With respect to LACs and data science, consider giving additional consideration to schools from your list like Hamilton and Macalester, which offer majors in this field, and Wesleyan University, which offers an interdisciplinary Quantitative Analysis Center.
As additional ideas, Denison and Davidson may be worth exploring.
The OP should note that Washington and Lee does offer its own engineering program.
This is how a select number of LACs are able to partner with Dartmouth in order to acquire an ABET-accredited BE dual degree - by attending Dartmouth for a post-graduation day year:
@SquirrelRacer i would suggest you read the thread Iām going to link here. This is an older thread but the message is clearā¦you should not apply to a list of schools where you have none that you are sure you will be accepted to. This student in the thread Iām linking was a national merit finalist, class valedictorian, excellent ECs and references, and excellent essays. A top student. No one expected he would be shut out everywhere he applied the first timeā¦but that is what happened. Zero acceptances. He took an excellently crafted gap year and applied to a different set of colleges (except one repeat where he was rejected again). He did land on his feet, but he had a horrible second semester to his senior year in high school.
You donāt want to be this kid!
Read the whole threadā¦
True, W&L does have an engineering program, but it is not ABET-accredited. Depending on the field of engineering, ABET-accreditation is often critical, and it is not a school like Cal Tech where employers might forego the accreditation because they know that the students coming out of the program are among the top in the country in the disciplines it offers.
Not ABET accredited, so more useful for those who want some engineering knowledge when going to work in finance or some such, rather than going to work in engineering.
Why keep Williams? Iām not aware of an engineering major there.
That was a mistake. It shouldnāt be there. Iāve edited the original post to reflect that.
I have been reading this thread for a few days and thinking about what to say. I am not sure that I am quite sure where to start, butā¦
First of all, this is a process, and this web site is a good place to ask questions. Your son sounds great, and has a decent GPA and very impressive test scores.
The list of schools in the original post is a very, very long list. Many of these schools (if not all) will require essays. I do not see how a student could do a good job on all of the essays (or the rest of the application) for a list this long.
Many if not most of the schools on this long list are reaches even for students with straight Aās over all four years of high school. Just to mention some that I am familiar with, Middlebury, Dartmouth, Williams, Northwestern, Harvey Mudd, Columbia, and Yale are examples. UT Austin and Georgia Tech out of state are other examples. UIUC out of state would be an example if applying for CS, and might still be an example otherwise. To me the ones that look most likely include Ohio State. I do not know whether it is a safety with a 3.66 unweighted GPA, and I do not fully understand why a student from California would think āOhio Stateā when they are deciding where to apply. However, of course there is plenty of time to reflect on the list and this is a good start.
An unweighted GPA of 3.66 is pretty good. However, I do not think that it is strong enough to justify applying to this many high reach universities.
I see āpremedā and I see ābudget is not an issueā. Just to be clear, four years at most of the private schools on your list plus another four years in medical school could easily add up to $900,000 by the time that you are done. Is $900,000 affordable for you? If so, then we can indeed drop this issue.
I see quite a few relatively small āliberal arts collegesā on the list, plus a few very large schools (Ohio State being an obvious example). There are advantages and considerations both ways. It would make sense to visit a few large universities and a few smaller colleges and see where your son feels most comfortable.
Engineering is an academically demanding major. Premed is not a major, but premed classes are very academically demanding. The same is true for computer science. I do not see a lot of overlap between these potential subjects. One issue with computer science that I noticed many years ago is that sometimes a student can spend long hours trying to debug their software. These long hours could potentially take away from the time required to do engineering problem sets or to study for the tough premed classes, or to do premed shadowing. Narrowing down the options will be needed at some point (not necessarily now however).
It is very common and normal for a student to change their major after they get to university, and university will give an opportunity to try a bit of this and a big of that before settling on a major and an intended career path. However I hope that your son has spent and will spend some time thinking about which path makes sense for him. I will admit that at the time that I graduated university I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my career, and it worked out well for me regardless (I graduated with a bachelorās degree in math, which is something that can be used in a variety of ways). You son has time to think about which path makes sense for him.
