Want a small class sizes with big school feel?

College Search & Selection
1

I’ve hit a bump in my college search selection. I’m looking for liberal engineering schools with strong academics and opportunities for coops and internships. I keep leaning towards massive schools but I know I will not appreciate TA teachers and professors not knowing my name. I’m not used to that and I believe I do better with more personalized attention. But when I visit small schools I’m not I don’t feel the love. Mid-size schools tend to be religious or don’t have a strong engineering program (if any). Religious schools make it hard because a 4- year engineering curriculum is packed without trying to push religious studies in there too.

Any advice please? Any specific school suggestions?

2

There are midsized non-religious schools like Alabama - Huntsville, Prairie View A&M, North Carolina A&T, etc. that have engineering but may have non-enormous frosh/soph level math/physics/chemistry courses (check their on-line schedules).

3

I go to Northeastern which is a relatively liberal school with a great engineering program known for our co-op program. I can’t say we’re massive, but definitely a large school. If you’re in the Honors program, sections are much smaller and more personalized.

I think finding a school where you’d be competitive for an Honors program is your best bet, as that’s the most likely path to small-school type classes with more individualized attention without sacrificing your entire college experience.

4

Bucknell has a good engineering school and is fairly a larger LAC

5

Hard to give advice without knowing your stats, @elena3142

6

Lafayette, Wake Forest has a new engineering program, WUSTL, Lehigh, RPI, Univ of Rochester
Some small, some medium sized

7

Are your stats competitive for Rice?
Rice is relatively small (~6600 students) and primarily undergraduate-focused, but has a high level of research activity. Its campus size in acres (285) is larger than some other “mid-sized” urban research universities (such as Carnegie Melon, MIT, or Yale). It has strong engineering programs and no religious affiliation.

You might also want to have a look at public universities with a technology/engineering focus such as New Mexico Tech or Colorado School of Mines. These are less selective than Rice and have lower sticker prices even for out-of-state students (although their net costs won’t necessarily be lower after aid, if any.)

8

Even mid-sized schools and many small schools will have large classes for the typical freshmen classes. Whether grad students are teaching some/all of those freshman classes will just depend on the school. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have a PhD student teaching an intro class. They could be just as good at teaching that class (or better) than a full professor.

Many/most schools have smaller classes once you move into upper division courses. Also, if the school has an Honors College, those classes tend to be small. My kids’ large flagship has an Honors College which offers very small class-sizes.

What are your stats?

What are your parents saying about how much they’ll pay each year?

9

As far as I know, the only colleges that have NO classes with 50 or more students are small liberal arts colleges. UChicago caps its Core classes at 19 (or some such low number), but some of the non-Core intro classes do have lectures enrolling over 100 students. Anyway, neither UChicago nor most of the LACs have robust engineering programs. Harvey Mudd is an exception.

One of the largest private universities with excellent engineering programs is the University of Southern California. Its average class sizes seem to be a bit smaller than some of the big “public Ivies” (such as UCLA or Michigan). NYU is another massive private, secular university that you may want to check out. Or, you may have better luck finding what you want among state university honors colleges.

10

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So I’m a dual enrollment student and for some schools I will be considered a transfer student including the in states. Pros and Cons of being a transfer student?


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You will not be considered a Transfer student at ANY university. I don’t know who told you that. You will be considered an Incoming Freshman with (soph or junior) standing. You will not be a transfer student even if you have an AA while in high school.

You do NOT want to be a transfer student…less aid, less merit.

11

<<<<
So I’m a dual enrollment student and for some schools I will be considered a transfer student including the in states. Pros and Cons of being a transfer student?


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You will not be considered a Transfer student at ANY university. I don’t know who told you that. You will be considered an Incoming Freshman with (soph or junior) standing. You will not be a transfer student even if you have an AA while in high school.

You do NOT want to be a transfer student…less aid, less merit.

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No I’m not a senior because I missed my junior year of high school. I don’t qualify for any need bases aid. rich dad who doesn’t want anything to do with my education.

I missed a year of high school because I had leukemia so when I recovered I did a high school diploma program where you get dual credits at portland community college. Now I’ll have enough credits to transfer next year. I’ll have a 4.0 and I’ve never taken the ACT’s and SAT’s. All the schools I want to go to like Stanford, Caltech, and MIT take so few transfers that I’m freaking out. Where can I go to thats great for engineering and counts as a really impressive school? I prefer schools with great teacher to student ratios. HELP!


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And your mom is expecting you to get a lot of merit, since you won’t qualify for aid. You have a rich dad who won’t pay for your education. Sounds like your dad doesn’t live with you?

You have a college fund, but don’t know how much is in it. Can you find out how much is in the college fund?

Your mom is wrong for thinking that the schools on your elite list will give you merit. Those schools don’t give any merit. And prestigious schools that give merit don’t give to many students.

You may think that money isn’t an issue, but in your case it is. The best privates will be asking for your dad’s info, and they won’t likely give you merit.

Looks like you’re an Oregon resident.

You need to ask your mom how much SHE can contribute each year…and how much is in your college fund.

Tell her that schools like MIT, Stanford, CalTech and so forth do NOT give ANY merit scholarships to anyone, no matter what their situation is.

And, again, you’re not a transfer student.

BTW…you should delay graduating until winter. If you graduate this summer, you may be hurting your chances for large merit at some schools. If you graduate in Dec, you’ll be fine.

12

Mid-sized universities with good engineering programs and focus on undergraduate education : Tufts University, Vanderbilt University, University of Tulsa, Illinois Institute of Technology, Bradley University, Clarkson University, Trinity University, in addition to the schools mentioned earlier by others (Rice, Rochester, RPI, RIT, WPI, Rose-Hulman, Harvey Mudd, etc)

13

Lehigh.

14

Can you get into the Honors colleges? Even at large universities, the Honors college can sometimes feel like a small school.

15

Case (Case Western Reserve University) is another good mid-sized school with good engineering.

16

Yes, you need to find out what’s in your college fund. Some colleges do take a lot of dual-enrollment credits, allowing you to graduate in 2 more years. Granted, they tend to be publics and 2 years of engineering classes will be tough (though engineering generally is anyway).

17

On the other issue, yes, there are mid-size engineering schools, but they may still have intro classes in the hundreds.

However, if you can use your dual-enrollment credits for those, major classes would be smaller (though jumping straight in to them may be quite a leap).

18

Okay my stats 3.75 GPA have been dual enrolled at a community college for most of it (4.0 at the community college and phi beta kappa) Couple weeks to hear on the ACT taking the May SAT.

Money could be an issue. We do like schools that give good merit aid. There is 100,000 + college fund and I do not qualify for federal aid. I’d like to keep the net cost under 50k a year.

I’d also not a huge fan of the south.

And yes I realize I have previous threads while I was figuring out my crazy school arrangement. But I don’t see how they are relevant.

19

For a smaller school, you could try Union in NY. It’s a small, LAC with an engineering school. Depending on your stats, you could get some merit aid there, too!

Good luck with your search!

20

ACT or SAT scores are relevant for merit.