Should she apply straight to engineering school?

My daughter loves math and science so engineering sounds like a good fit (thought about a chem major, but didn’t like AP Chem enough to major in it). She has absolutely no idea what she wants to do in life (doesn’t like robotics, so I’m guessing mechanical engineering is out, but she does love fashion, so maybe chemical engineering and textiles?).

It sounds as though you can’t ever transfer into engineering, so she needs to apply straight to engineering schools if there is even a remote chance she might want to be an engineer. I’m worried because even though her qualifications are solid (4.0 unweighted GPA, 4.7 weighted GPA with a 34 on the ACT and taking it again), she really wants to go to a private college of 5,000-8,000 students (and we agree that would suit her best) but since it seems all engineering students have high qualifications I’m guessing that will negatively impact her chances at merit aid.

Anyone have any thoughts?

What about Lehigh or Bucknell? Or Case Western? Or she has the stats for a shot at Harvey Mudd – small, but part of the Claremont Consortium of about 5,000 students.

If the school isn’t separated by major (like a large university that has its own Engineering school with separate admissions), then she will generally be in the same pool for merit as everyone else. Those schools would also give her a chance to explore other majors – although she probably would want to take at least some engineering related classes early to stay on track to graduate if she chooses it.

Sounds like she is a junior. My kid went to Rose Hulman’s Operation Catapult summer after jr year to explore different engineering majors. It was dead useful – she enjoyed the project she worked on thetr, but she decided she did NOT want to be an engineer (is now a college senior physics major). It helped going into college applications knowing this.

Mechanical engineering is about much more than robotics. I’d suggest doing a bit of reading about the sorts of things the different types of engineers do before deciding on one.

I am confused by this for several reasons.

  1. She didn't like AP Chem, but is considering the engineering discipline with the most chem? ChemEs will have to take at least two semesters of general chemistry, two semesters of organic chemistry, and one semester of physical chemistry. Maybe more depending on your school -- I'd say probably not less.
  2. What do you think ChemEs would be doing in the textile industry? I'm guessing improving dyeing and bleaching processes and stuff like that. Is that really interesting to her?

Wonderfully helpful intparent - thank you!

here is another summer program to try - but deadlines are approaching fast
https://www.wpi.edu/academics/pre-collegiate/summer/stem-residential/frontiers

there are similar things across the country - and just a few weeks could really help clarify things for her

With respect to whether it is necessary to apply to the major, or if it is difficult to change majors later, that varies by school.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1947599-faq-does-intended-major-make-it-easier-or-more-difficult-to-get-into-a-college.html may be helpful for general information, but you need to check each school to see whether that is an issue.

However, an undecided student considering an engineering major (even if there are no barriers to changing major at the school) needs to follow the curriculum (or at least the key prerequisites) from the start to avoid being behind if s/he decides to do the engineering major, due to the sequential nature of the prerequisites.

Philadelphia University is/was the premier textiles college. NC State too? A textiles job requires lots of Asian travel.

Go for a comprehensive program. Bucknell and Lehigh are among the best mid-sized.

Lafayette ??

Yes. There is a separate college of textiles that offers degrees from fashion to engineering, and everything in between.

If she’s not gung ho on Engineering, I’d not suggest intense programs like Harvey Mudd. Yes… I know their program has a lot of Humanities, but the technical classes are notoriously tough. Also, if you want merit aid, steer away from the schools (like Mudd) that do mostly need-based Financial Aid.

An opinion. I think it is easier to transfer out of engineering into other majors than to transfer into engineering. If she is unsure of what she would like to study I would consider a larger school as opposed to a smaller school as there would be more options if she chose to change her major.

@WillowMom

Textile Engineering thru the College of Textiles at NC State might be an interesting choice for her interests:
https://textiles.ncsu.edu/

they said they had scholarships available for this since they want to attract more students. you can major in TE alone or get a dual major in Textile Engineering and Chemical Engineering

also NCSU’s College of Natural Resources has a Paper Science Engineering major that has big scholarships available. it is a small niche program that produces highly valued graduates with virtually a 100% job placement. again you can get your degree in PSE alone, or combine it with Chemical Engineering.

