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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here - I think he's worried about not fitting in with an engineering program in a super intense engineering environment and not finding his people. He's a hard worker and loves math but is also a relaxed teen who also wants to have fun, play sports, watch sports, etc. in college. Not sure what i'm trying to say, but somewhere like MIT or similar would not be a good fit.

Any recs for less intense engineering (oxymoron?) school environments? [/quote]

Engineering students often can take off between Friday late afternoon and Sunday morning. Many students find the rest of the time is spent on sleep, eat, study, class, or labs.

"Less intense" does not fit with Engineering.

I will recommend that a student like that avoid engineering colleges with the deliberate / intentional weed-out classes designed to fail a % of students out of engineering. Look at the 4-year engineering graduation rates and pick someplace with a high graduation rate. [/quote]

Agree, and look at the retention rate for engineering students freshman to sophomore year. That is the highest year of drop out. Top schools such as Stanford and ivies all have over 97% retention because they do not "weed out". Non-T50 engineering schools weed out about 20%. The issue is the caliber of student is quite different non elite schools. However, taking a look at Michigan which is a top public for engineering, it has a retention rate of 88%. UCB and GA Tech have 96-97%, similar to ivy/top privates. [/quote]

You may be misunderstanding retention rates. In most schools, if you end up in the fail category for the weed out classes or just decide that you are miserable you don’t leave the school, you change your major. A lot of engineering students drop down to business. The schools graduation rate is still high.[/quote]

Not misunderstanding at all, the schools publish data on what percent of students who start in the engineering school as freshman are still in the engineering school as sophomores. We did a lot of research on it when our student was looking. Michigan does not have the same level of retention despite being very similar to UCB and Ga Tech as far as the student body that matriculates to the engineering school. My student is at an ivy with engineering. It indeed is 98% who stay in the engineering school after the first year. Only 2% internally transfer to another undergrad school. Whether that 2% truly failed or just were miserable does not matter--the fact that it is only 2% is very favorable as a prospective student, indicating the supportive peers and faculty as well as admissions that accepts students who have a high chance of success. And that has been the experience so far as a rising senior it was an excellent choice! All top schools have similar engineering retention. Significant "weed out" of engineering students simply does not happen at the best schools. It does not mean it is not hard, of course.[/quote]

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