Chance me: [WY resident, 3.97UW GPA, 34 ACT, 0 APs, Engineering, <$40k from parents]

Demographics

  • US domestic
  • State/Location of residency: Wyoming
  • Type of high school (or current college for transfers): Public

Cost Constraints / Budget: Parents are willing to pay up to 40k/year, I am willing to take out loans.

Intended Major(s): Not 100% sure but I think mechanical engineering

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 3.97
  • Weighted HS GPA: N/A
  • Class Rank: 2/220ish
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 34 ACT
  • AP Exam Scores: Self studied Bio (5), Precalc (4), and World (5)

List your HS coursework

The only AP class offered at my school is art.

  • English: English I, Honors English II, Honors English III, I plan to take Honors English IV
  • Math: Honors Algebra I (8th grade), Credit by Exam Geometry, Honors Algebra II, Honors Trig, Honors Precalculus (Algebra and Trig), Calculus, and I plan to take Statistics next year
  • Science: Physical Science, Biology I, Honors Biology II, Chemistry, Geology, I plan to take Physics senior year
  • History and social studies: World History, Honors American History. I plan to take Honors Government and. Economics senior year

College Coursework (Transfer Applicants)
(Include college courses taken while in high school if not included above.)

  • Honors English III (3 credits), Honors American History (6 credits), Pre Calculus Algebra (4 credits), Precalculus Trig (3 credits), Honors Biology II (3 credits)
  • Senior year: Statistics (4 credits), Honors US Govt (4 credits)

Awards

  • Top 10 this year and last year in a 4H state level shooting competition
  • Top 10 team placer in FFA Nationals, event was agricultural tech and mechanical systems; Gold emblem individual award
  • Wyoming 4H Honors Club

Extracurriculars

  • Job (3 years now, 5-12hrs/week): My dad owns a body shop so I work there after school and on weekends as need, I help in car exterior restoration and at the front desk
  • Volunteering: I have 201 hours at my church
  • NHS Treasurer (Since this year)
  • Varsity Football (3 years)
  • FFA Member (3 years)
  • Fellowship of Christian Athletes Vice President (Member 3 years, became Vice President this year)

Essays/LORs/Other

  • Not sure about essays yet tbh
  • LORs: One from History teacher/my coach (should be 9.5/10, I helped fix his car recently), one from my math teacher (8/10)

Schools

  • Assured: University of Wyoming, Ole Miss
  • Extremely Likely: Bama
  • Likely: BYU, Pepperdine
  • Toss-up: TAMU
  • Lower Probability: UT Austin
  • Low Probability: Georgia Tech (EA), UIUC, Princeton, UCLA

Plus several interesting ECs.

You should do well. Good luck !

UCs want to see an actual geometry course in your academic record. Unlike some other math courses that can be validated by higher level courses (e.g. algebra 2 validates algebra 1), UC does not allow validation of geometry by higher level courses.

The amount of loans needed as a non-California resident with $40k from parents would be inadvisable and may not be possible.

UCs do not use ACT or SAT scores for admission.

3 Likes

Both have religion as a significant part of student life, and are of different denominations. Would your religious beliefs be compatible with both?

I’m applying to Pepperdine for the beach

The University of Wyoming is ABET accredited for mechanical engineering and for several other types of engineering. It would be a very good choice. With you being in-state, and 2nd in your class of 220, with a 34 ACT, I would expect that admissions is either very likely or (I hope) certain, and affordability is also either very likely or certain. I think that you can do very well with an engineering degree from U. Wyoming.

Attending U.Wyoming and taking a semester or a year abroad or at another cooperating university might be something to at least think about.

You are from a WICHE/WUE state. WUE is of course the undergraduate part of WICHE. While I am not familiar with WUE (I am more familiar with a subset of the graduate part of WICHE), this might make some other schools relatively affordable for you. However, I do not see any WUE schools on your list unless I am missing something. Just as one example, Colorado State is a WUE school, and I see on the Colorado State University website to apply by January 15 “to receive full admission consideration and automatic scholarship review“.

You should be able to get accepted to a very good program that will meet a 40k/year budget. You should be very cautious about taking on loans. Loans can for example significantly limit your options after getting your bachelor’s degree when deciding which job to take.

