Chance/Match, Broad Engineering, Medical Disability, Need the Right Fit + Band [NE resident, graduated high school, now in gap year, 3.94 GPA, 32 ACT, <$40k]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Personal

• Female
• Nebraska resident (has moved a lot); US citizen
• prefers to attend college out of state
• graduated from slightly above average public high school
• graduated in 3 years (on current gap year)
• has epilepsy and was diagnosed at the beginning of sophomore year (currently stable)

Cost Constraints

• $40,000 a year tuition+ housing (could possibly spend more but prefer not to)
• qualifies for aid at private universities

Intended Major(s)

• Design engineering
• Technology and design engineering
• interdisciplinary engineering or general engineering
• Possibly GIS or Food Science

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

• Unweighted HS GPA: 3.94

• Weighted HS GPA: 4.24 out of 4.5 (?)

• Class Rank: school does not rank

• ACT 32

HS Coursework

• English: Honors English 9 and 10, AP Language

• Math: Honors Algebra, Honors Geometry, Honors Algebra 2, Honors Pre Calculus, AP Calculus A/B

• Science: Chemistry, Biology, Physics based science, Earth based science

• History and social studies: AP Human Geograpy, AP World History, US History (online), Government

• Language other than English: Spanish 1 and 2 (I know, I know)

• Visual or performing arts: Percussion in Marching Band, Jazz Band, Concert Band (Wind Ensemble)

Awards

• Honors student; Graduate with high distinction

Extracurriculars

• Marching Band all 3 years — only female snare player
• All district percussion ensemble
• Competed in and won several design contests
• held part time job during junior year (local restaurant)
• skilled in photography and videography
• worked as the camp photographer for a prestigious camp in another state during last summer

Essays/LORs/Other

• strong and moving IMO but does discuss overcoming her epilepsy; not sure if this is a bad topic.

Schools

Must have a marching band she is likely to be able to participate in.

• CU Boulder; her 1st choice; need merit money

• Baylor; close 2nd choice; need merit money and aid

• Arizona; admissions and financial safety (assured)

• Clemson; is a double legacy, doubtful if we can afford it.

• Colorado School of Mines: would need merit aid

Considering as reaches:

Wake Forest

University of Miami

Other safeties we have considered (all assured):

Oklahoma State (she may still apply)

University of Arkansas (can’t find a major that appeals)

We have elimated so many schools that don’t seem to be the right fit for her, either location, price, too easy, too hard, no marching band, no major that appeals to her, way too much Greek life…

Open to suggestions. TIA.

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Did you leave an English course out?

The only one on your list I’m somewhat familiar with is CU Boulder, and I’m not sure you’d get enough merit from them OOS to bring it down to budget. It looks like their largest scholarship is $15k a year:

“CU Boulder scholarship amounts can range from $350 to $15,000 a year with the majority ranging from $1,500 to $2,500 a year. Most scholarships are not ‘full-ride’ but a student can receive multiple scholarships and grants from different sources that all help to meet educational costs.”

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Re: English, she also took an English elective to count as her 4th year of English (school was on a block schedule). Her school did not have “12th grade English”.

We ran the Net Price Calculator for CU Boulder and it is in our range, but I don’t know of course how accurate it is.

Thanks for the reply.

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My daughter is not keen on Wake Forest, so we probably don’t need to worry about that one.

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Sorry - your list is totally stacked against you.

I’d be shocked if CU works financially. Most get $6250 a year merit - if it’s like b4. Wont be better. Mines no way and an odd choice given the rest of your list but SD School of Mines could meet budget but doubt has a marching band . and Clemson little chance. U of SC a much better chance $$ wise than Clemson.

Wake and Miami - unless you do the NPCs and they show need - not happening. Sure apply and maybe you snake a full ride it know they are Hail Marys.

You need to get your student to have realism now or she’s gonna be unhappy later.

Look at Alabama, UAH - wont have the band, Louisville, Ms State, Ole Miss, UMN with $15k merit which is common, Michigan State. Iowa State and WVU too. Purdue can squeeze in budget wise and hasn’t raised tuition in forever. Arkansas - you have - and Texas Tech would be good too and you might look to see which have food science. Edited to add K State meets your needs. KU could too. And it’s not far from home.

U need to look at Arizona again it’s right at budget if she gets the $20k with no $$ to spare and I don’t think they hold tuition any more. The merit is much less than last year due to budget issues and department cuts may be coming (like recently happened at WVU and others). I’m not sure is financially assured at $40k anymore but you can decide.

Frankly UNL would be a home run with her interests no matter where you lived and she should consider it. You are budget constrained.

But yes she needs a dose of reality on the current list which ‘ain’t’ happening and to build a new one. And to see which have food science, etc.

If your budget was $60-80k I might say it’s ok.

Good luck.

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Utah has good engineering and a design/maker space and is similar to many of the colleges listed like Boulder and Arizona. Also a marching band but I don’t know the standard. It should fit within budget if you stay for residency ($50K year 1 but <$30K after that).

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The first schools that came to mind were U. of Kansas and Kansas State. Both have marching band, both should provide sufficient merit aid to bring the price well within budget, both have numerous engineering possibilities but also various other ones in design, etc. Lawrence is often mentioned as a great college town, and Kansas State is often mentioned as having one of the happiest student bodies in the country. The honors program at U. of Kansas is also pretty well-reputed, I believe.

Miami U. (OH) is one of the original public Ivy colleges and is another one that I think could be a good fit. They tend to be pretty generous with merit aid.

I believe @ColdWombat had recommended to their kid to have at least three majors in what they thought they were going to study and to have at least three other majors that sounded interesting. That way, there were still plenty of options if the kid changed their mind. I would be wary of picking a school where there was only one major of interest.

