Congrats to your son as well!
Son did not apply to Michigan. He was scrambling during EA and found Michigan’s essays longer and harder to write and skipped it. Then he got Purdue and UIUC before Michigan’s RD deadline, decided not to apply. Michigan is quite popular at our school so counselor also recommended him not to join the big group already applying.
Son did often put down math or physics for second choice major. But interestingly the only place offered him applied math was UCSD. He definitely prefers Mech E so not considering UCSD as transferring into engineering is pretty impossible. I heard transferring into Engineering is possible at Michigan. A colleague’s son went from biology in school of science to bioengineering in school of engineering at Michigan though he did end up having to do more required classes and graduated in 4.5 years.
Cost-wise, UCLA is leading, as we are CA residents (14k). The cost of the other 3 are Purdue(28k),GT(33k),UIUC(35k). These numbers are just bulk park numbers for tuition, more or less similar to each other.
In Purdue, students will need to declare into MechE after one year. So if he is set for MechE and don’t want to go through another process, he will likely not pick Purdue. He had done admitted student days for Purdue and UIUC late February (school had a few days off around Presidents’t day, which we often call it “ski week”:). He is not picky about the look of the campuses and did think both are fine. The surroundings of UIUC is slightly more vibrant, with lots options of food places. GT is the farthest from home but there is direct flight to Atlanta, less than half hour from the airport. So transportation may even be easier than the 1.5-2 hour distance from UIUC/Purdue to a major airport. GT has the smallest number of students, he may like that as he previously had wanted to go to a not-so-huge school therefore applied to all those private colleges.
He has not visited GT yet so we should. We do not know anyone from friends, family, colleague circles or anyone from his K-8 or high school that attends GT. So he may find GT to be very unfamiliar. He does have a pre-school friend who moved to Atlanta years ago but that kid is accepted at Stanford and will not be attending GT.
In the end it will depend on how he chooses. He may not feel the ranking of the school/program not as important as we adults do.
I am just happy that he has good choices. All actually cost less than the private colleges that he didn’t get into:)
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