Chico State, CPP. Or Inst of Tech , SD and Colorado (i think) School of Mines are all Wue schools with strong Engineering programs.
@goopylamoon:
Here is the link to the Net Price Calculators for SLO, CPP and UC Riverside just so you can compare:
https://financialaid.calpoly.edu/calculator/npcalc.htm
https://www.cpp.edu/~financial-aid/net-price-calculator/npcalc.htm
http://vcsaweb.ucr.edu/finaidmanualcalculator/
For the Federal student loans of $27K, you need to have you and your parents fill out the FASFA. This will also determine if you are eligible for Federal grants (free money).
https://fafsa.ed.gov/fotw1718/pdf/PdfFafsa17-18.pdf
Here is the link to Cal grant website to see if you qualify: http://www.csac.ca.gov/doc.asp?id=48
Using the Net Price calculator for each school of interest will give you the best estimate of costs.
@rocket88, Oregon State is as different from Cal Poly as different gets. Students are admitted, competitively to their major at Cal Poly. Students are admitted to pre-engineering at OSU and have to compete for a desired slot after they complete a fairly unified first two year curriculum. At OSU you don’t become a ME per se until Junior year. It’s a nice campus, that produces good engineers that get good jobs. How they do it however is VERY different than they way students are educated at CP.
@rocket88, A basic precept of the project based “learn by doing” process involves the designing of a working solution to a real problem which requires the student to “sort the wheat from the chaff.” This is actually a different thought process than is required to repeat a known procedure back to the teaching faculty as taught in the classroom. It is not just about learning how to use a screwdriver or even a piece of sophisticated laboratory equipment. It is about learning how to sort out relevant information from its real world setting so an effective design can be implemented. This thought process does not lend itself well to the classroom setting. The participating students actually need to experience the research and design themselves to get the full benefit of the exercise. This may or may not happen for every student at a “research” university.
The caliber of the faculty and students at “research” universities is not the question here. We are saying that the students can profit from the direct experience of doing research themselves on ill defined problems. This is what we mean by “hands on” at WPI. A student needs to ride the bike for such a learning experience. This is the toughest part of teaching. I think Cal Poly gets it!
:bz
WPI does is more differently that any school out there.
Cal Poly has laboratories for everything. The ME fluids lab has 5 wind tunnels and Aero has its own fluids lab that includes a Mach speed tunnel. That’s not so uncommon, but others like the vibrations lab and the rotational dynamics lab are semi-unique. Vibrations at most schools is just a math class because they don’t have the facilities to see it in practice. They also have extensive machine shop and lab space that does nothing but support individual and club projects. All of the clubs and all of the MS level research (they don’t offer PhD) is student driven. All in all, there are more than 80 laboratories in the College of Engineering alone. That’s their “doing” angle.
WPI has a project based curriculum. Most schools have a capstone project, but WPI also has one during junior year and even one freshman year of a student chooses that option. Unlike the Senior Project or Capstone at most schools that is important, but just pasted on at the end of it all, WPI uses the projects as vehicles for learning. Poly uses labs that function as stand alone test experiments, WPI has projects that incorporate the lecture material students are working on at the time into a unifying thing. Instead of thermo lab, dynamics lab, etc. WPI incorporates that into a single thing, like say a CubeSat or a robot with a unique function or a solar trashcan.
WPI is also completely unique when it comes to study abroad. At most schools you can only take GEs while abroad. At a few, if you’re lucky, you can take tech classes. At WPI students go and do meaningful work on an ongoing project. It’s more like an internship, but one that could be remote from MA in the US or in Venice or South America.
I can’t think of a school that takes “practical” to the level that WPI does. It’s a great little school in a great location. Students all seemed very happy when we visited.
The knock against “practical” schools like Cal Poly, Olin and WPI is that they are lacking in theory. I can’t speak for the others, but I have not seen that in my son’s experience at CP. MEs take the same math that math majors take through Linear Algebra. There’s no softer, this s good enough, non-proof based engineering sequence for math. He’ll even take courses in Advanced Numerical Methods and Tensor Calculus before he finishes. Nothing I’ve seen leads me to believe they skimp on theory. My experience is limited though with n=1.
Good luck in your quest!
CSM is not only not WUE, but also expensive.
Assuming you’re referring to Colorado School of Mines, that’s true. You can pretty much assume that any program very popular from out of state won’t offer WUE. If they don’t need to cut tuition to attract students from OOS, they don’t. Non-WUE WICHE programs for ME outside CA include Colorado Boulder, Washington, Oregon State, Colorado School of Mines, Arizona and Arizona State. That still leaves LOTS of good options. A program’s popularity and how good it actually is, frequently are not aligned.
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I don’t think Utah is a WUE, unless your stats are very high. They told me that they treat it as a scholarship with just highest stats winning the WUE.
Also San Jose State is well respected for engineering. But, the rent would be high off campus.
I just want to throw in there some places that offer great deals for California students in engineering.
- University of Wyoming
- Boise State
- University of Nevada Reno
- University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
These schools would offer you a scholarship that would make them more affordable than a UC for a full pay student.
Someone earlier in the thread mentioned that Oregon State isn’t a direct admit into engineering.
We ruled out Oregon State for that reason that Corbett stated. Too expensive for Ca. kids. Also ruled out Boulder. I can’t understand people that go for it for that price? How can it be worth it?
My son is applying to many of these schools for Civil Engineering. Colorado State is a WUE school, as is Montana State. Mt. State has a competitive application for WUE, but offered my son $12K in case he doesn’t get WUE. Washington State also offers a WUE-like scholarship. All of those will be more expensive that a Cal State tuition, but similar to a UC tuition (and room and board seems less expensive at some of them).
Just because WUE is competetive, doesn’t mean the OP won’t get it. You only know after you apply. My son, who had strong enough stats to be admitted to ME at Cal Poly, received an award better than WUE at Utah, one year tuition free followed by three at the instate tuition rate.
Well, a Cal Poly Slo engineering admit is way way up there in terms of stats. My DS is just a 3.2 UW (higher CSU GPA, but OOS we looked at didn’t care about weighted) and just a 1220 SAT ( higher in math section than English). Anyway, those schools like Colorado State and Montana weren’t going to give him WUE most likely, so we didn’t apply. But for someone with a lot higher stats, they would.
Thanks for all the great help guys! You have no idea how much I appreciate it.
@eyemgh You mentioned Utah, were you talking about Utah state University or University of Utah?
I think he is talking the U of Utah, USU has auto merit stats on their website and it is much less opaque than the U’s approach. USU is the aggie school and does have engineering. It is not in SLC.
University of Utah. The ME department instituted a curriculum with the intent of making it more hands on from the start.