Southern Oregon does not offer engineering. Being from Southern Oregon, I don’t think I’d will OIT on anyone. Unless your son is only into hunting a fishing, Klamath Falls is pretty abysmal. I think there are better options out there.
Oregon State is a good school, but not worth paying OOS for. Plus, they do pre-engineering, which I’m not a fan of.
As for civil, probably just not as sexy right now. If that’s what he wants to do though, all the better. For this class just admitted to Cal Poly, the acceptance rate was projected about twice as high for Civil as it was for ME.
You might want to recalculate his GPA, as Cal Poly is the only CSU to use 9th grade marks. The CSU GPA average for the CENG was 4.17 last year (capped at 4.2). The average SAT was 1450. ACT…33. Keep in mind that included IE and manufacturing that aren’t very competitive. All in all Cal Poly is a tough admit for most engineering majors.
How about University of Idaho? I don’t know much about their engineering as my son is studying environmental science but the program is accredited. It’s just a few miles from WSU so you can look at both schools in one trip. Moscow is a great little town.
My D strongly considered UWyoming (WUE) for architectural engineering (in the Civil Eng Dept). Very pretty campus, definitely not urban, internship opportunities in Denver at least. She ended up at IIT, which I’d recommend if he would consider an urban school in the midwest.
He’s now looking at WSU, Colorado State, and Wyoming as secondary options. My main concern with these schools is internship opportunities and the job market afterwards. How many employers look at those schools. I’ve received the advice that civil eng. firms tend to recruit very locally, so go to school where you want to end up living and working. I’d think Wyo would be be the worst on this because how many options are there in state?
I recalculated his GPA to include 9th grade and it is now a 4.05. He really should have taken honors English this year but really doesn’t like literature analysis – has that overly literal left-brain mind. Other than there there really isn’t any other honors course he could have taken in the last two years to boost his GPA. He’s taking AP Physics and Calc BC next year but that doesn’t help his GPA for admissions purposes.
There are actually a ton of civil engineering jobs in Wyoming. It’s a wealthy state, lots of oil and gas money. It’s a big state so there is a lot of need for roads, bridges, windmills (oh are there a lot of windmills), and other structures. Laramie is about 45 minutes from Cheyenne, so state jobs are there. My BIL is a civil engineer with a degree from Wyoming (about 40 years ago), and he works in a mine in Colorado. He hires his summer interns from Wyo because, well, he’s a loyal alum.
Laramie isn’t for everyone, but my daughter loves it. The school has a lot of money both to give out to students and to build labs, do research, travel. IMO, it has a really balanced student lifestyle of pretty good athletic teams, free activities on campus, a small town, access to Denver for theater and pro sports, and an airport.
I wouldn’t worry about English. If he’s made it through BC, has lots of lab sciences, and meets or exceeds the rest, he’ll likely max the rigor part of the Cal Poly MCA.
Does he have any interest in energy? Wyoming has the first ESE ABET accredited program in the nation and to date, Oregon State is the only other one. Wyo is a great value.
one commentor says “Incentivized retirement was offered to faculty and staff and the university is losing 40 faculty to retirement with no guarantee that even half of those professors will be replaced. The university is understaffed and having trouble meeting course requirements for majors, I hear. Very bad news for the only four-year university in that state.”
Engineering will probably be the last to be hurt since it’s kind of the flagship, but that does give me pause.
if you are looking for Cal Poly-like schools in other western states, you should consider “Mines” schools. These are small public universities that were originally established to support the mining industry, but now cover engineering and technology more generally. Like Cal Poly, they are known for practical, hands-on technical education, with an orientation towards undergraduate teaching rather than research.
The best known is Colorado School of Mines; however, they don’t participate in WUE. But check out the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SD Mines) and the New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology (New Mexico Tech). They are both WUE, offer ABET-accredited civil engineering, are definitely not urban, and have relatively high SAT/ACT scores (not as high as Cal Poly, but higher than most CSUs, including Chico State).
Possible disadvantages: neither school is coastal, both are relatively remote, both are much smaller than Cal Poly, and both have skewed male/female ratios.
I don’t have much to contribute about Wyoming or CO State other than Wyoming gave my D a great scholarship offer. It would have been the cheapest by quite a bit. But being a WA resident and a WSU parent, I do have some info on that college. The engineering school is grabbing some really high stats kids this year who don’t want the two year stress of a second application cycle at UW or who just want to get out of the Seattle area. It does not give WUE but typically gives a renewable $10K scholarship to high-academic OOS kids who maintain a 3.0.
Engineering is tougher than you would guess given the average ACT of admitted students across all disciplines. Mentorship by professors has been good. Two of S1’s roommates are staying on campus this summer to do paid research, another is working in building controls in the Seattle area. The fourth graduated and is taking the summer off. Coug Nation is strong here in WA, less so other places but that would be true of most state universities. Lots happening in Civil around Seattle right now, no guarantees for 5 years out.
People who are attracted to Cal Poly or Chico often apply to Humboldt State as well. HSU doesn’t have a traditional civil engineering department, but their ABET-accredited Environmental Resources Engineering program has significant overlap with civil. Note that environmental engineering is commonly taught in civil departments, as at Cal Poly.
So if your son is interested in the environmental or water resources parts of civil, then HSU would be a viable option. If he was more interested in the structural or transportation parts of civil, then maybe not.
@corbett – CO School of Mines would be good but the price is too high. I mentioned both of the others to the kid and he wasn’t as enthusiastic about those 2 states. We’ll see if he researches more and comes around.
Another in-state option for environmental engineering (only) would be the University of California at Merced. Like Humboldt State, they have an ABET accredited EnvE program, but not a full Civil program. Again, this would only work if your son was specifically interested in the environmental end of the civil spectrum.
In general, the UCs are more selective than the CSUs. However, Merced is a young school, still building a reputation, and their selectivity is currently closer to the CSU range.