Given that you live in a WICHE/WUE state, I wonder whether or not you might want to consider some WUE schools (WUE is the undergraduate part of WICHE).
And finally I agree with @vwlizard that you should put some significant effort into identifying a safety or two.
Are you saying that you assembled this list based purely on selectivity data?
I know that high demand and thus high rejectivity are one way to gauge the desirability of a schoolā¦ but there are many top-quality programs that donāt have super-low acceptance rates, and for a student with a 3.66UW, high-rejectivity may not be a wise first filter.
It seems to me that the priorities, after attainability and affordability, should be availability of all programs of interest, and flexibility to choose/change majors once there, so that heāll have all of the options he wants to explore and wonāt be locked out of any of the majors he might want.
One very flexible school that comes to mind is CWRU, which has an āopen door policyā vis-a-vis majors. The CS and Data Science majors are both within the School of Engineering, along with a variety of engineering majors, so it would be relatively easy to plan a first-year program that would leave multiple options open to him as he explores his interests. Itās also terrific for premed. With a 27% acceptance rate (33% for ED) and a 4.04 median weighted GPA, and a 33 median ACT, this is another reach. But his stats are above median, plus CWRU is need-aware, and they consider demonstrated interest very strongly. So with his stats, no financial need, and strong demonstrated interest (attend info sessions, connect with admissions rep, click on ever email they send, etc.), Iād be reasonably optimistic.
U of Rochester could be another great one to look at. (There is a lot of applicant-pool overlap between URoch and CWRU.) This is another school thatās fantastic for CS, Data Science, engineering, and premed, and has a flexible curriculum and easy access to choose/change majors. 39% acceptance rate (43% ED), 3.76 median GPA, 33 median SAT.
How did Hillsdale get onto your list? Are you looking for extremely politically conservative schools, generally? (The rest of your list doesnāt look as if you are.) They donāt have engineering and arenāt noted for strength in CS.
Ohio State has been mentioned a few times here. We are from CA also, S24 got accepted pre Aero Eng there with $14.5K merit/yr. He had UW GPA 4.0, but not as high test score (1440 SAT). You may also consider Texas A&M, great ENG school. S24 also got accepted there for ENG too. We toured both schools and ranked them very high on his list.
Are you a First Generation (American) College parent? Iām detecting some very high expectations combined with a bit of naivete about what is achievable and by what means to achieve it. Youāve listed about 20 or 30 of the most popular colleges in the country and unlike some of the replies here, I totally get why you would come up with such a list. If I were even a casual follower of the USNews rankings, this is probably the list I would come up with, too.
But this comes with a lot of caveats. The most obvious one is that not all of them are known for their engineering programs. The LACs donāt have them and even some of the best known universities donāt treat it as the end-all-be-all of their existence. As someone just mentioned on a very different thread, most of these schools emphasize broad learning across a range of subjects and according to various studies, their graduates somehow manage to land decent entry-level jobs even without engineering.
But if you are really worried about job security, relax. A physics degree still opens a lot of doors these days. So does economics with a math heavy track. I just wouldnāt try to do engineering and pre-med at the same time (and if no one else has said it yet - no, you donāt have to major in STEM to complete pre-med requirements.)
None of this is to minimize the importance of finding a suitable safety - both academically and financially.
And, no. You donāt want to wind up doing 20 different essays, so it would probably pay to filter out schools that donāt use the Common Application:
OP if you decide mid size private is what your son wants, take a look at Lehigh. If you ED and are full pay it might happen, they donāt get a ton of west coast applicants. GPA is low but rigor is there.
And possibly Pitt, early action and no supplements. Others may know more about their engineering.
OregonMom2024, Perhaps I am reading too much in between words; however, I found your
āOP if you decide mid size private is what your son wantsā¦ā very thought-provoking. I agree that Lehigh is a good place to consider.
A little left field from your current list, but maybe have a look at Oregon State. S23 is finishing his first year in their engineering program and is happy with the opportunities and resources. The general acceptance rate is high, and his stats may make him eligible for the honors college and WUE.
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