Engineering major at Pomona

Colleges & Universities Pomona College
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My intended major is Mechanical Engineering.

I applied to a bunch of engineering and CS schools and either 1. I got rejected or 2. I cannot afford to attend. From 20 or so applications, the feasible option for me right now is Pomona, which gave me very generous aid.

However, engineering isn’t a major at Pomona. I can take engineering classes, but I can’t major in engineering.

I could try to transfer out while only taking classes whose credits transfer. Or I could also stay at Pomona and be an applied math or physics major and end up studying engineering in grad school (which I’m not even sure if I want to go).

I’ve also looked at the 3/2 program with WUSTL and Caltech but the general census is that it’s not worth it (from what I’ve read here).

Any advice on what I should do?

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If your major is Mech E, how did Pomona make your application list?

I assume you declined all ME opportunities.

Sure, you could transfer. You can do a 3/2. I wouldn’t say it’s not worth it. I would say - you give up a year of tuition (you pay), you lose a year of income, etc. Worth is up to you -but it’s certainly not the most direct thing and what if you don’t want to leave your people after three years.

Is there a way to take classes and somehow do the major via Harvey Mudd, as an example?

Or maybe you do a gap year and start again?

If you truly want to be a MechE, then make sure you take the right courses first year.

Good luck.

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Pomona is a great school and so is WashU. I get WashU isn’t “highly” ranked for engineering, but with its resources, I suspect that may change, quickly.

The major downside to a 3+2 is the cost and one extra year. But if you are getting generous aid, it’s not a bad way to go.

Taking a gap year, you may still be in the same financial situation. From what you said, it’s not like you didn’t get into good schools. You just didn’t get enough money to go.

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Frankly, for MechE, short of a few schools, the where doesn’t matter. I’m with my son in Cleveland this week (hello Rock Hall of fame).

In his cohort team, he has UC Riverside, Auburn, Washington, W Michigan, Akron, Buffalo, Michigan, Case Western, Ohio State, Purdue, Cal Poly, Utah and more. Next year is Ga Tech coming in - and he interned in the summer with two Ga Tech kids. He’s an Alabama kid (who turned down higher prestige because - well, he chose to).

You need ABET - not a big name.

But that’s past.

Are there any programs you can still get for fall - that you can study MechE?

Pomona is great - but if you want to be a MechE, I’m not even sure why it was on the application list, unless it was a late decision on major.

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The 3/2 program is worth it if that is your pathway. Determine which option looks appealing and talk to your advisor. Take the recommended classes to keep you on track, most will overlap with other majors, so if you decide engineering is not for you, you still have the needed courses for other areas.

Most grad school options for engineering are assuming you have an undergrad degree in engineering. So again your 3/2 options will be better.

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Both the regular transfer and doing a 3+2 program mean potential financial aid uncertainty at the schools where you would complete the mechanical engineering major.

Without knowing your cost constraints and state of residency, it may be hard for others here to suggest financially realistic choices for transfer or 3+2.

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Agree. You are not guaranteed to get the same aid Pomona is offering when you change colleges and likely will not get aid for your fifth year.

You should also research the requirements that must be met in order to make a successful transfer to complete a 3/2 program. And think about if you would be OK attensing Pomona for three years and leaving before you graduate with your classmates.

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OP should definitely research the WashU 2 year FA piece and then call them to discuss options:

https://engineering.wustl.edu/academics/dual-degree-program/financial-aid.html

OP What is your annual college budget? There are many schools still taking apps if that’s something you would consider.

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Missouri S&T takes applications until 07/01. Alabama-Huntsville until 08/20. If you got into Pomona you probably have the stats to get good merit at both. Both have very solid mechanical engineering.

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Thank you. I didn’t know who was still accepting. Assuming OP has a test score, UAH will be cheap provided auto merit is avail for late apps -maybe under $20k ish - surrounded by loads of jobs. And not much larger than the cumulative nature of the Claremont schools.