Honing into textiles seems like a little premature for what the OP asked. I would council her to start in engineering at a school where she can easily switch and has other majors that she’s also interested in. It’s far easier to switch OUT of engineering than INTO engineering. Students don’t know what they don’t know at her age. It takes getting pretty deep into an engineering curriculum to really begin to understand what they’ll be doing on a day to day basis. It sounds like she’s pretty undecided right now.

My DD wanted to do something within engineering when she entered college but was quite undecided about which specific field she wanted. Sounds somewhat similar to your daughter. She ended up at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) although there are many colleges with similar approaches to majors. WPI admits students to the college without making them specify a major (they might have asked for a preference but, if so, it wasn’t binding). You would typically designate a major at the end of your freshman year although my daughter delayed that decision to the end of her sophomore year. She was pretty sure about mechanical by the end of her freshman year and so had her classes aligned that way, just was not ready to put it down on paper.

As stated above, robotics is just a specialty within mechanical engineering and most mechanical engineers don’t do robotics. My daughter didn’t do robotics.

By going to a college that allows you to designate a major after you have been in college a year or so allows the student to look around and figure out what they want. High school really doesn’t prepare a student to make a decision on major. Many California schools require you to designate a major and you are admitted into that department which I think is doing a disservice to the students like your daughter (and mine) who are interested in engineering but don’t have a good handle on specifically which major.

The good thing is that for almost every flavor of engineering, the freshman classes are about the same. So, making the choice of major after freshman year doesn’t impact graduating in 4 years.

Bryn Mawr has a 4+1 option for engineering with UPenn.

Unlike 3+2 programs, she’d graduate with her Bryn Mawr class and then continue on at UPenn for engineering. She would start the engineering classes while still at Bryn Mawr. UPenn is a short train-ride away from BMC and they told me that they pay for the train to Philly for students taking classes at UPenn.

http://www.brynmawr.edu/deans/exp_acad_options/FourPlusOnePartnership.shtml

This option exists at Haverford too.

https://www.haverford.edu/engineering/41-program-university-pennsylvania

Be careful, though. Some schools where students enter undeclared do not have free choice of major after one enrolls, due to capacity limitations. Students may have to earn a high GPA or face a competitive admission process to get into their majors. Purdue, Minnesota, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, and others have this kind of system for engineering majors.

Those are trade offs- having to commit vs. time to explore. We liked the flexibility of not having our kids have to declare a particular engineering major at 17 years old. They had time to explore. If they did not do well enough to meet requirements to get a preferred major (usually around 3.0 but every program is different), so be it. Kids know what they need to do for the most part to get what they need and study (or don’t) accordingly. Some kids just will not make it in engineering (or could make it but just decide it’s not for them when they get more exposure to it in college).

Most engineering majors require enough common math, science, and humanities and/or social science courses to fill out two years of study. To stay on a four year schedule, they will need to be fully committed to their selected major’s courses in the last two years. It is expecting a lot to require a secondary school student to actually know the nature of a particular horse when they have never ridden before. (That pony ride at the local fund raiser does not count!). Their exposure to math and science has been helpful but not always sufficient evidence for a particular major.

I started by dreaming of chemical engineering in HS because I loved chemistry, by sophomore year in college it was physics and electrical engineering, by graduate school it was economics. In graduate school, 1/2 of the class had engineering background and another was a math major. Many of the best economists actually started in physics.

Learning is a developmental process. As a student’s perspective develops they will discover new things. This is not necessarily a bad development! Engineering is not a terminal disease. In fact it can be argued that good engineers, just like all good professional, have to continuously educate themselves after college because of the geometric (or is that exponential) growth in the sciences.

We often hear this discussion in the LAC arena. Such growth is not, and should not, be unique to the liberal arts curricula.

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" Many of the best economists actually started in physics." - Interesting. My CO_kid that dropped out of engineering eventually end up as an economics a major. For her, econ academics were a good blend of analytical classes and non-STEM electives.