Son has good grades but middling SAT - wants engineering

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to make sure to explain the math issue in his personal statements or get your guidance counselor to do it. No math since sophomore year topping out at a 3 in BC Calc is absolutely going to raise red flags at some of the schools named in this thread. I think not having him do online math junior year was a huge mistake.

The best answer so far.

This is acceleration that is detrimental. What was the point? In a hyper competitive school to keep up with his peers? I have to say the great majority of sophomore's taking calc bc will be at the top of their math class and easily score high on both sections of the SAT. And no math junior or senior year?

And he didn’t take any math Junior and senior year (online) because of his extracurricular commitments? First and foremost, colleges are looking at your transcript and the classes you took. This was a huge mistake. He should’ve dropped an extracurricular and taken an online math class or move down a level in ninth grade so that he could take math all four years

It’s too late now but for others reading in the same situation, he could have dropped a class, taken a study hall and taken a virtual asynchronous math class at a community college those years to work on during the day. That would have been much better.

[Anonymous]

He’d pay the in-state tuition rate & get thousands of $ in a scholarship on top of that at Texas Tech.

[Anonymous]

VT for engineering has more applicants than openings. Always good to have backup plans. Many college admissions have a fair bit of randomness these days.

[Anonymous]

And if here to apply as a physics major? What stats are good for VT

[Anonymous]

Don't apply for engineering and explore it when he gets there.

Does he even know what different engineers do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't apply for engineering and explore it when he gets there.

Does he even know what different engineers do?

This is not realistic at some universities. If he might want to study engineering, it is much better, logistically, to start there and see. Easier to transfer out than in.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Vtech for sure those scores are good. dont worry.

+1
VTech is test optional. My ds got in with a lower gpa and test optional.

I'm sorry, but I highly, highly doubt this.

I don’t know what you think it takes to get into VT engineering, but a 4.1 gpa is not a dealbreaker.

What does it take to get into Vtech then? weighted / unweighted ?

It’s hard to say for sure, at least at DDs HS since Naviance doesn’t show what school applicants chose. But DDs friend had at least a 4.2 weighted GPA, high 1400s to low 1500s SAT, and good ECs. She was flat out rejected last year in EA, not even deferred or waitlisted. A 4.1 would be low for engineering from our HS.

Must have been red flags in the application. That SAT is well above the 75% with under half even submitting them.

Always possible, sure, but given what I know about both the student and the applicant pool from our HS it’s more likely that VT engineering is just an extremely tough admit. Lots of kids with stats like this don’t get in and I highly doubt they all have red flags. Anyway, this student is currently very happy where she landed (at a school with a higher median SAT than VT).

+1
Same situation at our school. They can't take every single qualified applicant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't apply for engineering and explore it when he gets there.

Does he even know what different engineers do?

In most cases, engineering is in a separate unit of the university and that unit is direct admission.

Transfers from other units of a university (Arts, Letters, or Sciences) into engineering often are difficult - nearly impossible in some cases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He’d pay the in-state tuition rate & get thousands of $ in a scholarship on top of that at Texas Tech.

And New Mexico

[Anonymous]

go for second and third tier test optional schools...Drexel, VaTech, Michigan, Umass, penn state, ucf, clarkson

[Anonymous]

VA Tech?