I live in metro DC. I graduated from GaTech and considered VaTech as top Engineering school all the time. It was also big surprise to me why people in DC area are crazy about UVA, UMICH and UCs for any major. GATECH to them is just OK school (DD got tired to explain classmates and neighbors why she decided to go to GaTech when was accepted to Umich. They simply couldn’t get it. ) VATECH is like second tier. I, on the other hand, do not get why people from other states are so crazy about UMD. It never appealed to me. I guess all have different opinions based on something.
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The son of one of my wife’s college roommates has a son at UMass-Amherst, and he seems to be having a good experience there.
Although not a state school, what about Lehigh?
OP- I don’t think you need to worry about your S still discovering his interests except for the California Publics, where you undoubtedly will get better information from your networks than you will on CC. There is some fungibility among engineering pathways (EVERYONE will take calc, stats, etc.) so if he starts out in Mechanical but decides he loves Civil, all is not lost.
I do think it’s worth having your son find a relatively early career engineer who is off the engineering path to hear about some of those options. Whether it’s banking, consulting, sales, a startup where this person is not in an engineering role-- it will be helpful for him to realize that what he studies doesn’t always dictate what path he ends up taking. I’ve hired engineering grads into lots and lots of different roles; sometimes it’s a story like Thumper’s D (got an engineering degree but knew she didn’t want to become an engineer) and sometimes it’s accidental (I know a young person now who applied to a big pharma company for their engineering rotation program, but ended up getting hired and staffed on a different team entirely and he loves it.)
There is no shame in not knowing what you want to do with your life while you’re in HS, and finding a college which will support and embrace his exploration for as long as possible might be the answer for him.
I don’t want to say “he can’t go wrong”, but truth be told, many of the flagship U’s engineering programs are more similar than different. The lifestyle of a rural flagship (U Conn-- sort of out in the middle of nowhere) and an urban school (Pitt) might be different-- but the actual content isn’t going to vary too much academically.
Being in California is both advantageous and disadvantageous when it comes to thinking about engineering. You may not know many folks whose job involves supervising an entire production facility for an automotive component (I know a few). You may not know many folks whose job involves developing quality control metrics for a perishable food facility (when I lived in the Midwest I knew a bunch). The day in/day out work of many engineering jobs- gears, ball bearings, composite materials, flotation devices, soil, water, sand, concrete, prosthetic eyeballs-- there are just a bunch of cool things your son may not have been exposed to, even knowing so many working engineers.
And on the topic of him returning to “home base” after college- we ALL think that! And some of us are even right… and the rest of us just hope our kids end up at a Jet Blue or Southwest or Avelo hub so we can buy cheap tickets to visit!!!
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Some colleges have a strong core curriculum that all students are required to take. It gives the student a chance to study in a variety of areas, and for some, this piques their interest. They find something they really like, a professor who they want as a mentor, or the like.
Perhaps your student would benefit from something like this.
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Using this as just an example, my two cents is you two really should not be overly worried about “known for engineering” or “better for engineering” when you are talking about flagship (or flagship level) state universities which have the engineering majors you are considering in the first place.
I find it helpful sometimes to think big picture, and the big picture here is that when public universities really started taking off in the United States, fueled by the land grant movement, right from the start what we would call engineering today was a core part of their mission. In fact this is straight out of the Land Grant Act of 1862:
That the moneys so invested or loaned shall constitute a perpetual fund, the capital of which shall remain forever undiminished (except so far as may be provided in section 305 of this title), and the interest of which shall be inviolably appropriated, by each State which may take and claim the benefit of this subchapter, to the endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.
Different states took up this mission in different ways. Some ended up creating special “tech” colleges, sometimes at multiple levels including the flagship level. Some incorporated it as part of the mission of their general interest colleges. Some ended up doing both–so like there is engineering at both Texas and TAMU.
But the bottom line is if you are looking at an engineering program at a flagship-level state university, almost always it has been a priority for that state in some way for a long time.
OK, so Pitt is an interesting case because it was actually an independent private institution for a long time, and only eventually affiliated with the state. Penn State was the more classic land grant sort of university in Pennsylvania (although actually it too has a complex relationship with the state). But in any event, Pitt these days is more or less considered flagship level in PA despite Penn State also being at that level.
Does that mean no one could ever rationally choose Penn State over Pitt for engineering? No, of course not, Penn State has a great engineering program, and also a classic big college in a college town sort of vibe.
But if for one or more reasons Pitt was a better fit for a given student, including for non-engineering reasons, I would not hesitate to suggest it was perfectly fine to choose Pitt, even for engineering.
Same thing with, say, Delaware versus Maryland. Maryland definitely has a great reputation for engineering, but if Delaware was overall a better fit, great, Delaware is a very good choice for engineering too.
