Colleges w/ Acceptance Rates >20% & Strong Engineering Programs: Schools You Like and Why (NO REPLIES)

Continuing @AustenNut’s great initiative, I am starting a series of threads aimed at emphasizing colleges with strong majors where the acceptance rates are higher than 20%**.

** we are interested in schools where the acceptance rate for the program is >20%, not the overall acceptance rate at that college/university.

In this thread I want us to focus on engineering programs. What colleges with strong engineering, where the acceptance rate is higher than 20%, do you like and WHY? These can be schools you/your kids have attended/are attending or simply schools you discovered during your research.

Let us know the school name, the acceptance rate, and, most importantly, what do you like about the school? This can be anything from positive experiences while attending the school, visiting the campus, outcomes of students, strength in a particular area of study, engagement of staff and faculty with students, etc. If you liked something about the school, please share it!

Schools may be mentioned more than one time if more than one poster liked it. Once again, if you like a school, please talk about it!

NOTE: Posts suggesting schools that fall below the specified range are considered off-topic. This will also be a NO REPLIES thread (like the Colleges your child crossed off the list after visiting, schools that moved up on the list. Why? (NO REPLIES) thread). If people are interested in continuing a separate discussion about something in this thread, please create a separate thread for off-topic discussions (like the Off-Topic Discussion from “Colleges Crossed Off List or Moved Up After Visiting” thread, and perhaps a moderator could edit this post to link the thread for OT discussion.

Looking forward to learning about the schools people like in this range!

MODERATOR NOTE: Acceptance rates stated are not fact checked and can vary.

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WPI. 57% acceptance rate (but we are local and it seems much higher among the, perhaps self-selecting, applicants we know). They’ve been test-optional for decades and are now test blind.

We loved everything about this school, but what made it stand out from the other schools we visited was the administration. They were the perfect combination of supportive and steadfast in their assumption that their students could do hard things. S23 was impressed that when they needed to solve problems on campus (the design of a parking garage, redesigning a fountain that was spraying people) their first thought was to have the students do it rather than calling in a design or engineering firm.
Everyone is admitted as undeclared and you don’t declare your major until spring semester. It is easy to double or triple major (even more so with the trimester system), switching majors is easy and there is no gatekeeping. Students are encouraged to get out of their comfort zone by taking classes without the fear of tanking their GPA. Students can request any class to be recorded as NR which scrubs the grade from their transcript and GPA.
WPI is known for project based learning. Juniors are required to do an IQP (Interactive Qualifying Project) which is a group interdisciplinary project that benefits a community. Many of these projects are international. Seniors do Major Qualifying Projects (MQP) within their area of study. WPI recently became an RI research institution and there are great internship and co-op opportunities in the area.

We know a lot of kids that have really blossomed at WPI. The kind of “nerdy/nice” kid that didn’t have a huge outgoing peer group in high school and then suddenly is living their best life in college.

Edit to add: Interesting choice for LGBTQ students as Worcester just passed a referendum to declare itself as a sanctuary city for trans people.

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Wouldn’t any ABET-accredited engineering bachelor’s degree program be at least good?

Of course, the student still needs to consider academic fit (e.g. emphasis on subareas, general education, ease of changing major, not having to go through secondary admission), financial fit, and other fit considerations for each school. A student looking for an ABET-accredited engineering program can choose between good and (maybe) better for their preferences.

But many schools with high admission rates or assured admission for stats have ABET-accredited engineering bachelor’s degree programs.

For example, Arizona State University has assured admission to engineering majors for frosh who completed the required set of high school courses (with no math or science deficiencies) and one of the following:

  • 1210 SAT
  • 24 ACT
  • 3.00 HS GPA
  • top 25% high school class rank.

ASU Engineering degrees | Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering lists engineering majors; the specific major pages list the above admission criteria.

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The following California State Universities are currently not impacted at the campus level and not impacted for engineering majors. This means that they will admit frosh applicants at the CSU baseline, which is completion of the a-g course requirements with a recalculated HS GPA that is at least 2.50 (California resident) or 3.00 (non-California resident).

  • Bakersfield (computer, electrical, engineering science)
  • Chico (civil, computer, electrical, mechanical, mechatronic)
  • East Bay (industrial)
  • Humboldt (environmental)
  • Los Angeles (civil, electrical, mechanical)
  • Maritime Academy (mechanical)
  • Northridge (civil, computer, electrical, engineering management, manufacturing, mechanical)
  • Sacramento (civil, computer, electrical, mechanical)
  • San Francisco (civil, computer, electrical, mechanical)

Note that WUE tuition may be available at the above for non-California residents residing in the western region of the US.

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Off-Topic Discussion from “Colleges Crossed Off List or Moved Up After Visiting”

Despite the hype about how engineering at UCs is hypercompetitive to get into, there are campuses with ABET-accredited engineering majors which had engineering admission rates well above 20% for fall 2023 entrants, according to Freshman admission by discipline | University of California

Campus Admit HS GPA 25th-75th %ile range Admit rate ABET-accredited engineering majors
Davis 4.09-4.29 34% biological systems, biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, environmental, materials, mechanical
Irvine 4.11-4.29 28% aerospace, biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, environmental, materials, mechanical
Merced 3.59-4.15 90% environmental, materials, mechanical
Riverside 3.95-4.24 61% bioengineering, chemical, computer, electrical, environmental, materials, mechanical
Santa Cruz 3.87-4.22 66% electrical

(HS GPA is weighted-capped calculated as shown at GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub )

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I’m pretty sure the University of Hartford engineering program meets this criteria.

