<p>alGorescousin - the filter is engineering. Most of the schools you listed don't have it.<br>
For out of state without stellar stats the UC system is not going to work. CalState might - I thought of Humbolt State but they don't do engineering except in the enviro/forestry resources areas.
We ran into this with one of ours - west of the Mississippi there are the superschools like CalTech/HarveyMudd and a few big privates like USC, etc that offer great engineering programs and then you are looking at your state's big schools or other state's schools.</p>
<p>First - 3.8 GPA by itself is meaningless. This says nothing of how the school calculates or weights gpa or course selection. Hopefully he has taken high level courses in science and math.</p>
<p>familyoutdoors - it's ok to have an "average" kid. My 4 are all average. Even my "gifted" one.<br>
Definitely encourage him to take an SAT prep course and take them again. Not only will it help in admissions but perhaps it will help with scholarship dollars as well.</p>
<p>One of mine is going Civil Engineering - she looked at Colorado School of Mines and loved it. To have a successful engineering career, one does not have to have graduated from MIT, Cal Tech or Harvey Mudd. My nephew graduated 5 years ago from a state school in New England with an "average" gpa and has had a great career.</p>
<p>I hear New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology is a great school. He may want to look at Montana Tech as well.</p>
<p>Welcome</a> to New Mexico Tech
Thanks JustAMom - forgot about that one.
If he wants to get away from the PNW, nothing is more different than the desert!
Isn't this where WashDad's son goes?</p>
<p>I'll third the rec for Colorado School of Mines and for New Mexico Tech. I know a number of kids who have attended/are attending both. Both have great reputations and graduates often have multiple job offers early on during their senior year. Both also send on a number of students to prestigous graduate programs.</p>
<p>NM Tech is a small school (enrollment under 2000 undergraduate) with lots of personal faculty attention for students. And Tech has one extremely unique program--it offers an explosives science program through its civil engineering dept. Program has serious federal money funding it and the students get to blow all kinds of things up. </p>
<p>Mines is slightly larger--about 6000 undergrads and located in the Denver suburb of Golden. </p>
<p>Tech is a WUE school; Mines is not.</p>
<p>If you have questions about either, I'll be happy to answer them.</p>
<p>OIT (Oregon Institute of Technology), University of Portland and Portland State all offer engineering, as does Oregon State. Lots of people mentioned the engineering schools in the mountain west states. </p>
<p>Gonzaga, Seattle U, Santa Clara, Loyola etc.--nearly all of the Jesuit universities offer engineering as well.</p>
<p>Check out:
University of the Pacific
University of Redlands
University of Washington
Iowa State (not as far west as you wanted)
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
Colorado School of Mines</p>
<p>His GPA is surely above average, though I do not know the rigor of his chosen curriculum. It may be worth SAT tutoring and/or doing practice SAT tests for a few months and retaking in October to see if he can boost the scores...any amount will help him and be more aligned with his GPA.</p>
<p>I have some additional ones to check out but I don't have the time to extensively research them for you and so they may or may not work but take a look also at (besides ones I mentioned in post #26 or ones mentioned by other members):</p>
<p>Carroll College (Helena, MT)
Colorado State
Northern Arizona University
Oregon State
San Diego State
Univ. of Arizona
University of Idaho
Univ. of Nevado: Las Vegas
Univ. of Nevaado: Reno
Univ. of Wyoming
Utah State
Washington State</p>
<p>I am seconding University of Idaho for engineering.</p>
<p>To help a couple of the posters here, the Op did place some filters. They were asking about engineering schools on the West Coast, but not the Northwest. i'm not looking at a map, but I think that leaves only Calif schools. Perhaps the OP will expand the target area? I've heard good things too about Colorado/Mines, but although a western state it is not on the west coast.</p>
<p>Please research, with care (because this is a new department reorganization that involves Engineering): Chapman Univeristy, in Orange California: A reshaped engineering department is forming as we speak. They are reorganizing some departments with respect to Computer Science, Physics, and Engineering. I just tried to research it for you a bit. Your S's statistics are in target range for their admissions statistics in general to Chapman U, although I don't know what will be expected at their newly reorganized major to accommodate their engineering undergrads. </p>
<p>It's a mid-size private university of around 5,000, in an unusual historic town (Orange, California) near Anaheim. My S attends there, taking a different major from a different college within it. But he enjoys Chapman U. very much. </p>
<p>This link was a bit rich for my soul, as it's written from the point of view of the Physics world, excited over the new profs coming in for the Physics side of the department. I think you'd need to research, by net or by phone, to pin down from the Engineering perspective, what will be going on for those majors. This is all so new. </p>
