Help me choose Engineering Schools

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My son needs help to choose. We live in TX (Austin). He’s unsure about major, he is good at math and physics, thinks he could major in engineering or CS (leaning towards engineering ). 1500 SAT, 3.7 UW, 4.9 W.

He played club soccer and varsity soccer and enjoys outdoor activities. A soccer club is a plus. Academics and prestige are important for him, social life is also important. Cost of attendance is not an important variable.

He was accepted to the following universities which are so different that he has found difficult to make a decision:

  1. UC Boulder (Environmental Engineering), may want to transfer to Aerospace. He likes the campus.
  2. Texas A & M (Aerospace). He entered directly to the aerospace major because he was a National Merit finalist. Full ride. He is a little concerned about not enjoying College Station or it might be too conservative.
  3. CalPoly SLO (Computer Engineering). We have not visited but he knows he would love living there.
  4. Northeastern (Engineering)
  5. UC Santa Cruz (CS)

We’d appreciate the guidance from this awesome community!

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If you want people to take cost into consideration in their answers, I suggest that you could list the approx COA with each acceptance (instead of the merit amount)

Edited to add, looks like you edited this to indicate that people should NOT consider cost. Got it! :+1: :white_check_mark: :slight_smile:

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From looking at the list of schools, it seems like major choice and flexibility may be the biggest factor. He seems to have applied for a different major at each school, so I am guessing that he might want the option to switch to any of these majors? Would this be the list of possibilities that he might potentially want, or are there other possibilities:

  • aerospace
  • mechanical engineering? (I am guessing because of aerospace?)
  • computer engineering
  • CS
  • environmental engineering
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You’re absolutely right! My son is that kind of kid that does not know what he wants to do with his life :grinning_face: so flexibility is important ! And yes, that list seems right. I’d also add finance/economics to the list (he mentioned that if he did not like engineering he could transfer to economics, although he did not apply to these majors). :face_with_spiral_eyes:

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I think Santa Cruz might not be a good choice then, because they do not have MechE or aerospace. I don’t think robotics is an adequate substitute for those majors. They do have all kinds of CS and adjacent majors, but for an undecided engineering kid, I think it would be valuable to attend a more robust engineering school with a wide variety of majors.

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Congrats on the acceptances!

If they are all comfortably affordable (which seems to be the case) your son should research how easily (if at all) majors can be changed at the different schools. Then he can consider the different environments.

For Northeastern he should think about if he finds their the co-op program exciting.

If possible I’d try to attend the accepted student day at his top choices. Those visits helped my son to clarify his options and feel confident about his final choice.

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Eliminate Santa Cruz. UCs are very expensive and housing costs add. Then there is lack of accredidation from ABET - only EE. So that’s an easy cut for me.

CU is a great school. I think there’s a lot of wealth there- is that an issue? It’s also pricier off campus - with many living 5-10 miles away or more. Is that an issue? It was brought up on our tour in fact.

SLO - how do you know he’d love living there? Is it the downtown or beach? If he likes the beach, is CU too cold?

Northeastern - city school (with a campus), co op driven, etc. It doesn’t fit with the others. In some ways, if environment matters to him, it seems an odd application choice.

A&M -when you refer to the conservativeness, are you describing students or state policies, etc. I know two kids of very liberal (one Jewish) parents who go there and love it. I think most college students are apolitical. My son (liberal) attended another conservative area SEC school and said politics wasn’t even a thing. So it’d be hard for me to ignore your merit based on the students but if it were the state policies, I get it. I mean, if you have a full ride, that’s at least several hundred thousands in savings and maybe more - so even if money doesn’t matter, to me, it matters - it could buy grad school or a house, etc. That’s just how I’m wired.

You note he might not enjoy college station. Is it because it doesn’t have mountains or beach or is there something else? It’s definitely the most passionate student body of these and the A&M alumni are second to none in school passion (along with Michigan) - but maybe that’s not his thing? Is there a preference - mountains or beach ?

Given 50% or so of engineering majors don’t finish (finish in another major), which “school” would he prefer taking out engineering? If you think SLO, I would get there if you can - but it’s certainly a reasonable choice, even if he pivots off STEM (they have enough majors).

You might look at internal transfer options at all - as you listed CS and various engineering disciplines that he might later decide to pivot into.

Obviously, it’s hard to guide when one doesn’t know someone but I might eliminate UCSC and Northeastern.

Congrats to him and best of luck.

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I would visit before committing.
Cal Poly also has a reputation of not making it easy to switch majors,but I think that depends what the initial acceptance was into -I would investigate this as well.

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Thank you for your thoughtful response. I’ll ask my son to read it and reflect on your questions.

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“Full ride” makes me wonder if you can save the money saved and have it available for a master’s degree (which is entirely possible for someone going into engineering). TAMU is very good for engineering, and overall. I doubt that any relatively normal university campus is going to be all that conservative (assuming that you avoid a small handful of special cases, which are not listed above).

I think that all five of these universities are very good in general, and very good for engineering.

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I assume at TAMU he would still do their First Year Engineering program and could choose a different major if he wanted?

If so, that sounds like a great fit to me.

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Normally, this is a disadvantage of TAMU, since entry into more desired majors (like computer science, computer engineering, mechanical engineering, and aerospace engineering) requires a 3.75 college GPA or (sometimes highly) competitive secondary admission. The student experience is described at Analysis: The problem with ETAM – The Battalion .

However, TAMU recently added an automatic secondary admission to engineering major for those who start in the engineering division with National Merit, so this is not really a concern if the OP’s student is a National Merit Finalist: General Engineering Class of 2029 Requirements | Texas A&M University Engineering

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Santa Cruz is an interesting, kinda funky campus. If he hasn’t visited it might be wise to look before deciding.

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The only time that I ever saw a banana slug was on my one visit to UC Santa Cruz. A banana slug is very weird, but interesting.

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