Do I have a hook and what college is right for me?

Applying to College
21

Hi, Congratulations, you have done quite well! A 1st author paper is a big deal, especially in a reputable journal (elsevier is a major publishing house and an impact factor of 4 is very good in engineering and energy related fields). If you can, use google scholar and track if anyone cites your work. That can take a couple years to see citations, but if it starts to get cited that would be good to mention as well. Definitely feature your publication in your applications as part of extra curricular activities and awards.

If your income is 60,000/yr then you may qualify for questbridge program https://www.questbridge.org/ (depends on number kids in your family as you are right around income cutoff), they work with partner universities (some of which have engineering programs. e.g. MIT, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Duke, Rice, Northwestern, etc) , and will result in a full ride offer from the college if chosen. Definitely a great option to pursue if you qualify.

Do either of your parents have a college degree? If neither, that makes you a 1st generation student and that is a “hook”.

Highly selective colleges will typically have good need based aid for income of 60,000 (likely at least full tuition, but you need to run the financial aid calculators on their sites to be sure).

For major, mechanical engineering is the most flexible undergrad engineering program relevant to your current interests Depending on your interests, electrical engineering could also make sense. If you have specific interest in battery technology as opposed to battery integration, then look at chemical engineering and materials science and engineering.

Most state flagship schools have good engineering programs. I did not catch what your home state is, but definitely suggest you apply to one or several in your state, as cost will be lower and you will have a much higher chance of acceptance than out of state flagships.

For schools to pick, in ivy league, which seems to be your interest, Cornell and Princeton have good engineering programs (Princeton is part of questbridge), and although small Dartmouth has a nice entrepreneurial program (also questbridge partner).

Some other schools to consider: WPI (worcester polytech) and Olin, small/mid and very small schools with very project oriented, excellent engineering curriculum. Rose Hulman fits that also, but I am unsure of their need aide. If you want both liberal arts and engineering, then Harvey Mudd or Swarthmore worth a look. Also, Lehigh, Lafayette (mentioned by someone else). Rice is also definitely worth a look.

For out of state flagship colleges, might be worth a shot for a few if they have merit aide possibility sufficient for your needs (note many of these schools have much less need aide for out of state students and winning merit is very hard, but not impossible, should be considered reaches though). Colorado school of mines might be of interest, most Big Ten schools, any Florida schools if you make national merit (U Florida good choice), many of the Alabama schools. Good luck!

22

Dad is an engineer, who has worked with name brand companies, been working in the US for at least 10 years as an engineer, and total household income is $60K/year? Color me sceptical.

23

@STEMFocus

Thank you for your insights about colleges as well as majors! I am on the email list for questbridge program. For my parents, my dad graduated from 2-year technical school and went straight to engineering jobs and my mom did not attend college. I don’t know if that makes me “first-gen?”

Deciding major is still not very concrete in my mind, because I explored ME, EE, and part of chemistry during my research. I do want to start out pretty broad - bachelor of science in engineering or flexible ME degrees. I will most likely take graduate school later for specific field that I found the most skills in.

Hopefully, I can be in a position after April to make considerate decisions. The colleges you named, I will apply definitely apply. But for my ambitions, I do wish to get in to either Harvard, MIT, or Stanford.

24

@collegemom3717

He had a more than decent job in South Korea working in Korean Air and Hankook tire, about to be promoted to department manager. But he threw everything away for the sake better education for me and my brother. Now, he is stuck in a small company for fixing robot parts for 10 years without much raise.

Yes, it pisses me off and I cannot imagine doing that for myself.

25

Different colleges have different definitions of “first generation to college”. Two common definitions:

  1. Neither parent has a bachelor's degree or equivalent.
  2. Neither parent has attended any college.
26

Wait until you have children, @kalicmariw! it’s amazing what you will be willing to do for them. And now your Dad has a high-achieving son with ambition and the means to achieve it- whether it’s at Harvard or another university. Sounds like he succeeded in giving you a bigger world.

I was actually coming back to apologize for my post- it was inappropriate.

27

@momofsenior1 does UM give much aid for any OOS students? I thought at one time they gave either full tuition or need but I can’t find it anymore.

28

@Eeyore123 I could have sworn Michigan was need blind for OOS and was generous for low income families but I can’t find it anymore either. Now it says they only meet need for instate applicants. Wonder when that changed?

29

Perhaps it would better for the OP to go to https://finaid.umich.edu/estimate-college-costs-with-u-m-net-price-calculator/ to see if Michigan financial aid will be sufficient.

30

I ran some numbers on the UM NPC. Even with low AGI’s ( no assets) the net price was still in 30k range for an OOS student. Of course, everyone should run their own numbers.

31

You sound most like an MIT- type guy to me, honestly.

For any of the programs that are very small and/or or do not produce many working engineers :

Suggest check the registrar’s list of courses that were actually given in the last two years (or as many semesters as are available) and look at the upper level engineering electives that were actually offered there.

A shiny new building is great, but make sure they actually offer courses that you would most prefer, to promote your goals, particularly ones that are not just theoretical. You might look up the research interests of the engineering profs and see how many have research groups that bear on anything you see yourself being interested in.

My concern is that some of the programs offering primarily “engineering science” type degrees may tend to offer non-comprehensive coverage of the field, and mostly from a theoretical, future-Phd researcher type perspective at that.
Some of their students do go on for PhDs. At some of them perhaps more go into investment banking and the like. But few actually become engineers.

A program whose offererings are non-comprehesive can be ok if the areas it does cover well happen to be the ones that interest you. But if you change your interests later…

32

@monydad

Thanks for your position. I am currently looking at courses offered at multiple schools. Part of the reason why I still lean over Harvard other than MIT is because of the competitiveness in the fields. I do want to have research positions as soon as I can and I don’t think I will stand out among MIT engineering students. This makes me believe that it will be harder to catch professors’ attention and work under them.

33

Nevertheless, suggest check the courses actually being given, routinely. And whether the available research is in areas that interest you.