<p>I am a rising junior in High School. Interested in Engineering at college. My problem is that I stink at testing such as ACT/SAT and always have. I have taken a couple of practice tests and scored a 22 composite in ACT. With that I stand no chance at Engineering school admission. I will work hard over the next year with ACT practice but I don’t know if I can improve much. My GPA is 3.8 so far. Keeping this in mind, I am thinking of community college for 2 years and then transfer out to a 4-year university. I have done some research on this. I see there are colleges such as Miami Dade, Montgomery College, Georgia Perimeter College, etc, that have transfer agreements with universities, some of them guaranteed if certain GPA is attained in Community college. I also see that they won’t need ACT/SAT after 2 years in community college. Is this a route worth considering seriously? Do many High school graduates take this kind of route? I live in the northeast but I would consider going almost anywhere if there is a good community college with strong academic program where I can take 2 years of Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, etc and able to transfer credits. Thanks.</p>
<p>I’m biased, but I highly recommend Montgomery College in Maryland. 60% of MCPS students attend Montgomery college after graduating from high school amd Montgomery County has some of the best public schools in the nation.</p>
<p>Having personally gone through their engineering program (the largest among all community colleges in America), I also believe I got a much better foundation in the lower division science, math, and engineering courses than my peers at the state flagship. I’m basing that in my ability to consistently out-perform them now that I have a year post transfer under my belt to compare.</p>
<p>If you’re savvy about putting together your schedule with the best teachers and push yourself (look into the I honors program), it’s a legitimate way to prep for GATech, MIT, Cal Tech, Cornell, UIUC, or other top engineering programs (they have sent students to all of them). They currently have a transfer agreement with GATech.</p>
<p>Thanks for the response. I don’t live in MD, so I am not a student of MCPS. Which one of the campuses hosts the students taking engineering related classes? Rockville? Is the transfer agreement to GTech a guaranteed admission or just be eligible and then compete with students from all over? What is your opinion of Univ of Maryland at College Park for Engineering? Thanks.</p>
<p>I just threw in the MCPS statistic because you were concerned that heading to a 2-year college might not be common for high school students. </p>
<p>Rockville is where most of the engineering (ENES) courses are taught, but all of the campuses give coverage to math, physics, chemistry, and various humanities/geneds. I often had semesters between two different campuses (one in the morning, another one in the afternoon) to optimize teacher choices, (they’re each about 20-30 minutes drive from each other). But yeah, you’ll want to get to know the engineering transfer advisor at Rockville.</p>
<p>As far as the agreement, it’s part of GATech’s Regents Engineering Transfer Program, so as long as you complete the requirements of the program for both MC and GATech, it is a guaranteed admission.</p>
<p>For UMD, I only have first experience with the Aerospace department, which is a really great program at Maryland. However, from the people I’ve met, they also have a solid EE program and the MechE program seems to customizable to the student (so-so for those skating through, opportunities abound for top students).</p>
<p>Montgomery doesn’t appear to be part of the RETP program. </p>
<p><a href=“Undergraduate Students | Center for Engineering Education and Diversity (CEED)”>http://ceed.gatech.edu/programs/undergrad/retep</a></p>
<p>I guess dual degree and retp are different? Though they have the same pdf/coordinator/requirements:</p>
<p>From the MC page,
<a href=“http://cms.montgomerycollege.edu/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=54293”>http://cms.montgomerycollege.edu/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=54293</a></p>
<p>From GATech
<a href=“Blow the Whistle! (404 error: page not found) | Undergraduate Admission”>Blow the Whistle! (404 error: page not found) | Undergraduate Admission;
<p><a href=“http://coe.gatech.edu/dual-degree”>http://coe.gatech.edu/dual-degree</a></p>
<p>You could consider test optional 4 year colleges as well. The higher ranking schools include wake forest.</p>
<p>Interesting. I see Wake Forest has a 3/2 program with Vanderbilt. While I like Vanderbilt, I thought it was more known for Medicine. And also Vanderbilt doesn’t seem to offer all the Engineering majors. I am keen on Materials Engineering, but that could change with time. Also, I saw that it costs 60K+ per year. There is no way my parents would pay that for 3 years.</p>
<p>My D started in CC and transferred to an elite private U. One of the issues of transferring in engineering is that many Us will require pretty much that you complete nearly all your engineering coursework at their U, which may mean that you will need to spend 4 years at whatever U you end up transferring into.</p>