jeffreygriffin

College Confidential has come up on Google when I've been searching for college-related junk, so I decided to try posting myself.

Anywho, I'm entering my senior year (on summer break now) in the fall. After that, I plan to attend college for a major in electrical engineering. I've found some info on this board, but I wanted to post my specific question just in case:

Where in Kentucky are you better off getting an engineering education at, specifically electrical? More so, which offers the best scholarships? Is school quality and amount of scholarship money always inversely proportional?

I would be willing to go out of state if I thought I could get a decent scholarship. I am aiming to get all or most of my tuition paid for. If I go out of state, not only will I pay higher tuition/rooming costs, but I lose the KEES scholarship, which gives a small amount of money every year (a few grand I believe).

If it helps, my ACT score is a 30 (I will be re-taking) and my GPA is a 3.9. I am taking to hardest classes available at my school, and I am already enrolled in dual-credit college courses (transferable to most schools) with a GPA of 4.0. Is this an application specific thing, or can anyone honestly give me sound advice? Regardless, I appreciate the help through the years.

jessiehl

Speed School (at U of L) is solid, and offers sweet scholarships. My stepbrother got a full ride from them (in EE) with guaranteed admission the master's program (both the money and guaranteed admission depending on maintaining a certain GPA).

UK's engineering quality is a better (and it's also the flagship state U in KY), but I don't know how it does with scholarships. Were you a National Merit Semifinalist or a Governor's Scholar? Most in-state schools will give tons of money to people in those groups.

I would say at least try for some out of state schools. You have pretty good stats, and you might get good finaid or merit money.

Where in KY are you, by the way?

jeffreygriffin

Thanks for the quick replay, jessiehl. What were your brother's "stats", as you called them? (; Do you think I would be eligible for the same scholarship he got? And to answer your question, no, I am not a Governor's Scholar. I didn't apply. As for National Merit, I remember vaguely getting something to that effect a while back, but it wasn't a scholarship or anything. It was one of those "honorary organizations." Maybe Who's Who? It's pretty bad I can't remember. Oh, and I live in the northern region of the Kentucky.

mrego

Maybe you can get reciprocity with a neighboring state like Ohio or Indiana or Tennessee. Then check out their publics.

jessiehl

What town? My family was mostly in Louisville, but we spent a couple of years in Ft Thomas.

Not the same thing. National Merit is a well-known national competition. Being a semi-finalist is determined solely by your PSAT score junior year - you have to score in the top 2% in your state. In Kentucky, the score you need to qualify is usually around 208 or 209, and if you get it, the state publics will often throw money at you.

Honestly, I don't know/remember them very well (this was a couple of years ago). He graduated from the Manual MST program, if you're familiar with it. His GPA was somewhere between a 3.5 and a 4.0 (I realize that's a big range, but I don't remember more specifically than that). He had a few AP classes with good scores on the tests. I think his PSAT was around 190 (translating to an SAT of around 1900), with better math than other scores - I have no idea about the ACT.

Also, yeah, Ohio State would be another school to check out.