Similarly, while a master’s degree is not needed for engineering, there are some very good one year master’s degrees and having debt can make these unaffordable. Even somewhere like Stanford for a master’s might be possible if you can afford it and if you were to do very well at Wyoming, assuming that you also have very good internship or work experience (Stanford has a 45-unit program which some strong students will do with five classes at a time in three quarters = one academic year, although some students will take an extra quarter, for example possibly over the summer, which is entirely fine if you can afford to do so).

UCLA is a very good university. Admissions is a reach. It will be very expensive. I do not think that it will be worth the cost as an out of state student with a $40k/year budget.

Also, there is absolutely no way that you should start any bachelor’s degree program that will require debt without being very sure that you will be able to borrow enough money to complete the degree. It is possible to get part way through a degree, and discover that you cannot borrow enough to finish the degree. I have seen this happen. There is a very strict limit on what you can borrow yourself without a parent or other cosigner, and the limit is really not going to make much of a dent into the cost of university.

Also, it is not unheard of for an engineering student to end up taking one or two extra semesters to complete their degree. If you are at in-state university, then you will still be in-state for a fifth year if this is needed. If you get financial aid out of state, this might in many cases end after four years. Of course you won’t get financial aid at UCLA, and you probably shouldn’t want to try to afford it anyway.

To me this seems weird. However, universities will not penalize you for the limitations of your high school. If they do not offer AP classes, then you do not take AP classes. Also, for a potential engineering major, I do not think that anyone would expect you to take AP Art unless you just happen to want to do it.

For engineering it is valuable to have done well in math classes in high school, and also in physics. With an unweighted 3.97 GPA, it looks like you have done well in everything, including math and physics.

I think that you are doing very well, and are likely to do well in university regardless of where you attend. However, do not underestimate the quality of your in-state flagship, and do not underestimate the significant advantages of graduating university debt-free.

There is one more thing that might be worth adding: Sometimes we see students who don’t want to attend their in-state public university because they feel that their excellent high school results should allow them to go elsewhere. However, where you go to university should be at most second or third on the list of the reasons to want to do well in high school. Number 1 is that your excellent results from high school, and the hard work that made this possible, have set you up to be ready to do well in university. Engineering classes are not easy anywhere. It certainly looks like you are ready to take on these tough engineering classes, whether at Wyoming, Princeton, or anywhere else. The second issue is that doing very well in high school might increase your chances of getting merit based aid at some schools (but not Princeton). This might for example allow you to graduate university without debt, and maybe (?) with some money left in the bank in case you want to consider graduate school (such as a master’s degree) at some point. What university you get accepted to is maybe third on the list of reasons to do well in high school, but only third (or fourth, behind making your parents proud – and I bet that they are).

Best wishes.

2 Likes

Have you run the Net Price Calculator for Princeton to see how much financial aid you would get? Princeton is generally the best case scenario in terms of need-based aid; if you don’t get enough financial aid there, you probably won’t at any other needs-met private either. So the NPC result here will be a good indicator of whether to pursue additional schools that meet need, or whether you’re better off with public universities that offer merit, reciprocity rates, etc. Net Price Calculator | Princeton Admission

As others have said, UC’s are not a good idea from a financial standpoint. UT Austin would be very pricey too. Try running the NPC for Rice U., if the Princeton NPC is favorable.

U of Wyoming is a National Student Exchange school, so you could potentially spend a semester (or possibly a year) at Cal Poly SLO, which is near the beach and excellent for engineering. (SLO isn’t a WUE school so it wouldn’t make budget to attend as your primary school, even though it’s considerably more affordable than the UC’s.)

Here’s the list of WUE schools: https://www.wiche.edu/tuition-savings/wue/wue-list-of-schools/ There are some great engineering schools on that list. To give a few examples, Colorado State might appeal… or U of Utah if you want a bigger city.

2 Likes

Do you know that the water off Malibu is too cold for swimming most of the year?

2 Likes

Alright, I think I’ll cross that off then. I’m still a junior so this list isn’t super final

I missed this part (being a junior). This gives you are lot more time to check out options and think about which schools make sense for you. Of course this also means that you are not running up against imminent application deadlines.

You need to look for schools that will fit your budget. There are a LOT of universities that are very good for engineering. I think that you should look through the WUE options and see which schools appeal to you. For engineering you will want an ABET accredited university (for your specific type of engineering), but there are a lot of those. I have heard that the ABET accreditation is quite strict, so that any university that is accredited will have very good but somewhat academically demanding classes, and will cover pretty much the same material.

