I am a California resident and am planning to go into engineering. I do not know much about all the good engineering colleges out there and would like to broaden my knowledge of engineering colleges. Here are my stats.
W GPA: 4.36
UW GPA: 3.89
SAT: none yet
ACT: 31
EC: Eagle Scout, Senior Patrol leader in boy scouts, Speech and Debate, Track and Field, Cross Country, 300+ Community Service Hours
Not 100% sure which field of engineering I want to go in but I will just say industrial for now.
If you guys could recommend me come colleges that are good for engineering that I might get into(reaches are fine, safeties are too) I would appreciate that a lot! Thanks a lot and any knowledge is appreciated!
Industrial Engineering isn’t offered at many of the UC and CSU schools. Berkeley is the only UC and that will be a tough one to get into. With your stats you probably have a good chance for IE at both Cal Poly SLO and Cal Poly Pomona. (A lot of good running at SLO too). San Jose State is another CSU with IE.
University of San Diego (not UCSD) has IE - you can check their net price calculator to see if you’d qualify for one of their automatic scholarships based on stats.
USC also has IE
If you’re looking for more common engineering discipline such as mechanical or electrical, most of the UCs and CSUs with engineering departments have those. Be aware that at the UCs the acceptance rate for the college of engineering is usually about half that of the school as a whole, so it’s tough competition.
I know you live across the country but Georgia Tech is the best school in the country for Industrial. It’s getting extremely hard to get in though so if you can improve your SAT or ACT you should definitely try to. Out West I know Berkeley and Stanford are awesome for engineering and UT Austin is a pretty good engineering school.
In California, the following have ABET-accredited industrial engineering:
CSUs:
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
California State University, East Bay
San Jose State University
UC:
University of California, Berkeley
Private:
University of San Diego
University of Southern California
UCSB would be a great target school considering their engineering program is continuing to grow. Unfortunately, they don’t offer IE. Like what the others have said, I’d definitely consider Cal Poly for IE.
@mom2collegekids I would honestly like big,medium, rah rah(lol), college city colleges(if you understand that), with warmish weather. Cold weather isn’t a major turnoff at all though. For the amount my parents can pay I’d say 20k-45k BUT if it were on the high end of the spectrum there must be a good reason as to why. That being said I will balance the pros and cons and if a school is just marginally better and I think they are almost equal I would rather choose a school that cost 25k per year than 40k per year unless I thought it was a great fit for me and I loved the more expensive school.
side note, you guys really don’t have to focus on industrial engineering, I just threw that out there. If you believe there are matches to my stats that don’t have IE majors feel free to list them! thanks a lot guys!
For more common types of engineering, you have many choices among UCs and CSUs. But be aware that many of them are more selective for engineering majors than overall, so be careful of making reach/match/safety assessments based on the overall school stats.
@ucbalumnus that is true. Cal Poly, Berkeley, UCLA, and many others are way more competitive in engineering as far as I know. I do not think I will get into berkeley when the time comes as it kinda seems like it is simply way out of my reach. There are plenty of other schools though so it is all good. By the way does your name mean that your are an alumni of uc berkeley? Just wondering
Generally I would advise that you go for a more common undergrad degree then seek employment or grad school in the more specialized discipline - especially since you seem unsure if that’s what you want to do. Industrial Engineering isn’t offered at THAT many schools as compared to more traditional engineering disciplines and you don’t want to limit your pool of schools based on a major that you may not stick with.
As for good engineering schools go:
UCs: UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UC Irvine, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz
CSUs: Cal Poly SLO, Cal Poly Pomona
CA Private Schools: Stanford, Caltech, Harvey Mudd College (Kinda surprised no one’s mentioned it already)
Other: Georgia Tech, UT Austin, UMich Ann Arbor, UIUC, Purdue University, Rice University, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Melon University, Olin College - there’s a very long list of “good” engineering schools outside of CA, many large state flagships have decent engineering programs, so I’ve just listed the ones i came up with on the top of my head.
If you can bring your ACT up to a 33+ you’re a decent candidate (quantitatively) for the schools i’ve listed.
@saif235 I appreciate that list of schools and your input! Although I definitely don’t think that I will be able to get into many of those schools, I do appreciate it! I will try to bring my ACT up to a 33 or more and see how I do on the new SAT.
@glido and everyone else, some schools I am definitely considering are Cal Poly SLO, Purdue, UIUC, Georgia Tech, UC SD, UC SB, UC Davis, University of Michigan, and than hopefully some of those reaches ^^
