hands on engineering project, is that correct? The mini-baja car that my husband did when he was in college and the solar car that my daughters school offers up seem to offer the real life engineering aspect that you are looking for. I agree that a hands on project can't be beat. My husband does not have a Masters but he is a Professional engineer, that seemed to have some sort of cache when he was looking for a job. I don't think any of the engineers have more then a BS where he works, most are Lehigh grads.</p>

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<p>HMC is ABET certified since 62...lol.</p>

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<p>drb
Remeber my boys wanted to stay in the west and outdoor recreation opportunities are high on their list. In addition, being from a small population state, Montana, they have decided to go out of state to college as neither in state college really offered what they were looking for. They seem to be satisfied with the following schools.</p>

<p>These will require some financial help that may or may not show up:
University of Washington
Oregon State</p>

<p>Colleges with out of state merit scholarships that fall into my sons stats or they have very reasonable out of state tuition costs:
University of Utah
University oF Wyoming
University of Nevada-Reno
Washington State University</p>

<p>Private school where we would hope for 100% need based aid
Stanford
University of the Pacific
Seattle University
Gonzaga University (maybe)
Cal Tech (maybe, being in LA hurts but JPL right there helps)</p>

<p>Others still discussed
Cal Poly
Santa Clara University
University of Colorado-Colorado Springs
Univ of Southern California - USC (LA is not high on their list of favorite places though)
Arizona State -- (they hate the hot weather but some good merit aid here)</p>

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<p>What about UT-Austin, Texas Tech, and Texas A&M? (Meets all criteria except "hates hot weather!")</p>

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<p>drizzit - In case you are not aware, Santa Clara U has potential for merit $$. They have been known in the past to target males and offered merit $$ to my S (similar GPA/lesser SATs than your boys). They emphasize their ties to Silicon Valley employers and the opportunities this means for their engineering students. Definitely worth a closer look and perhaps a visit, if you haven't. I guessed it was S' visit which sparked their interest in him.</p>

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<p>anxious mom .. boys like to snow ski... Texas schools didn't have a chance. I am suprised Arizona state is there but full rides to National Merit and NASA ties keep it there.</p>

<p>THC jmmom we will take a closer look at Santa Clara. Might be worth a flight out there if an acceptance and $$ came their way. I have been close to there when I did some Informix DB training years ago in Silicon Valley. I did visit teh Standford campus just for fun and I liked the area except for the cost of living there.</p>

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<p>Any reason UC Boulder isn't on the list? It seems to have a large and productive engineering program. Maybe its TOO close to the slopes?</p>