My son is a senior & wants to keep his options open at a college with both good engineering school and music options. His unweighted GPA 3.54 (Weighted 3.97/4.00) SAT 1500 (math770 writing 730). Wanting to stay at less than $50,000 annual for Tuition,room & board. I know he should get a merit award at some colleges. He has seen CU-Boulder, CSU, Co School of Mines. School of Mines seemed too sheltered for him. He is hoping to be inspired by visiting campuses and he is not excited about any of the options. I don’t see him venturing off to the east coast. What other schools in a driving radius or reasonable direct flight from Denver do you recommend? He loves creating and talking about music though music will probably not be his major.
FYI- CSU means Colorado State Univ.- not to be confused with California.
Check out Montana State in Bozeman
http://wue.wiche.edu/search_results.jsp?searchType=all
Colorado participates in WUE so, there are many options available.
Yes. Thanks for mentioning that. But, many of them do not include competitive Engineering majors for the lowered tuition. For example, University of Arizona: Only Mining Engineering is included in the WUE rate.
I cannot help you with music (both kids interested in engineering only), but living here I know how hard it is to visit other schools by car. This is not east coast, everything is so spread out you will spend hours and hours in the car to only see few colleges in each direction.
You may want to check out Southwest’s website for short, reasonably priced direct flights as you do your research on schools. Cheap, direct flight destinations I can think of are Dallas, Phoenix, Minneapolis, St. Louis. I am sure there are others as well. See if there are college matches you are looking for in any of those towns.
From a personal experience, neither of my kids liked CSOM, but they both liked CU-Boulder (except the fact that “everyone from my HS is going there” - common refrain among kids everywhere). One of our friend’s daughter ended up studying music at CU (again, I know nothing about music, but as we were talking about admission process, they talked about additional steps like interview and rehearsal etc. as part of it). They flew to OH (I think Oberlin if memory serves) - that was the only OOS trip they took.
I second the suggestion to look for cheap, direct flights from Denver. We live in the DC area and D16 attends CSU. I’ve gotten tickets from Southwest (direct flight from Denver to Dullest) for under $100.
Although you said he isn’t interested in a music major, you might want to check the music major sub-forum to see if anyone has suggestions for schools that are strong in both engineering and music. One thing I have learned from these forums is that engineering students may find they don’t have time to pursue music.
(I have a junior interested in probably at least a minor in music but I haven’t gotten very far in my research because he’s very unsure about what he wants beyond that).
I can’t figure out how to edit my post. I calculated his unweighted GPA incorrectly. Unweighted is 3.74/4.00. Weighted 3.97.
Well, if you’re not concerned about money (otherwise it makes no sense to apply to public engineering universities in other states) and you’re talking about the traditional engineering disciplines, then consider these western campuses…
U of Utah
Texas A&M University
Texas Tech University
Arizona State University
U of Kansas
U of Portland
U of Southern California
Texas Christian University
Case Western, they will provide an excellent merit package that will get you into your tuition range, so don’t look at their sticker. They like geographic diversity, so if they like him they will make it work. It’s in Cleveland and they do award merit and admission based on engagement so if you can’t visit make sure you are meeting with the regional recruiter when they are within driving distance of you. Have son reach out to them and get on their list, you will be sent emails, invites and fee waiver for application. They do require the CSS.
BuckeyeMWDSG- What is a CSS that you say they require? About Case Western: Is the campus nice? Trees? There’s not a ton of photos on their website. Their sticker is scary expensive.
CSS is a financial aid form (like FAFSA is) but for private schools because it takes assets into account differently. You can learn more about it here https://student.collegeboard.org/css-financial-aid-profile
Try google maps for a better view of the large green spaces and parks it is adjacent to and the many museums, hospitals, performance centers. There are trees tucked along the mostly concrete walkways between buildings for pedestrians on campus and some green fields for frisbee.
It’s is a very well regarded school (lots of Nobel winners, top companies recruit there) and worth a trip because the admissions staff will give you insights that can be used across all your applications. Schedule a sit down with an admissions advisor for some individualized advice. In my opinion one of the biggest draws is that once you are in you can pursue any major, without having to compete for a limited spot in a popular major and becoming shut out of what you want to pursue which is a risk at other schools. There are a lot of graduate students there along with many research opportunities for undergraduates. They also just opened a multi-story entrepreneur center for start ups.
Would also at smu in dallas to the list great music program and though difficult a double major in music and engineering is possible. Also with your stats will likely get a pretty big scholarship making the price way under your $50,000 limit.
All of the Cal States will run you around 35k total cost OOS (UCs are 60K). Flights out of SFO and LAX to DEN are cheap. Several CSUs have good engineering/music programs and being OOS may give you a bump in CA.
University of Rochester - excellent engineering school as well as music program with performance opportunities and solid instruction in music theory and music history. Students that pass auditions can continue studying at the Eastman School of Music
It’s unfortunate that he is not excited about CU, as both engineering and music at CU are well respected and I would doubt that you will find any other schools within a reasonable distance that would be very good at both.
If your son is interested in going to school in CA you should check out “assist.org” it will tell you every major at every public university in CA. At 35k full pay oos tuition, schools like CPSLO, CPP, SDSU, SJSU, etc. are a bargain for engineering/music.
What inspires him? What didn’t he like about CSU and CU Boulder? You may as well check out DU, U Wyoming, U New Mexico, Oklahoma State, U Nebraska, U Kansas, Kansas State and U Oklahoma unless he’s not into large publics.
Music inspires him. Conversations about music, composing music… is his “hobby”. He does not have the experience to go into music school and knows it is not a very viable career choice (doesn’t want to teach music). CU Boulder and CSU were just okay for him. He is a dreamer hoping that he will visit a college and the town surrounding it and love it! He did not dislike them. Boulder has its pros and cons. Within a certain limit of tuition and airfare, I would love for him to have a few more choices. He would prefer a scenic campus (trees, nice buildings) or at least interesting with an artsy feel. I’m thinking he might not like the feeling of wide open spaces like Wyoming.
Re Post #4: Admissions at Arizona has said at their presentations that they are a little more generous with merit with kids from WUE states because they know they need to do so to compete. Of course, you won’t know your merit for sure until you get the offer.
That being said, Arizona and similar big state universities are probably not the best place to combine music and engineering. That’s a hard combination to double major in, and at large universities the upper level classes and best opportunities seem to be limited to those who have declared the major. Check carefully to make sure that the things that made the school attractive will actually be available in your situation.
Rochester seems like a possibility. They are an engineering school but encourage kids to be interdisciplinary so being involved in music at the same time might work.