It also would make sense to find out if you qualify for need based financial aid. Some schools such as Princeton and Stanford are very expensive if you do not qualify for need based aid (except Stanford does also give some athletic scholarships), but do have very good need based aid for students who qualify. You might want to have your parents run the NPC for Princeton, which is one of the most generous universities for need based aid. If you don’t qualify for need based aid at Princeton, then there is a pretty good chance you won’t qualify for it at other schools either.

The out of state public universities can also vary quite a bit in cost. Some will give merit aid for out of state students, and some will not. Some, such as Georgia Tech, have a few very good merit scholarships for out of state students but these are very competitive to get.

1 Like

ABET accreditation is by major. It generally sets a high minimum standard, but programs can vary in terms of additional material that may be required or optional, rigor level beyond the minimum, and curriculum organization.

Any ABET accredited engineering program should be good for engineering education, but some may be better fits for a given student than others

Pepperdine is arguably one of the prettiest campuses you’ll encounter. As mentioned previously though, the religious expectations are high. More importantly though, they don’t offer engineering.

If you want a beach schools that will probably hit budget with WUE, look at Cal State Long Beach and Hawaii - Manoa.

Lastly, an anecdote. Posters will throw their hands up and say no way, so take it for what it is, the story of two men, some time ago. My father and uncle were both from Wyoming. My uncle went to Wyoming and then did his PhD in engineering at Stanford. My father did his BS/MS at MIT. My uncle, having taught there, didn’t recommend Stanford for undergraduate engineering for people who wanted to be practicing engineers. My dad, said “your uncle’s education was every bit as good as mine. I just had a better network.” After seven years as an engineer, my dad went to medical school, but my uncle arguably had the better engineering career.

Your success will largely be in your hands. I’m not saying Wyoming is MIT, or anything remotely close to that, but employers look for experience as much or more than they do school names. If you go to Wyo and you have a killer senior project, and are involved in a club in a meaningful way, say lead on a successful Formula SAE team, or launch a really novel CubeSat, you will stand out.

As for schools on your list, I’d eliminate TAMU. The secondary bar for admission to your major is very high. I’m also not a fan of Princeton for undergraduate engineering. If you feel like you have to have an Ivy, Cornell is the one to choose. I’d add Purdue.

Congrats on your accomplishments and good luck!

3 Likes

Specifically, engineering students at Texas A&M start in general undeclared engineering. After first year courses, they apply into a competitive admission process for specific majors (ETAM). 3.75 college GPA does auto admit, but some majors get filled up that way so that few students below that GPA get in.

1 Like

My daughter had very similar stats (but 9 AP’s with 5’s), similar budget, went to the university of Delaware honors with merit, I believe they are strong for engineering.

1 Like

I do not think GATECH will happen. With no APs and way over $40K (OOS), I would look at other realistic options.

1 Like

University of Alabama will be under $40k with the merit scholarships you are eligible for.

2 Likes

No need to take out loans and you couldn’t afford - $40K + what you could borrow ($5500) to go to the schools on your list anyway, short of three.

So - Wyoming, Ole Miss, and Bama all come under your budget - Bama and Ole Miss with auto merit. Ms State is more STEM oriented than Ole Miss - if it matters.

Confused at BYU and Pepperdine (no engineering, no shot to hit budget) - two religious schools but different religions.

You’re not going to be able to afford A&M or UT, nor Ga Tech, UIUC, or UCLA - so wasted apps. Princeton - if you have need.

Lucky for you, you’ll get the same job from the ones you applied to. But if you other options at budget, U of Arizona could work (be close), UC Merced (WUE), some SUNYs, etc. Purdue (too late now) but if you’re a Junior, etc. would be close to hitting, Michigan State, Ohio State, and more. KU and WVU would both hit - and you can still apply.

For MechE, you need ABET accreditation - so the where won’t matter too much.

Good luck.

2 Likes

Are you Mormon? Even if not, are you prepared to abide by one of the most restrictive Honor Codes in the country at BYU, including not drinking coffee and tea and (if you can grow one) not growing a beard? If that doesn’t sound like something you’re comfortable with, BYU is likely not the school for you.

2 Likes