<p>My DD just accepted her CBH fellowship. She will also be majoring in engineering and wants to eventually get her PHD in biomedical engineering with a focus on medical delivery systems. Even though Alabama doesn’t have a biomedical engineering degree, we felt that the CBH research would be extremely valuable. </p>
<p>DS is into engineering and art. He has been involved in prosthetic research in high school and has taken engineering classes already so I don’t think he will change his mind about engineering. I am very thankful he has great options. He and I both love the CBH program but the pull of staying in the northeast is influencing our decision. UA grants are merit awards that require maintaining a 3.0 gpa (I think) and the additional CBH grant is renewable for 4 years. Lehigh awards are a combination of need-based grants and merit awards that require a 2.0 GPA. Pitt is the same. All three have roughly the same federal loan amounts. What might be a concern is if there is front loading of financial aid at Lehigh and Pitt. </p>
<p>Go with the one that is the cheapest, most economical, and the environment he is most likely to succeed in. I live in California and am a engineering student myself, and ive talked to engineers who graduated from Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, Cal Polys, small schools in Indiana and engineers who work on race cars, bioengineering, and at NASA and Space X etc. Basically from all of these talks, the basic consensus is: Work Experience/Internships are everything. Engineering is a MERIT based profession. Don’t matter what school you go to, as long as its accredited. The ONLY thing that matters is your GPA, and HANDS-ON experience, that is it. The rest is just fluff talk. So take the one that is most affordable, because like one fresh bioengineering grad from USC I spoke to, he said “loans are a b*tch”. And he told me if he had a choice to do it again, he wouldve went to a cheap state school instead of a private one.</p>
<p>@momreads, how does one earn those scholarships (Hollings, etc.)?</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>Tweetymommy, I am from PA and have a son at UA and a daughter who will join him there next year. Neither one seriously considered any schools in PA. One reason was that they wanted to experience “something different”… a different area of the country and people who were not from the NE. They were both attracted to the large number of OOS at UA. As for traveling home, I know you have to take travel expenses in to account, we were surprised to find that our son doesn’t want to come home often - He loves it at UA! We usually do not pay for his plane tickets because we use the Southwest credit card to earn points towards flights. We would love to be able to hop in to the car and visit our son often, but honestly…he doesn’t want that. After a few hours with him, taking him to eat and get groceries and such, he is ready for us to go…Thinks we interfering with his social life. We are hoping that next year, after we have out stayed our welcome with our son, we can visit with our daughter and then maybe our son will be ready for some more parent time. Hee! Hee! Anyhow, sounds like your son will be fine wherever he ends up! 
Good luck and Roll Tide!</p>
<p>tweetmommy - I would go with the one with the lower GPA requirement. While your DS will probably be fine , engineering is not easy. My DS is an freshmen engineering student at a different college . He currently has an instate scholarship that requires a 3.3 for free tuition or 3.0 for mostly free tuition. While he should be able to maintain that GPA it does add pressure on him that I wish he didn’t have to have. </p>
<p>If you are earning only a 2.0 GPA in engineering (as was stated by OP for Lehigh to maintain funds), you might be able to keep a scholarship, but your job prospects will not be great, IMO.</p>
<p>Chardo: The students need to apply for the Hollings (sophomore year), Truman (junior year), Mitchell and others (senior year) through Alabama. My son went through the prestigious scholarships professor (used to be Dr. Sloan) and applied. Each fall, there is a meeting held about these scholarships, so look for the e-mail. </p>
<p>Chardo - here is link to the scholarship page you might need: <a href=“http://honors.ua.edu/current-students/honorsscholarships/”>http://honors.ua.edu/current-students/honorsscholarships/</a></p>
<p>@aeromom - yes you are correct…a 2.0 GPA isn’t going to work for any major. However what happens if a kid has a bad first year ends up with a 2.99 and loses the scholarship? It doesn’t mean the student can’t recover and end up graduating with a decent GPA. One of the things they told us a DS’s at orientation at Georgia Tech was that 40% of the in state students would have a GPA lower than 3.0 and lose the Hope scholarship at the end of the first year. They also told us that didn’t mean they wouldn’t end up with a decent GPA later on and gain it back. I’m not sure what the average GPA is for engineering students at UA but does UA allow a student to gain their scholarship back if they lose it? A lot of colleges say if you lose it that’s it…the kid across the street from us lost the Hope scholarship but now has a co-op and is doing great. Things happen. I still say I’d rather my kid not have the pressure. </p>
