Seeking College Recommendation

I’d love some out of the box and straight down the lane feedback on college recommendations. My son has a 215 score and likely will get Semi Finalist Status and has a 35 ACT in his first attempt. He is waiting for SAT and is optimistic. Challenge is, his grades are but a 3.4 unweighted, though with curricula that was all IB through Junior year and included 5 AP classes.

His passion is technology. He is not motivated by winning but more like collegial exploration of cool technology. He is more likely to talk about android new operating systems than a test he has the next day.

I am seeking schools that have great technology opportunities in a collegial environment that rewards the kid who likes to collaborate and who isn’t driven to beat other kids but to work with them. Ideally, it would be an outstanding school who likes this kind of kid and wants to attract National Merit kid with great ACT/SAT and not as worried about grades, especially given the rigor of his coursework and still top 10% class rank.

Anybody have thoughts on colleges you’d recommend if location wasn’t a concern but environment, technology emphasis, quality of learning and amount of merit were drivers?

Look into the [url="<a href=“http://theaitu.org%22%5DAITU%5B/url”>http://theaitu.org"]AITU[/url] schools. With his ACT scores and challenging curriculum, he might get some nice merit aid. These schools are all challenging but the environment is not cutthroat and courses like the [url="<a href=“http://ipro.iit.edu%22%5DIPros%5B/url”>http://ipro.iit.edu"]IPros[/url] we have at Illinois Tech are very much team oriented.

xraymancs, thanks for the AITU school list. I’ve been thinking of Harvey Mudd, Case Western and Carnegie Mellon. What makes the AITU less cutthroat? We are in Chicago in two weeks. Maybe we need to stop by instead of U of Chicago and Northwestern:)

Olin School of Engineering…very, very small yet completely tech and collaborative. Might be a niche fit for your son or a similar student. I don’t know about additional amount of merit aid, but they give 1/2 tuition scholarship to everyone.

4kids2graduate, funny you bring that school up…I just came across it, Stevens and Harvey Mudd yesterday and was wondering about it. Do you have any personal experience or know anyone who went there? I think you are really on to something and appreciate you sharing that!

You either totally love Olin or are blah about it. It’s all about fit for the student. Is your student the quirky smart kind who are into science and engineering and loves to be around other kids like that? It’s like a very small version of MIT. The great thing is that Olin students can take classes at Babson, Wellesley, and Brandeis. The campus is new and very nice. Their dorms were rated the best in the country, I believe, by USN&WR. If you are interested, you should contact the admissions office directly. They will be glad to host your student for an overnight visit with students. They do love kids who show a strong interest early on when it comes to admissions.

A classmate of my kid went to Olin. Very smart, was boy’s class Val at a challenging school and really was likely able to get in anywhere (the top kids at that school often go to Stanford, like the girl Val did.) He is in medical school now. Another friend and classmate went to Harvey Mudd, a great school but very challenging. The gpa seems low for those schools but if he is in the top 10 pct it seems that is just a hard grading school.

Another school to possibly consider is UT Dallas. It is a great school for tech nerds. Many of their facilities are new including the dorms and the ART and Technology building. They give good merit scholarships with a full ride for national merit finalists. They are situated in Richardson, Tx and have a lot of intern and coop opportunities both in the Dallas area and Austin. I love the school but it is not for everybody. It does not have a party reputation and no football team, but a great chess team!

WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
RPI (Rensselaer)
RIT

  • all come to mind. He would probably get great merit money at all three.

Xray…just spent night sorting through and based on your feedback, we are going to try to replace our campus visit at U of Chicago with a visit to IIT…you made a difference!

Spent a lot of time looking into Olin and couldn’t be more impressed. I want to go there, forget about my kid. Amazing idea and I’m now hopeful this will be an option for him on there part…thank you

GTAustin, would never have thought of UT Dallas but looked into it and it will be a safety school for my son. Probably not going to be where he ends up but would be a fine choice if he did and we’re happy you shared it. Thanks again

@RedbirdDad - I have found that engineers are very cooperative with each other. They know the curriculum is hard and that they can all do well if they work together instead of trying to outdo each other. This is not always the case with all majors I have known throughout my years as a faculty member at IIT and as a student. Enjoy your visit to Chicago!

@RedbirdDad We are from the northwest, but D14 is freshman in NY so when visiting her last fall we visited 4 colleges in that part of the country with S16, including Olin. S would like small school if possible but it needs to have engineering program. He has absolutely no worries if school has no sports teams and other “big school” amenities. He absolutely LOVED Olin! There is no other school quite like it. They work very collaboratively, in fact they are “required” to do math homework/problem sets in a group! They look for students that really want a collaborative environment and want to work together with fellow students. All students that make the first “cut” are required to attend Candidates Weekend, which includes activities that require students to work together.

I will mention again that it is a very niche fit, and not for everyone…but worth considering for students that do not mind the idea of a teeny tiny tech school! Cross registration at Babson, Brandeis, and Wellesley is an added bonus (I think it was Babson that is right next door, literally a two minute walk)…and proximity to Boston is a plus as well.

4kids…Babson is the school I wish I attended so you had me at hello with cross registration. Son has no interest in sports teams and loves theatre …always collaborator, very capable but likes to be a team not the star…I like this place more and more