I know you are not considering Brown, but they have a program that might be of interest and perhaps other colleges do as well. Basically, in addition to an ABET engineering program (bachelor of science), they also offer a non-ABET Bachelor of Arts in the various engineering disciplines, which allows for a more liberal arts program of study while still getting an engineering degree.
Adding on that kids can switch between the two as their interests solidify.
Swarthmore is a LAC with an engineering degree, but has a reputation of being uber intense.
I think Brown and Swat are both hopelessly out of range for our kiddo (along with just about every other school in the country w/ a sub-20% acceptance rate). I sure wish they weren’t, but we’ve been working hard on not glorifying the schools that are moonshots (tough when a grandparent tells him he should go to Stanford and his psych-ed evaluator says “he’d be perfect at Swarthmore.”)
Every time I think maybe I’m being too pessimistic, I go back and look at Naviance and the CDS for a reality check. No one from his school with his GPA seems to get into T20 universities or ultra-rejective LACs. There’s no fairy dust in his back pocket that will make it otherwise.
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I understand. I sent you a DM.
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Goldbug,
Are the numbers of students applying from the high school enough to get a valid read? D25’s school has nothing for parents to look at, for better and worse. But I’ve always wondered at what point there just aren’t enough data points to come to a reasonable conclusion…
He goes to a very large suburban high school (I think you can probably guess which one) with a bunch of ambitious families who apply to Ivies/Stanford/UCs (+ Northwestern/WashU/Case/Rice/Tufts/Northeastern/Vanderbilt/Duke/Michigan/etc.) in droves. There are a lot of data points for “T20” schools. The scatter plot shows the last three years and they also have total applicants/acceptances going back to 2016. One thing I’ve noticed is that our acceptance rates w/ selective California LACs are tougher than even the general population. So, for example, our historical acceptance rate at Pomona is something like 2%. In 8 years we’ve had 51 students apply to Swarthmore and 5 get in. We do a little better at Amherst (11/64) but the odds are still long. 20/306 at Northwestern, 29/306 at Brown, with average GPA for those students being north of 4.3.
I think there are a few schools (Bates being one) that haven’t yet captured the imagination of Bay Area parents to the same degree, and the data for those schools is spotty. My hunch is that a number of them are D3 athletes.
Of course these data don’t account for things like hooks or extracurricular excellence but S25 is unhooked and not particularly unusual in terms of his EC interests (nor is he unusually academically advanced, e.g. the kid taking multivariable calc and AP French as a 10th grader, while winning world chess competitions.)
I think it might have been possible to get into a 10-20% acceptance rate LAC as a full-pay student using ED and doing a really bang-up job on the application execution (which he’s also not doing right now). But since the appealing schools in that bucket (Bates, Colorado College, Wesleyan, Carleton, Haverford, Grinnell) don’t offer engineering, that didn’t make sense. (maybe if he has room in the common app and starts to think more seriously about physics, he can gamble on one of two of them in the regular admissions cycle. We’ll see.)
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I know scholarships are long-shots when a kid is considered unhooked, but when my kid applied, we really tried to get a certain number of applications in for EA as these deadlines also corresponded with scholarship consideration deadlines (USC, Georgia Tech, etc.).
There are still five+ weeks until November 1. Getting early applications in as an unhooked applicant should be seriously considered, IMHO. Is there someone that can be hired to review and issue essay deadlines? This time until Nov 1 can be a crucial one to help a student’s odds. And if the student has significant additions to their application, they often can mention these notable achievements in application updates.
Although my kid ended up going to a school from the RD cycle, their success rate in EA was 100% to all schools applied to (with a considerable range of COA).
Also, is a school like SDSU off the table?
Agreed. Bucknell is awesome…but NOT near any city of size. But since we are discussing that, I’d throw Union College (NY) and Lafayette College as LACs with engineering.
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3+2 programs guarantee admissions if you meet requirements (with exceptions, e.g. Columbia’s) and intend you to complete them in 5 years.
Have you tried looking up LACs with engineering programs? For example, Union College was a pioneer in teaching engineering. I suppose you aren’t considering Harvey Mudd?
I second Madison. If the student wants a left leaning state school with strong engineering, then UW Madison fits the bill.
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Depends on the “2” school.
| “2” school | Admission process |
|---|---|
| Caltech | Competitive |
| Columbia | Competitive, minimum 3.3 college GPA in pre-engineering courses |
| Georgia Tech | 3.0 or 3.3 (depending on major) college GPA overall and in science and math courses |
| RPI | “In general, Rensselaer looks for transfer students with a GPA of 3.0 or higher. However, it’s also important that you be taking courses appropriate to your intended major. The 3.0 GPA should be seen as a guide and not a hard cutoff, as students with a GPA below 3.0 may be considered for admission.” |
| WUStL | 3.25 college GPA overall and in science and math courses |
Financial aid at the “2” school may be significantly different from what was offered at the “3” school.
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My son applied to Pitt as a safety, and we were pleasantly surprised during our campus visit. Though it is a large public school (20,000 undergrad), the campus feels manageable, with the engineering buildings just a couple blocks from the main dorm. The engineering school is respectable (#57 on USNWR), and they have a cross registration agreement with CMU, which abuts their campus. With a major research hospital, Pitt is strong in medical related fields like nursing and BioMedE. They have honors programs for all majors, and students can apply any year. My take on Pitt engineering is that it is the safety for kids from Pittsburg whose first choice is CMU.
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That is a really helpful chart!
I note at WashU, they also say, “The Dual Degree liaison officer at your current institution must certify aptitude for engineering study and confirm you are expected to complete a bachelor’s level, non-engineering degree at your current institution no later than receipt of the engineering degree from WashU,” and “Applicants with lower GPAs are considered on a case-by-case basis; please have your liaison officer write a letter of support.”
They then go on to list specific courses you need to have taken, both generally and then for specific engineering majors.
Obviously that is too much for a chart, but I think in that sense their policy appears pretty close to RPI’s.
I note back in the day, I believe at least most kids in the area would also have preferred Penn State to Pitt for engineering. But this has perhaps been shifting.
I also note Case Western is a popular engineering option in the area (and typically perceived as more prominent than its current US News rankings, particularly among the sorts of kids who like CMU). But again, I think with the evolution of costs and such, Pitt might be seen as more competitive with Case than it used to be.
Point being Pitt has a lot of “local”-ish competition in engineering, but I think in recent years it has been doing better and better in that competition.
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Those who are aware of the secondary admission to major requirements at PSU may prefer Pittsburgh for that reason.
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Another vote for Madison. S23 is a sophomore ME major and has lots of friends from CA (mostly the Bay Area) as well as the East Coast. And Madison is a fun, safe, beautiful and VERY ‘blue’ college town on a gorgeous lake – he’s been sailing into Mid-Oct this year! Definitely put it on your list, although it’s a reach school for a 3.7 GPA, esp. for Engineering.
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But note that Wisconsin engineering has progression requirements to stay in the major that can include GPA substantially higher than the usual 2.0. Consider this similar to secondary admission.
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Oh, yeah. Progression at Madison is brutal. Several of S23’s friends and classmates have already either switched to majors with lower GPA requirements within the department (i.e., ME or CE into Civil or Environmental), or out of engineering completely. I saw a stat somewhere that the attrition rate is 50%, although that # includes switching into a less competetive major within engineering.
Any kid with an SAT of 1550 probably has the academic chops for it as long as they also have the work ethic to grind through long hours of class, labs, and projects. (But, that’s the same for engineering ANYWHERE, no?)
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