OK, so I think your kid is looking at a lot of different variables, which is fine. Ideally, your kid will end up with multiple choices where the location, setting, vibe, general academic structure, and so on are all appealing. And if engineering is something that your kid wants as an option, then they can all have engineering as an option.
But personally, I would not get too caught up yet with which of those options would be “better” or the “best” for engineering. Again, as long as you are at least talking about flagship-level publics, or sort of equivalent privates with engineering, I think you can be pretty confident your kid will be happy with those engineering programs if they end up doing engineering at one of those colleges.
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My son had lots of the same criteria- strong engineering in blue states, also a musically inclined kid who studied abroad in HS. He really liked and applied to UMD College Park, UW Madison (got into both) & CU Boulder. Smaller schools he explored were Swarthmore (tough admit but fantastic SLAC w/engineering), Case Western (demonstrate interest if he applies!), and RPI. Others to check out: Lafayette, Bucknell, Drexel, and WPI for sure. My S24 is now a sophomore, and I’d recommend having your son take intro engineering/math classes his first year- my kid is at a school with open curriculum, but his major (Computer Eng) has one of the highest # of required classes of all majors. He’s bending over backwards to get all of the req’s in so that he can hopefully do a semester abroad in France- that was one of the things he really wanted to experience in undergrad but it can be challenging for engineering majors. So if he is even thinking about Eng, have him take those classes early on and see if it’s the right fit for him.
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This is a beautiful post.
I will add (as I have posted on many other threads, although I haven’t been all that convincing) that the list of “Top 25 colleges” is actually about 50 colleges long, and the list of “Top 25 engineering colleges” is likely 65 or so colleges long.
You will probably not convince folks from a generation older than us (i.e. loving grandparents who think little Susie or Johnny “belong” at Stanford or Cal Tech). But they aren’t the ones pushing themselves to finish a problem-set before exhaustion sets in!
The quality of engineers coming out of places like Missouri S&T in little old Rolla Missouri is superb. Am I advocating it for the OP? No. Not a blue state, and OP’s kid has MORE than enough terrific schools to visit and evaluate. But it’s an example of how a relatively obscure university (to the general public- when I recruited for the aerospace industry over 30 years ago it was one of our favorite target schools) can have a terrific program even if the guy at the local dry cleaners has never heard of it.
If it were my kid, I’d be looking for a place where the “cost” of exploration is relatively low (i.e. switching from ME to Physics after the first semester doesn’t mean an extra two years of tuition) and where the overall vibe and culture of the place is a fit.
Kids get great jobs majoring in civil engineering, history, physics, poli sci. It is hard to come to grips with that if you are smack in the middle of Silicon Valley or similar, where anyone who isn’t making $350K with lucrative stock options is living out of a shopping cart. But it is true for the rest of the country… and in most of these places, kids graduating from Case, Pitt, U Mass, Drexel, U Delaware, Stonybrook, Rutgers, Ohio State, Wisconsin, etc. can launch very successfully after a great college experience.
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And I’ll add….there are hundreds and hundreds of colleges with ABET engineering programs AND many other majors in case engineering isn’t the kid’s cup of tea.
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Yeah, at least for this kid, I would think this is critical.
It is like a variation of the broken leg thing for athletes. If you break your leg and can’t do your sport, will you still be happy at this college? If you decide engineering is not for you, will you still be happy at this college?
And many, many colleges will pass this “broken slide rule” test. But I would think the OP’s kid might want to make sure they were at one of those.
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My kid had very similar stats and ended up at University of Delaware Honors College with good merit (but still pricy). He fell in love on first visit - it’s the right size in terms of number of students (18k) and great campus size - nothing is more than 10-15 min walk from dorm. There’s a great Main Street, tons of clubs.
It is now a few weeks in and it’s a great fit for him. Happy kids, curriculum can be as challenging as you want. He likes the classes, professors, students. They also have an “Undecided Engineering” pathway that lets them explore first year before they select engineering major.
Highly recommend!
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My daughter graduated UD in 2022 and she met her tribe in Redding, been dating her boyfriend since freshman year and has great friends she sees on a regular basis, she loved it, good luck to your son.
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I’m just passing through here, you said you already have too many schools and I believe CA residents (wrongly) consider NC to be a “solid red” state, but upon reading this statement I thought I should mention NCSU, which is NC’s flagship when it comes to engineering, because they start their aspiring engineering students in “First Year Engineering” which might be of interest to your student since it sounds like he is still exploring.
