Chance Me - CA senior, 4.0 UW, 4.21 UC capped, ACT 35, prefer <$60k; electrical and computer engineering

Thanks. Actually, it was Cal-State-Pomona, CPP that she got rejected from but got accepted to MIT. She actually got her college/master degree from MIT CS major and just started working. I just found that strange and wanted see if anyone can think of any other reason. Thanks for the info, will look into the CPP Index.

Maybe she missed an academic requirement for CPP that MIT doesn’t have.

Have you looked at Lehigh as a safer alternative as a back up ?

Or Purdue

Not exactly the same but likely can be used similarly. I don’t think the last two get you ABET. Not sure if Penn’s does.

Lehigh shows career outcomes by year or rather links to LinkedIn profiles of past grads. Not what I’d think they’d be in many cases.

https://ibe.lehigh.edu/

https://ibe.lehigh.edu/students-alumni

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Most likely reason then, assuming her gpa was high enough to meet any CPP index per major, is that she left off algebra or languages done in middle school from her application so it looked as though she had not met the minimum requirements. Apparently this is not an uncommon mistake. She would probably have picked it up as the reason if she had decided to appeal, but obviously given her other acceptance she didn’t need to do that.

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This sounds a bit like the thinking that caused me to end up with a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics. There are quite a few different career options that are possible for someone with a degree in applied math, although some course work in other areas such as computer science can be very helpful (MIT now offers a joint major in 18C “mathematics with computer science” for example). Operations Research also covers some of these same areas, and can for example be a master’s degree for someone with a bachelor’s degree and/or work experience that covers math and computer science. OR is also sometimes combined with a business degree.

However, this is something that a student can figure out after they are part way through their bachelor’s degree, or ever later (such as after they get a bachelor’s, before deciding which graduate program to pursue).

It is my understanding that engineering requires a sequence of courses that should be started early if a student might pursue a degree in engineering. For my freshman year of university I took the classes that would be sufficient to keep me on track for a degree in mechanical engineering, before deciding after my freshman year to focus on math (with some computer science).

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I mentioned them upthread, but I’m going to mention a few schools again that have strong populations of students but also provide merit aid. I suspect that all of them stand a good chance of falling within your preferred budget. Additionally, I’m going to highlight some of their majors that might meld your son’s interests, rather than being “just” CS or finance, etc.

Stevens Institute of Technology

Rensselaer Polytechnic (RPI)

Worcester Polytechnic (WPI)

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Industrial engineering is like other engineering in that is solving design problems with math and science (heavy on statistics in this case). But the focus is on process and optimization problems, rather than products or objects.

The ME or EE designs the widget, while the IE designs the process of producing it and getting it to users or customers.

IE does tend to be closer to some aspects of business than other kinds of engineering. Supply chain management would be an example, although when that is taught in business school, it is taught with a much lower level of math and statistics than what IE students see and use.

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I’m from Texas, UT-Austin is a reach. They reserve 90% of applications for in-state residents, making the chances of admission 10%. Getting into the CS/EE program is even more competitive than that.

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Yeah, you’ll need better math skills than that to get into the CS/EE program :wink:

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OP would like to update so I have opened the thread.

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Thank you for your previous feedback. S25 is 1st kid in decades in family goin thru the college application process. We appreciated all the feedback. For closure, I figure we share the result and his decision for future applicants.

Here was the outcome, S25 had more luck with the in-state schools than out of states or privates.

Accepted:
UAriz (MIS, Scholarhip/Honor)
SCU (CompE, Scholarhip)
CalPoly(CompE, Scholarhip)
CSPomona (CompE)
UCSC (CS, Scholarhip, 2/21)
UCR (CS/BA)
UCSB(CompE, Regent/Honor)
UCSD (DataSci)
UCD (CompE)
UCI (CS, Regent/Honor)
UCLA(EE, Honor)

Waitlisted
Rice (EE/CompE)
UCB (MET)
Cornell (Engineering-CS)
UMich (Engineering)
GT (CompE)

Rejected:
USC (CS/BA)
UPenn (M&T/CompE)
Stanford (BioCompE)

As for his priorities in college selection, S25 craves for something that would be intellectually challenging and interesting. 2nd priority is quality of life and nice campus that doesn’t remind him of home. In terms of finance, we are flexible but the school/major/program would have to be worth the cost. In the end, here is his top 5 choices. As middle class, we didn’t qualify for any financial aid. The cost below is tuition only per year. Housing/Meal is approx 20k/year for all the schools. Also, he did also get corporate scholarship from National Merit which is applied to tuition cost.

