Son was accepted with Presidential Merit for his 2nd choice major of Civil Engineering Technology, not his first of Mechnical.
The acceptance letter says, “Although we believe that this alternative represents a viable academic option for you, you should not pursue this option as a means for gaining entrance to
your first choice program. We are unable to guarantee that there will be a place for you in
your first choice program next year.”
Are they just CYA or this realistic? If he miraculously changes his major, would this affect his merit?
There is no Financial Aid award letter yet, but we actually anticipate getting a good deal of it.
Does he have acceptances to his first choice program at other schools yet?
A hypothetical situation: My son applies for MechE at his favorite school, but gets MechE Technology spot instead. He also applies for MechE at his 4th favorite school, and gets accepted for the MechE program. He would chose his 1st choice program at his 4th favorite school.
This happens all the time at Purdue, where students apply to the engineering college, and are offered a spot instead in one of the engineering technology majors (they weirdly call it Purdue Polytech which is a misleading name but it’s basically the same process that RIT has done here). The prevailing advice is to go to a school where they have been directly admitted to engineering (unless they are totally hell-bent on Purdue).
Your son will have to decide if he would be happy in the engineering technology major(s) and in the resulting careers. If he really likes RIT, and is satisfied with the major, he might decide to go for it.
It depends on the school, but it can be very hard to switch from engineering technology into engineering. You could ask RIT about how realistic that is for your son’s particular case. However, I’d think that switching from one engineering technology major to a different major within engineering technology would be viable.
Also, does he want to be a civil engineer? If so, I would say choose another school where he’s been admitted to the traditional engineering college.
RIT oddly doesn’t have a CivE major but does have CivE Technology, as you know. The lack of a CivE major is the main reason my son is likely not going to attend there, as he is thinking he might want that as a career.
The path to becoming a civil engineer will be more straightforward in a traditional CivE program.
Actually I should mention that the third major listed on his RIT application was Engineering Exploration. The webiste says that from there, he would then be able to choose which Engineering discipline he wants to study.
If he would be interested in the exploration you should email admissions and ask if he can switch into that now. On last years RIT thread I thought that someone posted that they asked that and were switched by admissions. It’s at least worth an email to ask if he is still interested in exploration.
ABET accredits both engineering and engineering technology degree programs. Engineering majors more commonly work as engineers, while engineering technology majors more commonly work as technologists.
Thank you all. I think Buffalo is a great outcome too. We got GREAT financial aid from RIT but UB will still be cheapest option by $3K/yr.
However he isn’t sure if UB is a great outcome. I hate to ask this but what is UB’s rep? I happen to this it’s sold but he is under the impression that it’s a mediocre school. I think the 69% overall acceptance rate is making him think this. Not to put too much into USNWR rankings but it ranks 89th for overall universities, 68th for undergrad engineering at schools offering doctorates and is a member of the AAU which to my naïve eyes looks to be in prestigious company. These stats belie 69% acceptance rate.
Maybe you’ll get better/wider responses if you post a thread specifically for this question.
But one thing about public universities is that they can often have a very high acceptance rate overall, but some majors can be very competitive and/or rigorous. For example, I’m from MA. UMass Amherst has a high (~65%) acceptance rate but computer science and business are much lower, and are very well-regarded. Linguistics is one of the best departments in the country, but it is in the College of Humanities & Fine Arts, which has one of the higher acceptance rates of all the colleges at the university.
I’ve heard very good things about U of Buffalo, but I don’t know the specifics. If you post a general thread or in the U of Buffalo forum you might get better info.
Thanks all! He asked ot be switched the Engineering Exploration program. His admission counselor said no but he can switch to the Engineering Technology Exploration program instead. I guess that’s that for that.
I’m trying to get him excited for Buffalo. He got into a bunch of other great schools but they are at least twice the price of UB. RIT was almost the same price.