<p>Yes, UA does allow 1 semester of GPA ‘probation’ where students whose scholarships are in jeopardy don’t lose them immediately, and can raise their GPA in subsequent semesters. Other schools, as you note, are not as lenient. (Another reason to choose wisely between schools/majors if scholarship $$$ is an issue, and that’s why I posted what I did - cautioning someone who is making a decision on studying eng’g based on whether they can hack the GPA required for a particular school’s scholarship.) We also have a neighbor who was in an unfortunate position - attends Purdue (which for us OOS is a rather expensive choice). He had a $10k scholarship and after only 1 semester lost it. No if’s/and’s/but’s - cut off immediately with no warning whatsoever. Again, choose your school wisely, but also choose your major wisely, making sure you can do well enough to keep funding AND get a job in a competitive marketplace.</p>
<p>Oh, and I will add this comment about GPA calculations: the law of averages dictates that it is VERY difficult to claw your way up from a crummy GPA that is earned in your first few semesters. That’s because better, future grades are spread (i.e, averaged) over more and more credit hours, thus diluting your overall GPA calculation. Good grades in upper years have less of an effect on GPA than those crummy grades received in lower years. Also, some ‘basic’ 1st-year classes are 4 credit hours (any science with a lab + most foreign language). Earning even one B (3.0) in a 4 credit class can drag down even a stellar report card.</p>
<p>I know some schools are very lenient with the scholarship. I think having some pressure to keep up scholarships is good. I personally know a kid who has dropped out three semesters in a row, yet still, the school allows him to keep his scholarship. What’s the downside of constantly dropping out when the going gets tough? Not a good life lesson, in my opinion. I know from experience that keeping focused on that perfect GPA, to the detriment of passing up job opportunities, hurts you in the long run. Many of my son’s mech eng senior classmates who barely have 3.0 GPAs have had jobs lined up since the fall. It is very hard to go from the high school mindset of getting the best grades and achieving the high rank so you can get scholarships and honors awards announced at graduation, when in college, if your ultimate goal is to find a job, you’ll find that employers could care less that you were an NMF and were captain of the debate team. </p>
<p>UA doesn’t calculate GPAs for scholarships until the end of a student’s first year. If they then have less than a 3.0, they are put on probation for a semester. They are taken off probation if they get a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher. They will stay on probation and keep their scholarship as long as they have a 3.0 or higher during the probationary period. Thus, a student can get less than a 3.0 during their first semesters and would retain their scholarship provided they get a GPA or 3.0 or higher, cumulative or non-cumulative, in each semester after that. It’s also worth noting that since UA allows for A+ grades and considers them to be 4.33 on the GPA scale. </p>
<p>Thanks for mentioning that, SEA-tide! My S uses these 4.33s to try and erase that 1 errant B he received in a non-engineering elective, which haunts him.<br>
I’m not sure what you’re saying, Montegut…bonne chance to those who can get eng’g jobs with barely 3.0…I know my S is not counting on that. In fact, most of the internships he has applied to will not even consider students without a 3.2, and many have specified they require a 3.5. I think there IS pressure to maintain a good GPA. The focus behind that GPA might have shifted (from getting scholarship/awards more toward getting a job), but I think it is still there, and necessary.</p>
<p>I’m thinking maybe she is saying if you keep dropping out it will take longer to graduate? I wish GT had A+'s .
As far as internships and Co-ops from what DS and I have seen a 3.0 seems to be the normal minimum requirement although there are ones that are higher but I’ve also seen ones as low as 2.5. It probably depends on the engineering major and maybe where the job is located? Anyway it’s good that UA gives the students time to recover and keep their scholarship if they do mess up.</p>
<p>I certainly don’t encourage anyone to shoot for a low GPA. But there are many, many factors that come into play in securing internships, REUs. Location, family and friend connections, “hooks”. I encourage anyone who does not have the GPA to still apply, especially if you have these “extras”. Many engineering majors are not in honors simply because they don’t want to have to take the extra courses or maintain such a strict GPA, because they’d rather hold down a part time job to build their resume to secure future employment. Different kids have different priorities. </p>
<p>I think what Montegut was trying to say if that a student can choose to spend all his/her time in front of the books studying to try to maintain a perfect GPA or can instead balance their time studying and participating in other organizations (CHP, ES, honors frats, service organizations, etc) which will give that a student a broader educational experience and other connections for internships and/or jobs. Personally, I’d prefer to hire the 3.5 student who demonstrated a balance of studies with ECs and/or perhaps even a job. </p>
<p>Back to the OPs original question, though, is that one should really look at the industry in the area, even at the undergraduate level, when choosing a college. If there is no biomedical industry in the Tuscaloosa area, chances are you’ll have a hard time finding an internship at a biomed company. No matter how persuasive your application essay is that you’re willing to relocate on your own dime for a chance to work for their company for the experience, the companies are going to hire kids from the local university, or local kids that go to OOS universities. If Lehigh is located near companies that are in the biomedical field, it is worth the extra money to go there. </p>