SCU 24.6k (CompE - Deans/Bronco Scholarships) - Great school and best internship opportunities, more personalized. Would probably choose this school if S25 knows for sure that he wants to stay around silicon valley afterwards. Everyone at this school seem well rounded and very grounded.

UCSB 9.5k (CompE - Regents / Honor) - Best quality of life. Regents also provide housing prioirty/guarantee. Love the faculty and because of the small engineering department, it would feel more personalized. But on the flip side, the smaller engineering department also meant more limited in area of specialization. Something about getting a good education on the beach with a good faculty is really hard to pass up. Can’t really beat the quality of life at UCSB.

UCI 10.8k (CS - Regents / Honor) - Great school all around. The only thing that S25 didn’t like is that it is too familar to home.

SLO 8.6k (CompE - Small Scholarship) - Best value for the education. Good environment, just didn’t get as much perks for the school for S25 to stand out. But he would have been perfectly fine with the school.

UCLA 13.2k (EE/CompE - Engineering Honor program) - Pretty good in all aspects of college and the name. Best alumni network out of all the choices and wider selection in area of specialization within engineering. He was notified after acceptance that he was selected as 1 of few in the ECE engineering Fast Track honors program which guarantees research/internship and class enrollment priority. Food is just awesome.

In the end, it was down to UCLA and UCSB. S25 was definitely leaning towards UCSB before UCLA notified him that he was selected for the honors program in the engineering department. Both schools seem amazing. UCSB edges out on the vibe and quality of life but UCLA edges out more on opportunities and more choices in area of specialization. The UCLA honor program would give him research guarantee early on, more access to professors, priority in internships, more exposures to different area of specialization and research. Kids in the same program are also close knit having to take same honor classes together and meet regularly. We felt that alone may extend his professional network which is invaluable after school. The class registration priority within engineering is also a significant perk since kids have trouble sometimes with popular engineering classes.

Thank you for your feedback. I have another one in a few years, hopefully, I will be back then if not earlier.

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Thanks for the update and congrats on such success.

Just curious - how did you categorize/quantify this in regards to SCU over others??

Best of luck at UCLA…I think given the current environment, it’s certainly the safe choice. I think you posted the other day on a different thread.

Thanks for the explanation of the process and best of luck to your student.

SCU stated some stat like 60% of the students had internship experience. I think SCU would likely provide the best internship opportunities for S25 since he is majoring in engineering, favoring computer engineering. Due to its location, SCU seems to have a pretty strong network at silicon valley with all the tech companies. I did ask SCU & UCSB about the recent tech down turn. They are seeing some cooling in the tech related industry but SCU stated that internships aren’t affected though.

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I’m surprised anyone would say that silicon valley internships aren’t affected. From the hiring perspective, the people I know in the industry report that they are hiring fewer interns. From the students’ perspective, it’s been challenging for my son and his friends at UCB. Of course internships are still out there… but the downturn is felt.

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Excellent Choice and Good Luck. UCLA EE is highly regarded with stalwarts in the field like some of the ones mentioned below and research opportunities as a undergrad makes it great.

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Oops, I missed how old this thread was. Congrats on having great offers to choose from!

(Out-of-date response: Rice is walking distance from the largest medical center in the world. Vandy is of course another fine option, but the health-related opportunities at Rice aren’t inferior. The difference is that Rice doesn’t have its own med school… but Baylor Med (where my kid interned and then worked after graduating from Rice) doesn’t have its own undergrad campus in Houston, so there’s no real difference in terms of opportunities.)

But if healthcare-adjacency is still a criterion, that’s yet another reason to choose UCLA over UCSB. Congrats!!

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Congratulations to your son on many wonderful acceptances! I hope that he has a fantastic time at UCLA.

Additionally, I really appreciate you circling back to let us know how the application season turned out for your son. It’s helpful for people who look back on the thread for research, but it’s also really rewarding for those who were posting originally. Good luck with your next kid…but there’s no need to wait until then to keep posting on the forum!

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