According to AI:

The University of Hartford’s engineering program has an acceptance rate of around 72%. The University of Hartford is a private university in West Hartford, Connecticut

The school also has the ability to complete a degree in evenings and on weekends for those who need to or want to work full time…and encourages co-ops.

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Rochester Institute of Technology…and it’s ABET accredited. That’s all I have to say right now…might edit w/more info later.

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UC Davis (acceptance rate around 34%)

  • Ranked #30 Engineering school in US, top 10 for Civil, Biological and Agricultural Engineering
  • Direct Admit to Engineering Major
  • Nice CA Weather
  • Friendly and Safe Environment
  • Different outdoor activities: biking, skiing, water rafting and etc.,
  • Downtown with variety of restaurants and farmer’s market
  • 20 mins from major city and yet maintain college town vibe
  • Not too crowded and competitive for engineering related clubs
  • Lower rent and expense than other UC locations
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Rose-Hulman! #1 Engineering school 2025 U.S. News & World Report College Guide
No. 1 Undergraduate Engineering Program - 26th consecutive year

Acceptance rate over 70%.

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When you share a school please make sure you post the acceptance rate for the engineering program, which needs to be above 20%.

Michigan Tech.

Upsides: Excellent education. Great school for outdoor recreation: kayaking, hiking, cross country skiing, winter camping, pond hockey. Generous merit to OOS students often results in a lower COA than the students would pay at their in-state schools. 86% admit rate.

Downside: in Michigan’s UP. Hard to get to.

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New Mexico Institute of Mines and Technology. (AKA New Mexico Tech)
Acceptance rate 74%.

Small tech focused university in Socorro, NM. About 1200 undergrads. Punches way above its weigh class.

National Science Foundation

  • 1st among all public universities for percentage of bachelor’s students who later complete a Ph.D.
  • 6th in the nation among all Physical Science and Earth Science universities
  • 18th among the top 50 universities that produce Ph.D. students

EMRTC (Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center) is internationally recognized for its excellence. Tech is one of the very few colleges that offer an undergrad concentration in explosive materials (a division of mechanical engineering).

Campus has an its own championship golf course and there is world class rock climbing nearby. Road cycling is excellent. NRAO management facility located on campus with the VLA close by. Great school for astronomy, though most students enroll in one of the engineering disciplines.

Tech is modestly priced and participates in WUE

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I was going to mention New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology as well.

The only thing I have to add is that their admission requirements are listed at First-Time Freshmen: New Mexico Tech

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Purdue - top 10 for engineering, strong emphasis in experiential learning, well funded labs, etc….acceptance rate last cycle for engineering was 37%. OOS is likely less than that but still above 20% (for now).

RPI - felt like a smaller version of Purdue to my d. Acceptance rate 58%

Clarkson - extremely good outcomes for engineering, also strong experiential learning, fantastic engineering safety school. 77% acceptance rate.

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Manhattan University @ 70%

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Some LACs with strong engineering include: Lafayette College (31%), Union College (44%), and Bucknell (31%).

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I’m going to echo the post above for WPI. My son is a junior there now, and it’s been a great experience. Really active and engaged professors (for the most part, there’s always a dud everywhere) and he’s had some great opportunities just by going and asking to be involved. The students feel like a very collaborative bunch, they share notes, study together, help each other on problem sets and older students consistently help younger ones - with schoolwork, but also with figuring out how networking works and talking about different IQP/MQP experiences.

My guy heads out on his IQP in about three weeks - he’ll be spending seven weeks in Thessaloniki, Greece. The IQP is a really amazing opportunity - most engineering students aren’t able to do a study abroad, given all the requirements for their majors. Because it’s a mandatory part of the WPI experience, it not only works with the major, but also all the coaches on the sports teams understand it’s an obligation and help their athletes work through it. It’s not a coop - you aren’t getting paid while you do the project - but it’s the opportunity to spend a quarter on a group project that gives outside of the box experience while also living somewhere else, pretty awesome.

The poster above mentioned that Worcester is an LGBTQ friendly city, I’d say this is true of the school as well. My son is in a fraternity that has a handful of gay members and last year graduated a trans brother. It’s not seen as weird, it just is what it is.

His biggest complaint has been the gender ratio - WPI used to be closer to even, but apparently there was a major benefactor that gave high end scholarships to female prospective students. The benefactor passed away and it wasn’t included in the will and, for the last three years, the female scholarships have dropped to not have that extra plus up. So what was originally pulling more women to campus has decreased, and the ratio of women to men has decreased. He doesn’t love that, but it is what it is. There are several other colleges in Worcester (Holy Cross, Clark, Worcester State, others I’m forgetting) so there are more students there, but the schools don’t seem to mingle and aren’t particularly close to each other. Worcester is a surprisingly sizeable city (surprising to me, who doesn’t live in New England) and there’s things to do there and restaurants and sporting events etc. That said, it seems like most WPI students tend to not venture too far off a campus - it’s a beautiful campus, so that’s not a problem, but I think S22 was originally thinking being in/near a city would be a draw and he just doesn’t take advantage of it. It is very easy to get into Boston - it’s not a bad walk down to the T station and then it’s a cheap ride into the city, which has made for some fun excursions for him plus makes getting to the airport or amtrak to get home much easier.

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I also wanted to correct my previous post on WPI, but it was too late to let me edit.

WPI is on the quarter system ( four 7 week terms), not trimesters.

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