@hopeyhippie, Cal Poly admits competitively by major, so depending on what he wants, it may or may not be a stretch. Most are pretty selective, especially ME, CS, BME and Aero…IE and Environmental, not so much. He won’t get in if he doesn’t apply. Go to the Cal Poly thread and read post #52 on the Confused About MCA thread. It’ll give you some insight on the admission algorithm. Then you can see their projections on the institutional research page. As far as admissions go, they are as transparent as I’ve ever come across.
The expectation is that students in such majors will overload (take more than 15 credit units per quarter). Example: http://flowcharts.calpoly.edu/downloads/mymap/15-17.52MEBSU.GENMEU.pdf . This type of thing exists at many other colleges with engineering majors.
Yep, I understand that. It’s just one of many things to look at when assessing any school’s graduation rate.
@boneh3ad @surfcity @Gator88NE I will humbly suggest that people, like, say, flowers, thrive in different environments… (cue your favorite Windham Hill CD!) …and that perhaps some students are sand verbena, needing hot dry sandy education, and perhaps some are parry primrose and wait for the snow’s thaw to blossom…
Seriously tho, could any of us here really complain if our kid were to have a career like lt. Col. Terry Hart, (Lehigh '68) Aneesh Varma (Lehigh, '06) or Tim Cindric (Rose Hulman '90) or Don Lincoln (Rose Hulman '86) or Robert Michelson (GaTech '74) or Rosalind Picard (GaTech '84) to pick a few interesting alumni at random from various sized institutions.
The reality is, if you are lucky enough to have a choice of “top 100” US engineering programs, you should just pick the one that seems like it will be the best fit for you. You will be way more successful if you are someplace where you are comfortable, and thriving (like a flower! see, it all comes around) and making good friends and teacher connections and growing as a, you know, human being. If, on the other hand, you pick some place because you think the ex-chancellor of Berkeley knows more about you than you do, and you’re miserable, and maybe don’t even graduate or do but hate your 4 or 5 years, what’s the point?
Go where it feels right and use the resources as best you can.
So says Guru CaliDad2020. Now I’m back to my mountaintop…
I’m not sure why I got tagged in that. I’ve advocated this whole time for the idea that fit is important.
@eyemgh He would be ME at Cal Poly, so definitely a stretch by the very nature of it. He actually read YOUR posts last year when Cal Poly was his first choice, so he became very familiar with the admit requirements and has calculated his numbers. You were quite helpful, so thank you very much. We also directed several friends who were then seniors to your posts last year as well.
He has applied to Cal Poly, but just because it was easy and we wanted him to apply to at least one California school. But his preference after much research is to go to a smaller private school on the East Coast. Which is fortunate because the reality is that even stellar stats don’t guarantee admission to SLO these days.
@boneh3ad I just included/tagged the 3 posters that seemed to be most engaged when I responded. No disparagement intended!
@hopeyhippie, if he likes the the “Learn by Doing” concept, but wants small and even more of a project based curriculum, he should definitely look at WPI. I’m also a big fan of Lehigh. Wish him luck.
“Bringing this back to the original question around preparation for Grad school, and ease of finding that first job” - Personally I’d lean toward ease of finding job (although many schools would be strong for either purpose). . It’s hard to know which high school students will stick with engineering and even harder to know which will lean toward grad school.