I posted this in the selection section but someone suggested I try here as well.
Asking for my son.
He’s looking east of the Mississippi River
Attends a challenging prep school.
Will be graduating with 7 full science course (bio H, adv H Chem, Physics H, Engineering, AP Bio, AP CHem, AP Physics)
5 on all APs so far.
AP calc this year.
Mostly A’s in math & science classes.
Took honors level history, college prep level English
GPA unweighted is a 3.5, a B+ in his school.
C grades in German brought down GPA significantly.
School does not rank.
SAT - one sitting - 1530
math 780, EBRW 750
SAT Subject Math II 800
SAT Chem 780
We are having a hard time figuring safety/match/reach/huge reach so looking for suggestions at each level.
Looking for options where he might get merit aid, where the school is generous with FA, and are also applying for AFROTC as another option.
Family contribution less than $30K would be best.
He is a senior, is applying to some early action, but I am stressing hugely.
There are literally hundreds of ABET-accredited computer engineering programs. You’re going to need to narrow your search further than the information you provided allows or you’re going to get answers that are all over the map.
As @boneh3ad said, there are SO many options, more information is required to offer valuable insight. Otherwise, we are essentially throwing out random names based on what WE like.
Does he want urban, suburban or rural? What about weather? Small, Medium, Large or Giant? What are his hobbies? Are class sizes important to him? Does he want to do research? How about club involvement?
Those might not be the things HE cares about, but until you can give some guidance as to what is, your results won’t be very evidence based.
“Attends a challenging prep school.” - I have that private high schools often have excellent a guidance counselors / advisors (especially when compared to the overworked public hs GC). Do make sure your son is taking advantage of their expertise and familiarity. Kids often don’t like asking for help, so encourage him to take advantage of their advise.
Thanks all. @eyemgh , he is looking for something on the bigger side - 8,000+ I’d say. Not too city (NYU) but BU was Ok. Definitely not rural. He likes a school that kind of flows into a nice college town (like Uva). He doesn’t want want a super serious school - he would like some school spirit, but he’s not a partier, so he’d like a school that has social options outside beer.
He’s flexible about weather - though he doesn’t was Georgia/Fl (though Alabama is ok - family there) and south of Ny/Massachusetts. I don’t think he is too particular about clubs. He wants a school with strong free speech policies and an environment that is accepting of debate (not safe zones).
Well, 8000 is still pretty small. There are 10 schools with over 50,000 students. There’s a lot of room between there and 8000. It may not matter, but food for thought.
Please explain this more: “He wants a school with strong free speech policies and an environment that is accepting of debate (not safe zones).” This means different things to different people. Is he looking for a more conservative student body? More liberal? Schools can be VERY accepting of debate AND have safe zones.
What type of engineering?
What is your home state?
GPA is going to be the thing that hangs him up the most as most schools make that their dominant data point. The one angle is NMSF/NMF. Those awards can be had irrespective of GPA at some schools.
@eyemgh Yes, I was giving 8,000 as a minimum. We live close to a school with about that number and he says bigger than that. We live in NY. He is interested in computer engineering, but has interest in mechanical engineering and compsci as well. He is not a NMF, not sure why his PSAT wasn’t as strong as SAT. He took the SAT with almost no prep (1 practice test). He is very bright and very well suited to being an engineer.
He tends conservative/libertarian, but does not feel like he needs to be surrounded by people who share his views. He just doesn’t want to be at a school where one cannot be an “outed” conservative comfortably. We live in NY near the city, so he is very used to people with varying viewpoints. He is concerned about free speech policies and is concerned about schools that have policies that are very restrictive of free speech. He checks thefire.org to read up on policies. He prefers schools where the admin supports free speech on campus. He will be in engineering, so I don’t think political debate will come up much in the classroom, but he feels it affects climate at the school.
Most students PSAT scores aren’t as strong as their SAT scores. They are expected to improve, and why extra emphasis is given to awarding high scores, rightly or wrongly, at a younger age.
Just to see if I could figure out what that website was about, I pulled up RPI, a school I am familiar with, because my son applied and was accepted, it’s in your home state, and it’s just under his size threshold. It is given a Red rating because it is against RPI policy to use their computers to libel or slander someone. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around that being a bad thing, as both are defamation, and can be prosecuted in civil court.
Alabama would net him a little over $100k with his SAT, but even Alabama gets a Yellow from that website because they have written policies against sexual harassment and non-sexual harassment.
I’d suggest he look at ASEE school profiles to find schools where his GPA is at the 50th percentile of students admitted and then cross reference them with that website. Only he can determine if it will be an environment he is comfortable with.
As someone who has spent a lot of time at universities, I have to say that, at least in my experience, the idea that Universities are undertaking some widespread crackdown on free speech is overplayed pretty dramatically in some media circles. I am sure there are some universities here and there that use too heavy a hand in this realm, but this does not seem to be the norm.
When my son reads the info on thefire.org, he reads the actual policy and decides if it is something that he personally has a problem with or not. He is not a kool-aid drinker of other’s ideas - he is very thoughtful, and very independent. There are schools with a “red light” on his list. The problem is when schools start writing policies about offensive speech, but it is very difficult to clarify what offensive speech is. Places like UVa and U of Chicago place a high importance on this issue, with Chicago drafting “The Chicago Statement” on free speech which has been adopted by a number of universities.
There have been incidents at schools, and while I don’t believe it is something encountered every day, the idea is somewhat important to my son. Students all have varying characteristics that they look for in a school and need to balance them to find the best fit. This is one of his. A strong engineering program would probably be his top requirement, geographic area is a consideration, affordability, the list goes on.
I find this more then interesting but might be difficult on your son finding a perfect fit for himself. I never heard of The Fire before. My son goes to University of Michigan for engineering. They have been tested since last year with free speech (Richard Spencer) and other instances. They have a red light rating.
All I know as a parent the president of the school has kept us informed all the way. They have sent out information and not trying to hide anything. Speech is extremely free and flowing at Michigan. My son’s reason for being there is the intellectual discussion and intelligence of the student body.
My point… No school is perfect. How they deal with it is important but I don’t see anything that shows they have not dealt with things properly.I follow incidents carefully. I don’t think “The Fire” is giving a realistic interpretation of what is actually happening at this school… As your son is evaluating schools he might want to keep that in mind. Maybe look at Facebook groups for the schools to get a better depiction of what is actually happening on the ground per se.