Will be starting college visits with Jr son in November. We have a draft list of schools, but would like your suggestions for project based ME programs. Looking for some safety and reach schools based on his current stats.
Stats through Soph year:
GPA 3.9uw, 35 ACT, 1490 PSAT, All core classes Honors or AP (will continue strong AP curriculum)
ECs - FIRST robotics (since 9y), Cross country team, Show choir, Theatre, Eagle Scout, Community Service
All ABET accredited programs have SOME of this, because all are required to have a senior design project.
Project Based programs, as stated, where a significant portion of the whole curriculum is based on projects per se, are pretty rare.
WPI stands apart in that they also have a year long junior project and, if desired, a year long freshman project. In lieu of labs, they incorporate the hands on component into their projects. They are unique in this respect.
Cal Poly also stands out. With the exception of the most theoretical graduate level classes (Viscous Flow for example which is really applied Tensor Calculus) all classes have labs. This isn’t the case at every school. Vibrations for example is a math class in most programs. Cal Poly has a vibrations lab. In fact, within the college of engineering alone, they have more than 80 stand alone labs. It is very competitive to get into ME though.
My son was looking for a similar program and ended up at Cal Poly with a concentration in Mechatronics. He’s now a masters candidate. The individual class projects (and iPhone three axis gimbal, a regenerative braking controller and a neural network based torque vector controller were examples of projects he did for specific classes) and senior projects (his was a medical device calibration unit) have been pretty impressive.
I’d also look at Olin, Harvey Mudd and Rose Hullman, but they are pretty small.
You might also want to post this on the engineering forum. Good luck!
BTW, what is your home state and budget?
Home state is Ohio. He’s leaning towards staying E of Mississippi. We’ve planned to cover up to 25K per year, after merit aid & scholarship opportunities. Will definitely post in the Engineering forum.
You’re going to have your hands full hitting the $25k/year mark, unless your EFC is very low or he stays in state. Privates are getting to be over $70k/year and publics are looking to make up for budget shortfalls, so don’t typically offer a lot of aid to out of state students. Have you calculated your EFC or looked at the net price calculators at any schools thus far?
WPI definitely for project-based, hands-on curriculum. Truly a fantastic place, we loved it.
https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/wpi-plan
Look at Miami of Ohio for merit aid.
https://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-guarantee/index.html
Good luck!
Olin is certainly project based.
The only way to bring costs down to your $25k is through Financial Aid. Run the NPC to see if it works for you. They are currently giving everyone a half tuition merit scholarship which brings cost down to low 40s.
Olin has a unique application process and is a ‘reach’ for everyone simply because the application process ensures there are no guarantees.
Look at Clarkson for a safety. I know several kids who have graduated and all either got very high starting salary jobs before graduation or paid PhD programs.
Reach for everyone, but