@ucbalumnus Thank you. I signed up for the June SAT and I will take Biology and Math II.
I also tweaked the list a bit(in no particular order):
-Lehigh or Northwestern (I believe both require the CSS profile though)
-Howard
-UMD
-Gannon
-UNC Charlotte – net price was around $25,000 but I am eligible to be a Levine scholar (it’s competitive though)
-North Carolina State – pretty much the same as above but Park Scholarship instead
-Miami University (Ohio)
-Tuskegee
*I have also started looking at schools outside of the east coast to broaden my options
@juillet I looked into your suggestions and I was most keen about Lafayette. However, I saw that it is affiliated with Presbyterian church so I’m not sure if my mom would even agree to me going there (she mostly wants me to go to a Catholic University). Thank you for your suggestions!
Would it be correct to assume the following classifications?
(GNBFA = good need based financial aid)
Safety: Howard (automatic tuition + room), Tuskegee (automatic full ride)
Match or Reach: UMDCP (GNBFA), UNC-C (competitive full ride Levine), Gannon (competitive full tuition Presidential), NCSU (competitive full ride Park), Northwestern (GNBFA?), Lehigh (GNBFA?)
At Miami (OH), you need a 32 ACT or 1400 SAT CR+M to be eligible to compete for the full tuition merit scholarships, according to http://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-grid/index.html . So you may want to base whether you apply there on what you get on retakes of the ACT and/or SAT. It is rather unlikely that it will give good need based financial aid to you as a non-Ohio resident.
“…I’m not sure if my mom would even agree to me going there (she mostly wants me to go to a Catholic University).”"
There are actually only a handful of truly religious, or religion-dominated, colleges left in the U.S. While dozens of schools were founded by religious organizations, most have long since abandoned overt religiosity. Even at “Catholic colleges” the requirement of religion is often limited to one undergraduate course. Not very religious. I believe that Ave Maria in Florida and Wheaton in Illinois are two of the remaining strictly religious “mainstream” colleges. Then again there’s Bob Jones in North Carolina and Baylor in Texas. And of course, Brigham Young University.
@UnicornDuchess You can look at Manhattan College in NY which is Catholic.
And my D is at Lafayette and it is a totally non-secular school – any church affiliation is purely historical and is not noticeable at all on campus. (PS She loves it there).
There are actually lots of Catholic colleges in the US. Level of religiousity varies. Of course, you need to screen them for whether they offer your intended engineering major(s) (see http://main.abet.org/aps/AccreditedProgramSearch.aspx/AccreditationSearch.aspx ) and whether they can be affordable (run the school’s net price calculator for need-based aid, and check for what merit scholarships they offer).
Ave Maria is Catholic, but does not have any engineering. Wheaton is non-denominational Christian, but also does not have any engineering. Bob Jones is non-denominational Protestant, Baylor is Southern Baptist, and BYU is LDS.
My point is not they are schools for the OP; rather, it is that the schools I mentioned are strictly sectarian, or at least “Christian,” and that culture is dominant on campus and in the students’ lives. Dancing is prohibited by Wheaton and Bob Jones, for example. I think that Wheaton even punishes students whom are caught dancing at off-campus events. For those applicants looking for such religiosity, more power to them. Relatively, there are few sectarian schools left in the USA, compared to the number of non-sectarian and independent private colleges. Finally, I would urge the OP to politely advise her mother that 'there is no such thing as Catholic engineering. Like there’s no such thing as Catholic chemistry.
@ucbalumnus You are correct. For university of Miami, I thought it had a no loan policy but now I see that it is only available to instate students.
@LakeWashington and @happy1 I’ve talked to my mom about the lack of Catholic engineering schools and she has agreed that I can apply to all types of schools. She just fears that I’ll lose my religion or something if I go to a school that is affiliated with another religion haha. I’ll definitely try to convince her though and I’ll look more into Lafayette.
Also, I have another question for you all if you don’t mind. I just got accepted into a summer program and I have exactly one week to accept my spot. If I do not accept by the deadline, they will offer it to someone else. My problem is that I am still waiting from the internships I applied to at NIH and NASA which are both paid unlike this one. The dates of all three programs coincide. I also don’t want to be one of those people who accepts the offer and then declines, especially since I will be taking the spot from someone else. Any advice?
@UnicornDuchess A bird in hand is worth two in the bush. What have you been accepted to. Could it lead to a real job or future internship? What are the decision dates for NIH and NASA?
@gearmom It’s a Girls Who Code program sponsored by Lockheed Martin. And I love the expression you used about the birds! I’m leaning towards accepting it since I’m not even sure I will be accepted to the others. Also, NIH said they release decisions in early April, while NASA says “Offers can go out as early as the day after the application period closes up until the session begins,” which is extremely vague.
It doesn’t hurt to request an additional couple of days to act on the Girls Who Code offer. All they can say is no. Any of these programs would be a great experience.
By the way, there are Catholic universities that have engineering departments; several actually. But that is not to say that they teach “Catholic engineering,” if you know what I mean. LOL.
U of Dayton
Villanova U
Santa Clara U
U of Portland
Seattle U
U of San Diego
U of Notre Dame
Merrimack College
Marquette U
Fairfield U
Seattle U
Saint Louis U
@LakeWashington I had looked into many of those. If I recall correctly, my net price for Villanova was like $25,000, same with U of Dayton.
For now, I think I will stick with my current list (except I’ll remove U of Miami) and I’ll update when I get my new ACT and SAT II scores.
Thank you all for taking the time to respond!
@bodangles@mybstnw@gearmom@ucbalumnus@LakeWashington@juillet
Thank you all for your help! I would like to update you guys that I am done with the college application process!
In the end, I retook the ACT and got a 30 composite (35 English, 27 Math, 30 Reading, and 28 Science).
I also took the SAT subject tests and got 590 Bio E and 610 Math 1 (should really have studied .-.)
However, I am proud to say that I received the Questbridge National College Match Scholarship and I will be attending Rice University next fall to major in one of the engineering disciplines (still haven’t decided which).
Thank you all again for your help and encouragement (:
Don’t want to take words out of mom2collegekids mouth, but biomedical engineering can be a riskier path to med school, I would assume, because it is extremely difficult to maintain a high GPA with biomedical engineering, and a high GPA is crucial to med school acceptance.
Since you are still a junior concentrate on improving your math score. With a higher score you will be competitive (especially as a female URM in engineering) at higher level colleges where job prospects are better. You may be able to get 100% FA (tuition + housing) at some of the higher ranked universities, especially the private ones.