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Pomona is a great school and a once in a lifetime opportunity. But it doesn’t have your major- that’s an issue. Have you looked into possibly doing Eng specific courses through HMC? Especially if offered great aid- I would be careful about turning down Pomona.

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Agree with looking at other programs that are still taking applications…@eyemgh included two great suggestions.

Also, you might want to talk with Pomona as well as WashU/CalTech/Dartmouth about their arranged programs with respect to getting into the second program as well as what financial aid usually looks like. There are some who prefer the Dartmouth 2-1-1-1 program because students finish senior year with their college friends and their first year at Dartmouth is when many juniors are going abroad, so they’re not missing their friends and activities they would have normally done.

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For OP…to do this, go in common app, go to ‘college search’, ‘more filters’, check entry Fall 2024 and filter by deadline on or after today. Unfortunately you can’t filter by major. There are 628 common app schools still taking apps as of today. Do not use the NACAC list of colleges still taking apps, it is woefully incomplete.

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So there are obviously different ways of playing this.

As a general framing, lots of people start in Engineering and then switch out for various reasons, indeed it can be a majority at colleges where there are good alternatives. So I am always hesitant to endorse a college which will only really make sense for you if you actually stick with Engineering, unless perhaps that is your only financially viable path into Engineering.

On the other hand, as people are pointing out, starting at a college with no Engineering can be problematic even if you can potentially do some sort of 5-year plan, including because of the possible additional cost (including opportunity cost, which can be no small thing, but also you have to watch how aid would work and so on).

So I think ideally, prospective Engineering students should choose a college which is comfortably affordable, has a good Engineering program (usually ABET certified programs are good and then possibly a few others) if they choose to go that way, but also is a good place for other majors if they end up not wanting to do Engineering.

And there are plenty of colleges like that, but it sounds like your application strategy did not lead there. So now you have to do something less than ideal, and I think you need to think carefully how you want to handle it as different people might reasonably handle it differently.

So, one plan is obviously stick with Pomona and just deal with the possible costs of a five-year Engineering plan if you end up still wanting that. The “good” news is you probably won’t! Most people who start at a college like Pomona with that thought end up just not doing Engineering. But a few do.

Another is find an affordable ABET Engineering program that will still accept you for fall enrollment. As I see it, the main downside is whether or not that will really be the right college for you if you end up not wanting to do Engineering.

And a third is to take a gap year and restart this whole process with a new focus on making sure you end up with some suitable college choices. But that ALSO has an opportunity cost of course.

As a final thought, if it was me I would just go to Pomona. But then again, I have never wanted to be an Engineer, and so it is sort of hard for me to really imagine caring that much that not a lot of people starting at Pomona will end up Engineers.

Still, you have a great college offer which is affordable for fall admissions, so that is a very tempting way to start. And then you can figure out the rest in the future depending on how things actually evolve.

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All options nicely laid out.

One additional thought, if starting with Pomona, transferring to Mudd could be a possible and logical path (albeit highly selective) for an engineering degree if their curriculum is appealing.

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These are fair points - it’s hard to know - what you want in life.

After all, OP says to major in MechE but says he applied for a lot of CS. Why?

Desires / majors change.

My MBA friend’s son just finished at Brandeis in, I want to say physics. Took engineering classes at Tufts and now is in a Masters at Ga Tech - and OP may have a similar opportunity with the consortium to end up in an engineering Masters. My old neighbor’s kid did physics at Hillsdale and a Masters at Notre Dame in engineering - so I know it’s not common, but it is possible.

On the other hand, for those who say - Pomona is a once in a lifetime type opportunity - and I agree it is - but then I think about the thread started yesterday on only two Ivies have mid career salaries of at least $100K - and it shows much lower salaries than people would have you believe.

That isn’t the case with engineering. I’m not suggesting that a UAH is superior to Harvard or Pomona - but I know what engineers out far less prestigious schools make and when you compare to that story yesterday - well, it makes you think that - at least to me, maybe it’s the major.

OP does have options and we don’t know the budget. We just know that they have great aid.