NCSU is 14% OOS students - less than the 18% cap NC puts on our publics - meaning that the stats for IS and OOS admission do not diverge like they do for UNC. The school is huge but has a good vibe, my shy quirky daughter thought she could easily find her people there (not applying due to her specific career and major path). ABET accredited. Raleigh is a really nice town for a college student.
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Thanks everyone – this has given us a lot to think about.
Quick takeways:
- if S25 wants to eventually study or work in engineering, we shouldn’t count on his being able to get there from a liberal arts college without any engineering courses. (BTW, this is not the only warning I’ve gotten about trying to do physics at a small LAC with limited faculty/course offerings. I know that a number of these schools, e.g. Carleton, have robust PhD pipelines. But it seems important to walk into any such program with eyes open about compromises – e.g. maybe one couldn’t study abroad and graduate in four years b/c a graduation requirement or important prerequisite for grad school might not be offered every year.)
- just about any accredited engineering program at any school S25 is likely to attend will teach him what he needs to know to become a professional engineer.
- engineering isn’t for everyone, and we might want to focus on programs that give him a) options to explore engineering (e.g. undecided engineering pathway) before committing to a course of study as well as
- schools that are strong in other areas as well.
What will vary across these schools will be all the other factors that matter to folks. These include:
- size of school/size of program/average class size
- location (urban/rural/suburban)
- cost (and potentially opportunity to be part of honors college)
- campus recruiting opportunities, as well as co-curricular internships, etc.
- weather, culture, ease of access (direct flight? easy drive?), food, dorms, degree to which sports and/or frats are important, gender ratios, etc.
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I actually grew up in the Triangle area and our family has deep affection for the Old North State. I was looking recently at the admissions data for State and it did look pretty competitive for OOS students but I’ll dig deeper because I agree – great education (it’s where most of my strong STEM classmates went).
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However, NCSU has competitive secondary admission to specific majors. In comparison, Pittsburgh, Michigan, and Virginia are non-competitive for declaring an engineering major after entering as frosh engineering undeclared student.
Some other schools with secondary admission to engineering majors:
- Virginia Tech: 3.0 college GPA for assured admission to major, otherwise competitive.
- Minnesota: 3.2 college GPA for assured admission to major, otherwise competitive.
- Penn State: each major has its own threshold GPA for admission.
- Wisconsin: has progression requirements including college GPA minimums that may be significantly higher than 2.0 to stay in each major.
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Have you thought about Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and Harvey Mudd? Georgia Tech is also an interesting option.
RPI is on the long list. Georgia Tech and Mudd are too reachy (although our son would love to go there).
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Case Western has single door admission, meaning students are free to choose or change to any major. He might consider engineering physics.
https://bulletin.case.edu/engineering/programs/engineering-physics-bse/#text
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Per https://engr.ncsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/EngrRecruiting-Booklet-fall2016.pdf the NCSU engineering acceptance rate is about 50% and the stats are UW GPA 3.87, SAT 1255-1395. I know goldbug’s son’s GPA is a little lower than that, but I would think he’d be in range.
NCSU places a lot of emphasis on rigor and class rank in their admissions process. Goldbug doesn’t mention rank but the rigor looks good.
I don’t have any experience with looking at engineering schools so I’ve reached the limits of my knowledge here. Good luck to your son, goldbug!
EDIT: I just noticed that the link I posted is pretty out of date. Updated stats here - sans admit rate unfortunately: First-Year Admissions | College of Engineering
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Re: University of New Mexico -
OP should check out https://scholarship.unm.edu/. OP’s S25 could qualify for their Amigo scholarship ($22,219/yr + $200/yr stipend), which would put the COA down from $53,445 to $31,026. UNM has a solid engineering program.
If you’re looking for cheap + a good engineering program, you could also consider NMSU. Go to Scholarships | New Mexico State University - BE BOLD. Shape the Future. for details on scholarships. It’s a WUE school, so as a CA resident, your S25 would qualify for their WUE or WUE+ scholarships. His stats get him an “Academic Index Score” on their website of 189.73. He’d probably qualify for $18,326/yr scholarship (OOS competitive tuition discount, limited # available) and he could also apply for the Conroy Honors Scholarship, which would get him an extra $6000/yr. Alternatively, if not selected for the Conroy Honors Scholarship, he’d automatically qualify for the Hadley Honors OOS Scholarship, which would get you an extra $4000 off per year instead of $6000/yr.
Then the numbers would look like this:
- total OOS COA at NMSU w/o scholarships = $44,898
- COA after OOS competitive tuition discount + Hadley Honors OOS scholarship = $22,572.
- COA after OOS competitive tuition discount + Conroy Honors scholarship = $20,572.
NMSU has a solid ABET-certified engineering program. El Paso airport is an hour away and the college usually has an airport shuttle that you can book.
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