Engineering vs. Arts and Sciences College

[JustaMom5465]

My daughter will be going off to Bucknell's College of Engineering in the fall. Bucknell is very focused on liberal arts and at the same time has a very strong engineering program (including BME). They also offer a 5 year combined BS/BA degree if she is interested in obtaining a liberal arts degree at the same time...

D did not start out looking at Engineering. Her thought process went from Pharmacy, to Chemistry, finally settling on ChemE (a combined degree with Management). For now anyway! I also agree with Marian. Much easier to switch out of Engineering than into it. Also, most will agree that a female applying to an Engineering program has a small admissions advantage...

[mafool]

Another one here in the "he did not always think engineering" club. DS started sort of drifting toward engineering sometime toward the end of junior year in HS and it didn't really crystallize until he had to decide the programs to which he applied (early rolling admission at our Sate U.)

[mominva]

sabaray,
Mid-sized U's with engineering (not sure about BME) in the east/mid-atlantic:
UPenn, Lehigh, Lafayette, Bucknell, UMBC, Catholic U, Johns Hopkins, Villanova?,
Duke, TCNJ?

[sabaray]

I just have to say how wonderful all of these very helpful responses are.

D has a friend at Hopkins doing biomed right now. Unfortunately, I do not think she is interested in going there. She has read so much about the really competitive nature of the program and is hesitant over the apparent lack of a social life; we have been to the campus (she attended a session of CTY there as well) and overall wasn't real keen on the school. I wish I could encourage some interest there. Bucknell and UPenn I think would be great choices as well. Anyone know/have a current student at Hopkins that could perhaps paint a more realistic picture of student life there than Fiske et al have to offer?

All in all I just want her to be happy at whatever school she chooses, doing whatever interests her. It just so happens she wants to be a doctor/biomedical engineer/public policy health guru/you name it depending on whatever day it is!

[mafool]

A thought: these are "early days" yet. She doesn't need to love a place like JHU to remain open to it at this point. If it has the programming she likes, keeping an open mind about this and other schools is a great thing. Odds are good that her desires and impressions will be evolving.
(The engineering programs at the schools you have mentioned will all be quite challenging to most mortals, if not competitive in a cut-throat sense)

[over30]

Consider too that if she applies to schools as an "engineer" and gets merit money, she may have to stay in engineering to continue receiving the money. My boys got great engineering scholarships at schools such as Rice, Wash U, Vanderbilt & Duke, but they had to stay in engineering (and maintain a high GPA) to keep the scholarship.

[sabaray]

Along those same lines, I have heard that at some schools if you apply for engineering and are accepted, you can't switch for a certain period of time. I wish I could remember where I heard all of this, but you all are being very helpful in clearing up some of the misconceptions I had. That is a good point about engineering scholarship $$; one I hadn't thought much about.

D doesn't seem concerned or worried about the workload/difficulty of most of the engineering curriculum- I think she worried more about driver's ed than AP Chem. She likes the idea of a collaborative environment and I think is concerned she wouldn't find that at Hopkins.

[nngmm]

I think at WUSTL you don't have to stay in the major to maintain the merit scholarship (at least based on their FAQ on the web site).

[midmo]

^^^The minimum gpa to maintain a merit scholarship at Vanderbilt engineering is 3.0.

As for keeping a merit scholarship if one changes major, I believe that is usually OK (at least that is what I remember a dean in engineering say in answer to that question).

[NYTOVA]

Take a look at University of Rochester. D is a sophomore there, BME major. Very collaborative in nature and offers lots of research opportunities at next door medical center. Most of the BME majors are pre-med or pre-health. When looking at schools, she also wanted strong liberal arts in case the engineering part didn't work. She was accepted to UVA, in-state, but remains thrilled with her choice of Rochester. This summer she will be at University of Colorado - Boulder for a REU (research experience for undergraduates) which shows UR students compete well in academic circles.

[Dad'o'2]

(Full disclosure: my S is finishing his freshman year at Case in electrical engineering, and they bribed him to come there from the mid-atlantic region.)

If she would consider traveling as far as Vanderbilt, at least have her take a look at Case Western, too. (Both Cleveland and Nashville are served by Southwest, which you would probably access through BWI? It is very easy to get from the airport to the Case campus on the rapid transit.)

Case would seem to meet you stated desires of a strong BME program (#7), smallish (~4000 students), and strong in engineering and science but with a broader A&S curriculum, too. They have a med school and numerous research opportunities.

Case is also known to be generous with merit money, leaving more money for med school. If your D has Duke/JHU stats and from out-of-state, I would guess she is probably in the half to three-quarters tuition scholarship range. For merit scholarships, there are no stipulations on changing majors and the GPA requirement is only 3.0 after freshman year.

Of course, with the other offerings at Case, she may fall in love with the BME or econ or dance or whatever.

[sabaray]

That's great about the transit getting to Case. We haven't looked closely at them but have gotten information from them- we need to get over the "but it's in Ohio" hurdle first. And I grew up in Ohio! I am definitely going to take a closer look at their site.

This is wonderful information and I really appreciate all of the suggestions and advice. Now I better do my paying job instead of being an unpaid, unappreciated college counselor and parent!

[jmmom]

She likes the idea of a collaborative environment and I think is concerned she wouldn't find that at Hopkins.

I have a son at Hopkins in Engineering. Based on his experience, I would say there is no need to worry about lack of collaborative environment. The kids work together in study groups etc., even supporting each other when one might be struggling in a course (my son found a new study partner once to help him when this was the case).

I do think that the academics are "intense" in Engineering there. Mucho mucho studying, kids very intense about keeping that GPA high, curves can be tough. The "competitiveness" is internal rather than cutthroat competition among students, imo. There has been at least one excellent thread on this in the JHU forum here on cc. Not sure how easy it would be to find, but I could search if you want to follow that discussion.

Still, the important part of the job right now is to find the safer and safe-match schools for her. Plenty of time to decide which of the uber-selectives she would like to apply to.

[sabaray]

Thanks, jmmom. I like Hopkins and I think some of the reasons she's not interested in Hopkins are silly, but it's her choice. I'm not the one that has to go to college. Any thoughts from anyone on safer and safe-match schools? Safe to say she is competitive statswise for the more selective schools.

[mafool]

Sabaray,
I think that having an early admission form the state flagship university is a great thing. Do I remember correctly that UVa is your state "flagship" school? If it has early or modified rolling admission, applying very early may be advisable so, if accepted, she has that card up her sleeve no matter what. It's a great stress reliever. Our son's acceptance to U of Mich engineering served that purpose for him. Plus it was a great option.