How important is ABET certification? (looking at LACs for son and worrying about our list)

College Search & Lists
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I agree with the advice to find a summer engineering program to see how interested he really is in the idea. Also, I’d see about swapping some schools out on your planned tour for some others. These are some small to mid-sized schools in some of the states that you’ll be traveling through:

Minnesota

  • U. of St. Thomas: About 5900 undergrads and ABET-accredited for civil, electrical, mechanical, and computer engineering. Located in Saint Paul and @fiftyfifty1 speaks well of it.

Ohio

  • Case Western: They like demonstrated interest and would be a good match for your kid, I think. ABET-accredited for aerospace, biomedical, civil, computer, electrical, mechanical, and other areas. About 6k undergrads.

  • Ohio Northern: About 2600 undergrads and ABET-accredited in CS, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and engineering education.

  • U. of Mount Union: About 1900 undergrads and ABET-accredited in biomedical, civil, computer, and mechanical engineering.

Pennsylvania

  • Penn State Erie (Behrend College): About 3200 undergrads and this is a residential campus where many/most students stay at this location all 4 years rather than switching to University Park after two years. ABET-accredited in computer, electrical, industrial, mechanical, and software engineering as well as in a couple other areas.

  • Villanova: About 7k undergrads and ABET-accredited in chemical, computer, electrical, civil, and mechanical engineering.

  • Wilkes: About 2k undergrads and ABET-accredited in electrical, environmental, and mechanical engineering.

  • York: About 3300 undergrads and ABET-accredited in civil, computer, electrical, and mechanical engineering.

New Jersey

  • The College of New Jersey: About 7k undergrads and ABET-accredited in biomedical, civil, computer, electrical, and mechanical engineering as well as a couple of other areas.

And though it’s not en-route for your trip since you’re flying from Minnesota to Ohio, I’d strongly recommend looking at Marquette. It’s mid-sized (about 7500 undergrads), but I think it’d have a lot of the things your son is interested in.

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