<p>My not-so-little-anymore brother came out to visit for the weekend, and we started talking about college applications. He'll be a senior this year! He's feeling a little confused about schools, so we'd love to hear some suggestions.</p>
<p>He has about a 3.8 weighted GPA (not sure about unweighted), taking mostly college prep classes and honors math. He took the ACT last winter and got a 24, with a 28 in math and lower scores in reading and English. He's planning to try the SAT this fall.</p>
<p>He's involved in music, and has played trombone in marching band and concert band all four years. He plays football (3 years), does track (pole vault, 4 years), and plays lacrosse (4 years). He's really interested in staying with lacrosse in college, for sure, and possibly football and track.</p>
<p>He likes math and physics a lot and, he's interested in aerospace or mechanical engineering. (I am a little worried that this is because he thinks his new brother-in-law is really, really cool. :)) He wants to get out of Ohio, but doesn't have a strong preference for coast vs. middle of the country or urban vs. rural. I would really like to see him in an engineering program that would provide him with a lot of support.</p>
<p>Once you combine engineering with the idea of "support" instead of "flunk out all but the toughest during freshman year" many of the bigger U's don't look as good. At the other end of the spectrum, smaller engineering schools like CalTech and Harvey Mudd won't make him happy as an athlete.<br>
Of course Rice would be my first suggestion since we're in Texas. Div I athletics, a "scatter" marching band known for irritating the conservatives at other schools, and a wonderful residential college system. Unfortunately getting much harder to get in to every year. Another great engineering school that's under-mentioned on this board is U of Missouri at Rolla. I know some smart kids who love it there.</p>
<p>It's hard to answer this question because you haven't said how good he is at his sports. Most good engineering schools are big state schools with division I athletic programs--pretty hard to make those teams. Also, they tend not to be known for support.</p>
<p>U. of Michigan is a really nice place, but it might be hard to get in if your brother is out-of-state. I wouldn't recommend Purdue--it has a good program but I've heard they kind of have a fail-out philosophy.</p>
<p>How about Swarthmore? (I'm assuming that this is not a women's college--I always get the LAC's mixed up.) It has a very good engineering program, and I imagine there is a lot of support since it is a small LAC. Your brother probably would be able to participate in varsity sports there too.</p>
<p>There is a lot of support at Harvey Mudd, but it might not be the kind of environment he would like. An example of the support is that if you do a homework assignment and you get below a certain score, the prof hands it backs to you to redo multiple times until you do it right. Your grade is the last score. I don't know if that's a college-wide policy but I heard it happened in the chem classes at least. Grade deflation is pretty bad there just to warn you though.</p>
<p>USC has a great marching band, and very good engineering programs in aerospace and ME. Don't know anything about the lacrosse program, but it is a Div 1 school.</p>
<p>A previous poster was right: schools strong in engineering don't typically have reputations for being warm and cozy. Is he the one looking for a supportive atmosphere, or is that the loving sister's criteria :)</p>
<p>Couple of schools come to mind, none of them perfect. Penn State, Villanova, and Elon. Good luck to him (and congrats to you on the recent wedding ! )</p>
<p>My S was interested in enigineering in a small to medium sized schools that offer African drumming opportunities. On his list were Swathmore and Lafayette. Of those two Lafayette seems to have more sports oriented. Bucknell and Lehigh were also considered.
