My son is junior wants to major in chemical engineering and if possible wants to double major in computers too. He has an unweighted gpa of 3.9. He has done volunteer work in school clubs. He has taken 3 Aps, in past 2 years and got a 3 in them. He will be taking act, sat and psat this year. This year he has taken 5 aps. He is in the school band. He also plays tennis in the school team. He has been a straight A student. He has shortlisted some colleges, by googling best chemical eng colleges but we are confused and have some doubts. If anyone could please give some suggestions would be really grateful.
When should we start touring colleges?
His list of colleges for now are… Univ of Berkeley, university of Minnesota twin city, univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, univ. is California Santa Barbara.
Are there chances for him to get into these? What does he need to do in his next 2 years to better update his resume? Which other colleges would be best for him?
Thanks.
If some one could guide us about these colleges would be really helpful. We read thru the posts about chemical engineering on CC. But a specific detail about these colleges would be of great help before we start touring the above colleges.
Thanks in advance.
One thing you can do is look for forum posts regarding those specific colleges. Here’s one specifically about UC schools and Chemical Engineering (you might’ve seen this already): http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/950725-chemical-engineering-which-uc.html
For touring colleges, I think it depends alot on where you live. As for me, I havent had much of a chance of touring the schools I want to go to because theyre all on the opposite side of the country. I’ve heard often that students should visit during the actual year though. Visiting during the summer doesn’t let them actually see the students there and get a feel of what its like to study there.
Hard to chance him at this time mainly because SAT and ACT scores are unavailable. After you get those, you can check out the school sites and see if the scores are within range. The 3.9 GPA is really good though. Keep that up!
Sorry I couldn’t be of much help. I never even considered studying chemical engineering so I haven’t done much research on programs like that. I hope this’ll get something started on this thread though.
Happy searching!
I presume that your son is a rising junior, so he will have essentially a year and a half to visit colleges. I agree with the poster above about visiting colleges when they are in session, so your son can see each respective study body and determine whether he can see himself as part of that student body. So you should have your Fall Break, President’s Day weekend, and Spring Break of junior year, plus Fall Break of senior year, in which to get your on-site visiting done. Not knowing which state you live in, it’s hard to say where you should start your travels. Here are some links that might be helpful in this regard: http://collegeapps.about.com/od/choosingacollege/tp/8-Tips-for-a-Campus-Visit.htm; http://youngadults.about.com/od/collegeprep/a/collegevisit.htm
In terms of what other schools to consider, here is a site that might be helpful: http://best-engineering-colleges.com/chemical-engineering. There are links on the site to other subfields of engineering, also. I know nothing about the methodology of the ranking system on this site either; but it may give you some ideas for other schools to investigate which someone has identified as having good chemical engineering programs.
As the above poster also mentioned, any guesses on whether your son would stand a chance of admission and/or financial assistance (merit or otherwise) at the schools you identified would, at this point, be only that – guesses – without more information about his SAT/ACT scores.
FInally, you will need to consider the financial aspect very carefully, in terms of how much your family can afford versus what you are looking to the college to fund.
All engineering programs are competitive these days, but CS is extremely competitive. Your son might want to focus on a ChemE program that is a good match for him while at the same time making sure he can actually take the courses at that school he would like to in Computer Science, even if they don’t lead to a second major.
Run the Net Price Calculator on each school’s web site. You have public Us from multiple states meaning you will pay a (large) premium for being out of state at some.
Thank you so much for all the information. It really helps when we have so many doubts in mind and also as this is our first child’s admission to college.
I agree it’s early to tell before he gets ACT and SAT scores.
He is planning to take AP CS in senior year
We live in Tennessee. So we may have to tour north and west I suppose.