Oops yes, I do remember your suggestion on Gen’l Engineering and will definitely suggest to D if she definitely wants to make engineering the application major at SLO. That’s exactly the scenario I’m afraid of if she applies to the most selective majors just to keep options open for later changes, only to get rejected outright. If you have time will definitely PM for more help after she confirms her majors lists. Thanks so much for the offer!
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Ah, I wondered what EDII was about. What then do they gain from offering EA? Just helps spread out their review time like MIT says they do? It’s all so complicated 
To attract more applicants, which makes the college appear more selective and thus more “prestigious”. That “prestige” helps attract even more applicants the following year, and so on.
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Yes thanks for pointing that out. We looked at WPI’s majors/minors and saw it didn’t have similar liberal arts major offerings as MIT, SLO or Harvey Mudd, but it was better than anticipated for a tech school as it does have a lot of minors she would be into. She’s also interested in Econ and the Humanities & Arts major offers concentrations in other liberal arts areas. Not sure how much depth those offer or if that’s what D would be interested in, so she will need to look more into that.
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Yeah, I get that they create their own prestige by manufacturing some of their selectivity, but how does EA attract more applicants? Sorry if you’ve explained but I can’t get my head around this.
SLO definitely seems to have the strongest liberal arts offerings of all the tech schools we’re looking at. Do you know if students can take easily take classes between the different colleges? I believe UCLA restricts students from taking engineering classes if they aren’t already in the engineering school, although I don’t think there’s a similar restriction on engineering majors taking classes in the College of Letters & Science. Wondering if it’s like that at SLO? Thanks!
EA attracts applicants who would otherwise apply ED or SCEA/REA elsewhere, and applicants who apply unrestricted EA to MIT/Caltech.
Love that tour guide quote! Definitely sounds like a collaborative place. And wow, what a great package your D got! Can I ask what she chose instead?
Hope this link works. There seems to be a fairly easy to navigate search engine to find and select classes. Maybe someone else can weigh in on the feel for the town who would have a more up to date insight.
I do know that Worcester has experienced a rebirth and is booming. That it has become somewhat of Bio-Tech research hub. Our friends daughter just graduated and moved there this summer to work in Bio-Tech and loves living there. 35,000 college students in a city of 200,000
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At this point last year, she was not sure which STEM area she was most interested in. She had a few schools for each major. She did not ED anywhere, but EAed anywhere she could. Once we had most of the acceptances (some schools pushed notification dates deep into April) we started visiting her top choices (and doing our own anthropological study of how covid was being handled along the Eastern seaboard at the time - from wide open campuses to full lockdown.) In the midst of that trip she was accepted into an Ivy, but she was already thinking hard about other opportunities. She is very happy at UNH and enjoying their CEPS engineering department’s approach to getting their students immersed into their majors their first year. They have a project based approach and very well funded research programs. Their Innovation Scholars program is something we really did not know much about when she initially applied, but it is pretty amazing. The dorm closest to CEPS Dept is one of the nicest on campus. This started as a safety that she ended up not needing, but became a place where she is thriving. After all of the craziness of the past year and a half, that is all we want for our kids.
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UCLA does not restrict Engineering students from taking courses in the College of L&S since many of the GE graduation requirements are found in that College.
I have attached a flowchart and information in regards to the GE tracks available for an Engineering major: https://www.seasoasa.ucla.edu/ge-home/
How do you know the “deferred and rejected if you don’t switch to ED2” thing? I have never read that anywhere I can recall. Other than overall in schools across the board deferrals usually result in rejection. Also, UChicago doesn’t consider demonstrated interest. I am not saying switching to ED2 couldn’t be beneficial, though.
For kiddo, EA is a way to spread out the apps, and if it goes well make it so there are fewer apps to do later. I don’t put much stock in ED1 for unhooked kids. He is doing a couple of safety-ish schools and a couple of reaches. There are a couple of ED2 schools he is considering. I figure his ideas about what he wants are still evolving and January is a long way away.
EA admit rates at schools that also offer ED are practically non-existent for all intents and purposes. The same goes for those deferred applicants who chose RD rather than ED2 after deferral. Whether or not the college states it considers demonstrated interest doesn’t seem to matter.
Do you have that data for UChicago?
UChicago doesn’t really disclose anything. It’s all whispers.
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Correct.
I think anyone can take any class as long as they have the prerequisites. Engineering starts in earnest on day one, so it’s unlikely the student will have the prerequisites for anything but starting at square one.
Unlike most majors, most engineering majors have 40 hours of general education requirements, but no free electives beyond that. There’s no place to use courses non-applicable to the major towards degree progress if a student moves into engineering.
If a student moves out of engineering, they can use engineering classes that aren’t applicable to the new major to fulfill free electives.
I’d strongly suggest she read all she can about liberal arts engineering too. They are prepared to do a lot of cool stuff, not engineering in the classic sense, but parlaying engineering problem solving skills into other industries and problems.
So if you get deferred from ED1, you have the option of ED2 or RD?
Technically, yes.
I can’t say I agree that CWRU doesn’t consider EA applicants and they’ll be deferred. Both my kids applied EA and both were accepted EA. The 3 other kids I know who applied EA were also accepted. I know it’s anecdotal, but a 100% admit rate for 5 kids in the last 2 years sure doesn’t feel like they’re likely to be deferred. Now they all absolutely know CWRU cares about demonstrated interest and demonstrated interest in other ways than ED.
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