Thursday8

Well, from what I picked up when I visited, you don't have to transfer. It sounded like CM allows you to take major at other colleges while still attending CM. Apparently, you could even trade dorms with a person from another college if you both agreed.

ucbalumnus

Find something in writing that details the procedure involved. What you may have been told verbally at a visit may not have been entirely accurate or complete.

StraferKev

I'm also looking at schools similar to what your looking for. In your list, I would take out
Clemson, Poly NYU, Syracuse, and Georgia Tech. Clemson and Georgia tech are big schools, or at least, definitely not in your size range. Poly NYU is a good engineering school, but not very well rounded. Syracuse is okay, but not superb at Engineering and I believe it is also above your size range.

pierre0913

A couple of defense against Clemson as a legit college choice:

1. Size - In 2010 and 2011 Clemson was ranked by US News as one of the best colleges for undergraduate teaching (one of two public universities - along with Miami (OH)), professors are very accessible compared with other professors and the Creative Inquiry program creates a lot of research opportunities for undergraduates. The school as a whole is very undergraduate-friendly and professors genuinely care about teaching and about your success. I would say that the experience is no less different than a smaller school of 7,500 to 10,000 students.

2. Greek Life/Football - 17% of men join a fraternity at Clemson and 23% of women join a sorority at Clemson according to the 2011 Common Data Set (http://www.clemson.edu/oirweb1/FB/fa...ataSet2011.pdf) - this means that there is about 80% of the student population that is not involved in greek life. As for football, at many of the top engineering schools in the country, there is a division 1 football team - Stanford is one of the top teams in the country along with Texas A&M, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Florida, UCLA, Texas, USC, Michigan etc...

Thursday8

@ucbalumnus - yeah it's a little vague - a couple of the claremont colleges mention an "off-campus major" and they are pretty clear that you can take classes at any of the colleges... but it's overall pretty vague. I'm thinking I'll just call anonymously and ask if I could switch majors after I get there.

Some of my "reaches" seem a little more likely if I don't go as an engineering major (Rice, USC). Would it be just as good to get into a great school with a "good" major (other interests), or an ok school with a "great" major?

BeanTownGirl

I'm not seeing schools on your list that are just "ok", they are really great schools. So where do you think you could get into an engineering major or engineering college within a university on your list that is only "ok"? Your stats are really good so why would you try to apply to a different major and then hope to be able to switch into engineering?
I don't see your dilemma at this point.

pierre0913

I don't think engineering is one of those majors where you have to go to a really good school like an ivy league or top 20 school to get a good education - if you look at the engineering rankings and where employers recruit, sometimes its better to go to a state school such as Virginia Tech or NC State than Harvard or Yale. What is important for engineering is your GPA and the amount of experience that you get during college whether it is through co-ops or internships. What is the point of getting into Rice "undecided" as opposed to engineering when you can get into a school like Texas A&M for engineering that is on the same level for engineering?

Some helpful links:
School Rankings by College Major – Job Recruiter Top Picks - WSJ.com
Best Undergraduate Engineering Schools | Top Undergraduate Engineering Programs | US News Best Colleges
(Take a look at that 2nd list under the US News rankings for some smaller-ish schools)

Aerobug

What would you think about the South? Have you looked at Rice? There's Stanford on the West, but that's the big one.

Thursday8

Hmm... I don't know... the South would have warm winters but besides that I'm not sure how I would like the South. For some reason my family seems to look down on the South. In fact, my parents don't seem to like the idea of me leaving Cali. I do have a brother going to school on the east coast, so I feel like they would be more receptive to that idea, which is why I'm kind of looking around there. Come to think of it, it's sort of me too that isn't sure about leaving California. I've been away from home before, I'm just not sure if I would want THAT much separation. I have one younger brother left at home, and I'm just not sure what he'd do without me. He doesn't really have a whole lot of friends besides me. On the other hand I wouldn't want to be too close (I don't think).

@pierre Yeah I see what you mean... but if I switch out of engineering I would still want good, quality options.

ucbalumnus

What exactly do you mean? Do you mean strength of major, or overall strength? That may depend on how likely you are to change majors. If you are certain to stay in your major, then strength of major is more important. If you are wavering on your major choice, then strength in your other possible majors becomes more important, or overall strength if you are very undecided. Note, however, that overall academic strength is not necessarily the same as prestige or selectivity; big state universities often have many strong departments, but are not always that selective, and may have some less motivated students.

Regarding off-campus majors at the Claremont consortium, even if you did manage to major in engineering as a CMC student doing an off-campus major, employers may wonder about it, especially since CMC does not have an ABET accreditation listing like HMC.

texaspg

Clemson students build clever six-seat hybrid sports car | Fox News

Thursday8

^nice. this is what happens when people hate on Clemson haha

@ucbalumnus. Yeah, I would say strength of other possible majors or even overall strength. I'm pretty positive I would like engineering (general, or possibly one of these: aerospace/aeronautical, industrial, or possibly environmental), but I have other interests as well that I'm afraid I might have to ignore if I pursue engineering.
It sounded like I would get a Harvey Mudd diploma, which might solve that problem. But I will look into it.

Thursday8

@beantowngirl - I thought my math scores (even if I raise my Math II score the 2nd time around) would be low for the likes of USC, Rice, Stanford.

pierre0913

"@pierre Yeah I see what you mean... but if I switch out of engineering I would still want good, quality options."

I think that's a good reason to look at some larger schools if you are undecided about what you want to do for college. Employers would definitely want you to have an ABET accredited degree to be considered for employment. Many of the really smaller schools for engineering such as Harvey Mudd are mostly engineering centered and you'd probably have to transfer if you decided you wanted to study, say Finance. On the other hand, you have a larger school that has the resources to have a solid engineering program that also fields many strong departments as well. Probably way too big for you but you wouldn't have to transfer from say a school like Penn State. That's the strength of a large school as opposed to a small school. Are classes going to be bigger? Yes. Are you going to have to take more effort to get connected with your professors? Yes. You just have to find a good balance between what you want from a small school and the fact that you really don't know what you want to do yet am interested in engineering.

Just my two cents

(By the way, engineering is tough. There's no question about it - it takes hours out of your week just to study and master the material. While the English majors are partying downtown Thursday night, you'll be in the library maybe through Saturday. So I would temper expectations about how much you can accomplish in terms of classes outside of your major if you do go with engineering)

ucbalumnus

It looks like the only access to engineering at CMC involves the 3+2 programs with dual majors in economics and engineering or management and engineering.

Keck Science :: Academics : Economics and Engineering Major (with HMC as the "2" school)
Keck Science :: Academics : Management Engineering (with other schools as the "2" schools)