<p>We</a> Hear That: Aharonov, Kafato, Tollaksen, Yan and Al-Askary move to Chapman University</p>
<p>In past years, I believe that Chapman U may have had a relationship with UCal at Irvine for its engineering majors, and perhaps that, too, exists in some form. I just ran out of research juices, but hope this tip helps your search.</p>
<p>EDIT: WIth a student bringing in such a fine GPA, he might be exactly the kind to benefit from some private SAT coaching, since he obviously applies himself to the tasks put in front of him. Coaching on strategies for time management during the test, how to omit questions wisely, and other strategies could help. I've seen science students pull up their CR scores by studying vocabulary very methodically, too, or getting some counsel on what's expected in the Writing essay for logical organization and flow. What doesn't sound fair is to send him in uncoached to take SAT's next time. As well, some do better on ACT's as has been mentioned.</p>
<p>Good luck. To me, it sounds like if your kid would build the bridge, I'd be glad to drive over it. Solid.</p>
<p>younghoss....I agree that the OP said "West Coast and not Northwest". I went a bit beyond that and did "West" and a couple places were also on the Northwest. The parameter of "West Coast and NOT Northwest" is very limiting, though I found some schools that fit this. I think it is worth mentioning a few that are a little out of that parameter but not being in say, the East/South or Eastern part of the midWest. As a college counselor, I find many kids with very restrictive parameters and I have to encourage them to widen it a little and be less picky at this juncture on the location (within reason) and then wait and see what happens when acceptances roll in and then be pickier about something like the location. For instance, I have many students who want to study musical theater and will say, "I only want NYC!!" and there are very very few programs (and all are extremely competitive") located within NYC and to limit it that much would be limitting many fine options that would increase their odds and they truly do not NEED to go to school in NYC and may prefer it but can wait and see where they get in and if they get into a school in NYC, go for it. Meanwhile, those who expand their parameters even a little bit (in this case, maybe not go South or West), end up with a more successful admissions outcome.</p>
<p>As an Eastcoast mom whose kid fell into the "average range", the only 2 things I can suggest:</p>
<p>Consider the ACT exam. It is different than the SAT and some kids do considerably better on it. My kid just took 2 or 3 practice tests from the Actual ACT book (forgot who publishes it- but may be Peterson) and did an equivalent of 130 points higher on ACT. Many kids on these boards had a similar jump in grades.<br>
Also- I liked the book by Tamra Orr. "Schools for B students (?)." You can probably google the author and get the exact name of book. I didn't like the CTCL book, as most of the schools suggested were way too small for my kids. But the Orr book had a good selection of schools- Though we didn't concentrate on west coast schools
Good luck- I know this website seems skewed to kids applying to more competitive schools out there, but there are a bunch of us who have been involved with schools that are geared to the average of HS student.</p>
<p>We could limit it to JUST California schools because that is the only state on the West Coast that is not the Northwest. So, I have heard mentioned in CA on this thread:</p>
<p>San Diego State
University of the Pacific
University of Redlands
Santa Clara
Loyola-Marymount
Chapman
U San Diego
Univ of San Francisco
Pepperdine
Cal Poly</p>
<p>There is a small college in Lacey WA (next door to Olympia the state capital) about 60 miles south of Seattle. It is St. Martin's and they have an engineering program which I think is pretty good. Also may offer merit fianncial aid with that package.</p>
<p>Redlands, USD, Pepperdine and USF do not have engineering majors. They may have 3-2 engineering programs (you do the first three years at one college, then transfer to an engineering program elsewhere for your last two years --- there are pluses and minuses to doing a 3-2 program). There are also two Cal Poly's - Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Cal Poly Pomona. It's important to know the difference. While they are both good for engineering, they are different schools. Also, admission to both the UCs and Cal States is really dependent on the student having completed certain courses, so you probably will want to read up on that if your son is considering one. Some of the Cal States don't consider test scores if the student has above a 3.0 GPA.</p>
<p>I would recommend that the original poster use a site that I actually found through the AdmissionsAdvice.com website mentioned above - Welcome</a> to TryEngineering.org It is a non-profit site for students interested in engineering. It has a searchable database of ABET accredited engineering programs and each profile will give you the specifics about the GPA and test scores of the admitted students.</p>
<p>Check out the thread I just bumped entitled "Brag About Your Lesser-Known School" - this is a really nice resource for other wonderful schools besides the well-known and obvious!!!!</p>