<p>1) How important is ABET accreditation?</p>
<p>Like I noticed some colleges offer B.S and B.A with their difference being one is ABET, how is it important?</p>
<p>2) What are the most "prestigious" schools I can transfer to with a gpa around 3.0?</p>
<p>I know the questions are somewhat stupid, but please bear with me. Any input is welcome.</p>
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<p>The difference is more than just ABET accreditation. The BS program is more in-depth and usually requires more credits (the difference can be as much as 20 credit hours). </p>
<p>The BS degree is the “working” degree, meaning that firms hiring someone for a chemical engineering position will hire a BS graduate. Further, if you seek a license, only the BS is recognized in most states. </p>
<p>In general, the purpose of the BA degree is to provide exposure to engineering for those who do not want to be engineers (i.e. those seeking careers in business, law, or medicine). It is well known that professional schools like engineering graduates; however, pre-professional students often avoid engineering because of the increased math/science requirements (and subsequent lower GPA). The BA degree seeks to address that issue by creating an engineering-like program that does not have the same math requirements (and thus lower GPA) as the BS degree.</p>
<p>Schools occasionally try to hide this fact (I’m not really sure why). For example, Rice claims that both the BA and BS degrees lead to a similar career path. When you look at the degree requirements, however, the difference is that the BA students substitute 55 (out of 132) hours of engineering course load for free electives and humanities credits. Why is that? It greatly increases the GPA of the BA students making them more attractive to professional schools. Are they getting the same engineering education? Of course not (they’re “skipping” 55 credit hours of courses). Does it matter? Not if they’re going into law school. </p>
<p>So in summary:
BA Chemical Engineering –> Designed for professional school (medicine, law, business)
BS Chemical Engineering –> Designed for a career in engineering</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply!!</p>
<p>and also bump. question 2 is for schools with a chemical engineering program</p>
<p>There’s no exact answer for #2. If colleges posted a formula for admission, there wouldn’t be sites like this. It will depend on many factors: school you are currently enrolled in, SAT scores, if the current GPA is going up or down, if it’s over the “magic” 3.00000 threshold, etc.</p>
<p>If you’re looking for schools where a 3.00 is greater than the minimum requirement to transfer, Georgia Tech’s minimum is 3.00 for US residents.</p>