Good luck in his college applications.</p>
<p>The low ACT score will make it difficult for him to get into nearly all of the schools thus far mentioned unless his sports are outstanding. Lafayette and Villanova are the two closest. He might consider GaTech because of the aerospace engineering. Also look at Rose Hulman, Case Western, and RPI.</p>
<p>I would also suggest considering schools with rolling admissions, like Purdue. Applying early in Sept. and having that acceptance before the end of the month does wonders for the stress level for the rest of the year.</p>
<p>My step-niece (yes, I have a convoluted family) is attending the University of Central Florida with the ultimate career goal of becoming an astronaut. She loves the place, and my father is terribly disappointed that my son isn't going there. (Would have been a free ride for him too, sigh, but he doesn't like Florida weather.)</p>
<p>From their website, they offer both Aerospace Engineering and Aerospace Engineering (B.S.A.E./M.S.A.E. or M.S.M.E.)--Accelerated Undergraduate—Graduate Program.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, although they have football there is no lacrosse.</p>
<p>Mollie...I feel I have too little to go on and so am just giving you a very very rough list of schools to explore further. Honestly, a few of these would be reaches (though some reasonable reaches are OK to have of course), particularly given his current scores. I'd have to know the unweighted GPA, his class rank or where he falls in the general distribution in his class (top 25%?, etc.), the courses he took vis a vis what was available, the actual grades and so on and so forth. But given the mechanical engineering and or Aerospace Engineering interest and very rough idea of his academic profile.....what about looking at these schools (I did not double check lacrosse at each given the time consraint but lots of these schools have sports):</p>
<p>Fairleigh Dickinson
Univ. of New Hampshire
Northeastern
Rose-Hulman
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Rochester Institute of Technology
University of Oklahoma
University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
University of Pittsburgh
Villanova
Penn State
Univ. of Vermont
Purdue
Union College
Boston University
Hofstra
Clarkson
Drexel
Lafayette
Lehigh
Miami U-Oxford
Rensselear
Syracuse
George Washington
University of Dayton
Case Western
University of Colorado-Boulder
Virginia Tech
Ohio State-Columbus</p>
<p>
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Michigan has a great strong engineering program... don't know if that's allowed since you're from Ohio :-)
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Not really. ;) (I applied to Michigan for grad school. My dad tried very hard to stifle his disapproval.)</p>
<p>
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Is he the one looking for a supportive atmosphere, or is that the loving sister's criteria
[/quote]
That's definitely me talking! I mean, he's a smart kid, but he's a typical boy, and I don't know how he'll handle the transition to college. It's not that I think he's any less responsible than the average eighteen-year-old guy, but I know he didn't inherit the anal-retentive streak that his sister did. </p>
<p>
[quote]
It's hard to answer this question because you haven't said how good he is at his sports.
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That's because I don't really know. :) He doesn't get a huge deal of playing time in football, but he is very good at pole vault and (from what I understand) quite excellent at lacrosse. I genuinely don't know if he's division-I-quite-excellent, though.</p>
<p>I will try to get more exact numbers and descriptions -- as you might imagine, trying to get an eighteen-year-old boy to talk about college while out on a visit was something like trying to squeeze water from a stone. But I really appreciate all the suggestions so far!</p>
<p>I am in a similar situation, looking at schools offering lacrosse and football, albeit with the benefit of higher test scores and some decent recruiting exposure. Lacrosse is somewhat the limiting factor, as there are only about 200 schools with men's NCAA programs, with about 130 of these being at the DIII level (no scholarships). I will work from the presumption that your brother is a Division II or III caliber player, since you would probably know if he is being courted with scholarships from Division I schools.</p>
<p>DII is very small, only about 30 teams - the two options there with engineering would appear to be New York Institute of Technology (excellent lacrosse program) and Merrimack. Both of these are pretty weak academically, however, and this is often true of DII schools overall, not just in lacrosse.</p>
<p>DIII opens up a few more options. Some that I would look into include:
Rochester Institute of Technology
Stevens Institute of Technology
[maybe not exactly "cuddly" engineering schools, but excellent lacrosse]
RPI (if SAT test scores are better)
Clarkson
Union
Catholic
UMass-Dartmouth
Wentworth Inst. of Tech.</p>
<p>Other than good ole' MIT and Swarthmore, that is about it for schools with NCAA lacrosse and engineering... there just aren't many!</p>
<p>Now, if your brother is willing to and/or interested in considering schools with strong club lacrosse programs (which are about on par with mid-level D2 & D3), a few more options come to mind, though these schools are a bit larger in enrollment:
Colorado State
Cal Poly SLO
Northeastern
Minnesota-Duluth (brrrr...)
Buffalo
Oregon State
Santa Clara
Clemson</p>
<p>Hopefully that is helpful - feel free to PM me with any questions, and I will check back here as well!</p>
<p>I was going to suggest Rose-Hulman, RPI, WPI, Lehigh, Florida Institute of Technology, Drexel...
Ga. Tech is DEFINITELY not a warm and supporting place. I know too many people who crahsed and burned there.</p>
<p>Schools like Bucknell, Lehigh, and Lafayette LOVE well rounded students like your brother. If they think he will participate in similar EC's in college, I think he could be a reasonable candidate for those places.</p>
<p>My nephew attended Knox College in IL for 3 years and is going on to UIUC for a 3-2 program in engineering. He could have also completed the degree at Wash-U or RPI. Knox has been a very supportive place for him. I don't know about sports though.</p>
<p>Though perhaps not "cuddly" RIT and Stevens are both places I've known bright but down to earth young men who've had or are having very rewarding experiences at them.</p>