So they really have to think this one through - but they asked the question, so obviously they want to do so.

I assume they’re in CS at Pomona but we don’t know that either.

I just don’t know why they applied there to begin with - unless they were unsure of the major.

And if they are or were unsure (i.e. it could change again), I agree that Pomona might be a great place to stay and explore through the consortium.

But if they 100% no they want to be a MechE, then I’d find a school like UAH - assuming they can afford it (if they have an ACT/SAT, likely no more than $20K-ish).

There was a recent thread of a young man who got into MechE schools - Clemson but went to BC because - he was prestige hungry.

Had no chance to be an engineer at BC - so he’s leaving after a year - to go study engineering at another school.

But he literally wasted a year.

So that’s not good either…but I do think there’s options either way - and OP asked a great question - and there’s lots of advice of varying colors.

Now OP will have to figure out - which advice they want to follow.

I wish them luck.

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Thanks everyone for all the replies!

Yeah, MechE was sort of a last minute major decision. I liked CS, math, physics, and building stuff so I applied mostly to top CS and math schools. Rejected from some and can’t attend other for financial reasons. Looking back, I definitely should’ve done more college research during my junior year before the application season, but I guess I deserve that for procrastinating.

Right now, my plans are to

  1. Try to transfer to a diff school after my first year
  2. Try to work with the people at Pomona to possibly allow me to major at HMC. I know Pomona doesn’t usually allow that but I remember reading somewhere that in very rare instances they allow you to major at a different school if you go talk to them and they approve it. Speaking of which, why is Pomona the only 5C that doesn’t allow you to major at other schools in the consortium? Smh.
  3. Just give up the engineering path and stay at Pomona. MechE definitely isn’t the only thing I’m interested in and I would be glad to major in CS, math, physics, or astronomy. Just not too sure how the job prospects for them (besides CS) are. I know astronomy doesn’t pay too well so I’d probably go w/ physics or applied math.

I’m aware of the uncertainty of financial aid w/ transfer students but at least it’s more stable than the 3/2 program. Probably will apply to schools like MIT, Caltech, and Cornell and hope for the best (yes, I’m aware of the fact that “prestige” doesn’t matter too much for eng but I’m applying to them because top schools are richer and thus are more likely to provide a better financial package to someone with -1500 EFC).

Not saying that UAH is a bad school, but I honestly just feel a lot more comfortable with Pomona right now especially since that’s all I’ve researched about the past couple of weeks. Small, tight community, lots of connections, close to Silicon Valley, close to LA, and probably good job prospects too. Can’t really pass that up.

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So if you actually want to work in a university or lab in your field, those can be tricky majors with lots of opportunity costs and uncertain prospects.

But coming out of colleges like Pomona, if you want to do something like business, law, government, health (assuming you also do the prereqs) or so on, you will likely have all sorts of prospects. In some cases after more education, but like law schools, say, love Math and Physics and such majors with really good grades and high LSATs–I mean they love all kids with respectable majors with really good grades and high LSATs, but not least Math and Physics kids. Same deal with med schools if you have high grades and a high MCAT (and did the prereqs). And so on.

Point being they don’t have to be limiting degrees financially if you don’t want them to be.

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You could easily craft a curriculum at Pomona in any of those majors, Physics, CS or math, that would lay the groundwork for a MS in ME, IF that’s what you decide to do down the road. You just need to lay the groundwork now so that you’ll have the prerequisites for grad school.

Note, financial aid packages are frequently different for transfers and first time freshmen.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-transferring-colleges-can-affect-financial-aid

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I could be wrong, but I’m not reading anything from the USNews article that directly says that a first time freshman has a FA package very different from a transfer. What I’m reading is that they may differ from your original school because different schools calculate their own “need” based on FAFSA and CSS which I’m already expecting.

If we had an applicant X apply to school Y during their senior year of HS, would the aid not be similar to the aid they would get if they transferred into the school, providing nothing about them changed?

Again, feel free to correct me on this, there’s a good chance that I AM wrong now that I think about it.