What Engineering School is realistic for my kid
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Anonymous
| He wants to go Electrical Engineering. His SATs are 2200. His GPA is 4.2. He has no hooks. He has dabbled in sports and clubs, but no real leadership positions. Where would you have him visit and apply if it were your kid? |
Anonymous
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http://www.bestvalueschools.com/top-25-ranked-engineering-programs-with-the-best-return-on-investment/
Best chances are with 11-25 For smaller schools look at Lehigh, Lafayette, Union RIT, WPI. |
Anonymous
| Georgia Tech, University of Maryland, Penn State, Purdue, University of Delaware, RPI, RIT, Cal Tech, Virginia Tech, Iowa State, University of Illinois-Urbana Champlain, Oregon State........... |
Anonymous
| Colorado School of Mines is a great school, in an awesome location. I'm sure your son could get into a lot of schools though. |
Anonymous
Cal Tech? IDTS |
Anonymous
The 25% SAT so red at Cal Tech are 2060; the SAT scores at least are fine, and the grades are as well. I'd guess the fact that he didn't really have any ECs related to passions in the STEM field to be the biggest issue. While a complete long-shot, acceptance is not completely impossible. |
Anonymous
Just looked at the numbers again; 2160 for lowest 25%. I'll retract my statement. W/o strong ECs, SATs below the median won't cut it. |
Anonymous
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University of Cincinnati.
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Anonymous
| Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute Indiana. Ranked #1 for undergraduate engineering schools that do not have doctorate programs. They also have an excellent hiring rate of their graduates. |
Anonymous
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Cal Tech and MIT are out, and the rest of the top 10-ish would be a real challenge, but everything below that cohort (including several really terrific schools) may be in-range. Not time to worry, at least not very much, if there's nothing bad in the package. Good luck OP!
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Anonymous
Carnegie Mellon - he would get in for the engineering school, i am very confident he would. the CS school, perhaps not. JHU - I think he would be competitive there. Columbia - yes realy. via their 3-2 program. I think he would be competitive at georgetown or a number of other places that have linkages to columbia. http://undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu/learn/academiclife/engineering/combined-plan-program http://undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu/apply/combined-plan -> guarunteed admission if you keep your grades at a reasonable level. Flagship state schools all have good engineering programs. don't sell yourself short! |
Anonymous
Having just been through this process, I cna tell you that the chances for Carnegie Mellon, Columbia or any of the top engineering schools are pretty low even with those grades and SAT scores. Engineering and computer science are two of the hardest majors to get into schools for. As an example, Carnegie Mellon had 6000 applicants for the CS school fro 360 spots. They also have 15% of the acceptances from foreign students. You apply to each school, not to the university as a whole. The average Math SAT score is 740. The type of kids accepted are the TJ students, Bronx HS of Science etc. Kids who have had a range of science classes already plus done engineering or computer science projects on the side. The number of applicants to colleges this year was overwhelming. UCLA had over 100,000 applicants. http://dailybruin.com/2014/01/17/ucla-sets-records-with-more-than-100000-fall-2014-applicants/ While you can alwyas have one or two reaches, be realistic. Focus on schools that are not always mentioned. There are just too many with the same or better SAT's and grades and with no other extra curriculars that stand out, it will be really tough. Many of the foreign applicants are full pay which makes them very attractive to the colleges. Consider VA Tech, Penn State or one of the smaller liberal arts schools that have engineering programs. Good Luck. |
Anonymous
| Look at elon. They give merit aid |
Anonymous
had a kid with similar GPA. higher SAT's and computer-related ECs with awards/leadership positions and tech company internships waitlisted for Engineering at both U of I and Georgia Tech -- those two in particular have been "discovered" as second tier alternatives to MIT/Carnegie Mellon. Georgia Tech had record apps. this year and is much tougher to get into than it was even a few years ago. Cal Tech gets higher GPAs and perfect SATs, would not likely accept someone with no hooks. Know some kids in engineering at Penn State, but they were again, leaders and heavily involved in EC's. Your son would probably get into Virginia Tech -- be sure if he also applies for the honors program, which provides better housing and guidance. I'm not trying to be discouraging, but having recently gone through this experience, so it is fresh in my mind. Many schools we thought were shoo-ins turned out not to be. |
Anonymous
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OP - what state do you live in? I have several nieces and nephews that happen to be engineers. May I say that with electrical engineering that it really doesn't matter so much. Your son should go to the best state school in your state and save money for his grad school. Mine went to U of Cincy (great co-op program...first in nation) and some went to Purdue (work at Procter +Gamble) and some at General Electric.
UMD is fine if you are in MD and VATech is fine if you're in VA. Save your money! I knew kids at Princeton who did EE but it was so theoretical they had to get masters degrees before getting jobs. |