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Since you mentioned it in your title, what type of disability services are you looking for?

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A pharmacy on campus would be helpful. Her 504 included extended time (due dates) and that would be helpful.

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Thank you for the reply.

Yes Miami and Wake are within our budget according to the NPCs. That is why I mentioned them.

Mines is not an odd choice. It is relatively close to home, is an engineering school with her first choice of major, and has a marching band. I do agree it is probably pricey.

We will look into Kansas. She doesn’t want to go to Kansas State.

UNL is not a possibility.

I am well aware of the issues that Arizona is having. Their numbers are still generous for her.

Her first interest is engineering. CU Boulder has her dream choice of major.
Food science is a backup.

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What’s the dream choice of major ? We can find it somewhere affordable.

CU Boulder and Mines - neuther will be close to affordable. Mines seemed odd to me bcuz it’s so focused but it’s great she loves it but again won’t come close to cost.

Many will as noted above.

Good luck.

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At Boulder it was Creative Technology and Design. (B.S. in Engineeering)

Miami has a similar major.

At Mines it is Design Engineering.

There are two problems with some of the inexpensive SEC schools — they tend not to have a major like that, and she doesn’t know if she will fit in. She is not an SEC sorority girl type.

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If you are opting into a school’s student health insurance, there should be easy access to a pharmacy. That said, some epilepsy meds can be quite costly. I would check coverage before opting in. The last thing you want is someone who is stable to have to adjust to new meds due to a change in insurance. Are her meds able to be shipped from a mail order pharmacy? That might be the easiest way to handle it.

Regarding extended time, most schools will allow the 504 to follow her. However, for something like stable epilepsy, it would be difficult to justify that she consistently needs extra time. If she has a seizure, that’s one thing. If she hasn’t had a seizure in X amount of months/years, that’s different. You should definitely inquire about this specific scenario.

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She is on our insurance and her meds are covered. Thanks for the info though.

The 504 is necessary because lack of sleep is the number one biggest trigger for her kind of epilepsy. She cannot stay up all night to finish an assignment, for example. She will definitely need to have excellent time management skills.

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Not that it is good, but that makes me feel better about the likelihood of accommodations being approved.

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Western Michigan has two majors in its engineering school that might be of interest:

Also, I’m going to page @MAmomto4 as her son was interested in human-factors engineering and industrial engineering and I’m wondering whether there’s some overlap in those fields with the Colorado degree programs that your D loves.

The desired program at Mines: https://eds.mines.edu/

The desired program at CU: Creative Technology & Design | College of Engineering & Applied Science | University of Colorado Boulder

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Below are some other schools for consideration.

I am not an engineer or a designer, but you may want to speak with the schools and with professionals to see whether an “Engineering Design” degree would be useful in the field or if employers would have a tendency to prefer people with a specialty area (I’ve seen several mechanical engineering programs with a design track, for instance).

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In the end, you have a strict budget. You also have health issues that need to be taken into account too.

Most schools will have some level of design in the engineering curriculum. .

And all schools - even the big Sec Schools, have more non Greek members than Greek. My son had zero Greek involvement at Bama. It was no issue.

In the end, you’ve set a hard budget but then chosen CU and Mines which won’t get you there. So they will end up not relevant to you u unless you can stretch.

So you’ll need to trade off something - maybe band. U Dayton has big merit as an example.

Another is U of Louisville - has a design and innovation capstone project in the engineering majors.

But most if not all schools have maker centers and design/innovation curriculum. Some package it to show an advantage but the core curriculum might look similar to others with electives thrown in - especially if it’s an ABET accredited degree.

I’ll just leave you with this - if you have a hard budget, get excited for those than can hit. Not those that have near zero chance of doing so.

Lots of great schools out there at your price. And not just SEC.

But when you have limitations, there are trade offs you have to make so saying absolutely not this or that school is putting you in a hole you don’t want to be in.

Good luck.

Edit - saw your links almost seems like an urban planning or atmospheric science or something in architecture might be a better fit than general engineering or maybe even engineering at all.

Since Wake is in budget, check Cornell too.

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Thanks for the suggestions!

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Has she considered Oregon State? MechE there is very design-heavy (with top-notch prototyping facilities and lots of industry partnerships), and there are also food science and geospatial science majors, and a marching band. Only 13% participate in Greek life - the vibe might fit your daughter. She’d need merit to get to budget, but some merit seems reasonable to expect. Design Engineering Research | Design Engineering Lab | Oregon State University

Has she considered an Industrial Design major?

James Madison might be worth a look - I suspect she’d like the vibe there, based on her list. I believe their “Academic Excellence Award,” which seems likely, would get you to budget. She would qualify for their Honors College. Their marching band is particularly large and dynamic. Their College of Integrated Science & Engineering offers a general engineering degree with multiple concentrations, an Integrated Science & Technology (ISAT) major, and a GIS-heavy Geography major. There’s also a great Industrial Design program in the School of Art & Design, and she could add the ISAT minor if she wanted more STEM. There’s Greek life at JMU, but only 20% participate.

UMiami’s band is terrific, and their new director who just started this year is wonderful. (He taught at my kids’ high school before getting his PhD at UMiami and then directing the bands at San Jose State; Miami just hired him back to fill their top spot.) If the NPC works there and the academic offerings fit, this sounds like an excellent option.

@AustenNut made some great suggestions as well - there should be some good options within your budget. Given the health issues, I’m not sure “too easy” should be a concern - better to be able to pick and choose her challenges than to be overextended, when pacing and sleep are so important. Majors like engineering or industrial design aren’t going to be “too easy” anywhere, and there are always honors colleges and other opportunities to take on more challenge and stand out as a top student.

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