@ucbalumnus We definitely saw how competitive it was to get into certain majors at several colleges - like Comp Sci at UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Carnegie Mellon. It seems like my son’s college is a little more flexible in the ability to select a major once you are accepted into the engineering school, assuming a student doesn’t get below a 2.3 or so. ( I can’t remember the actual GPA threshold right now, but it wasn’t horrible, if he stays on top of his work.) We did ask about that switching major issue, after seeing the potential difficulty at other colleges. I think Comp Sci is the largest and probably is the most competitive major in his school, but they appeared to have the resources to accommodate all of the interested kids, at least this year.
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our son’s school college counselor definitely asked us, gently, if we had any hesitations about money before she went forward with college suggestions. Since both of our in-state flagships were going to be tuition-free to our son, my answer about other colleges was: “No, we can’t really afford $55K-$70K a year, but we will figure out a way to pay if we think a college is worth it.” (Husband was a little less confident in that answer, but that led to personal discussions at home…) The counselor did her job by at least raising the issue. For families who don’t have good school or private college counselors, people like you on CC provide a valuable source of advice. But, there may be no need to press too far if a parent answers your questions about money like I did.
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@MOMANDBOYSTWO You were very lucky to have a GC that even broached the subject! 
Many GCs live in some dreamworld where everyone gets a ton of financial aid, so don’t worry. And there are certain schools/districts that have policies that seem to forbid GCs from talking about such things in anything other than a large group session.
@ucbalumnus You took FallenChemist’s quote and attributed it to me in your post #84.
I actually enjoy reading @bopper’s posts - I find them to be interesting and educational.
It is important to carefully investigate the details before attending a public university for engineering.
Increasingly, schools are partitioning engineering majors, requiring students to attend in general engineering for a year then rejecting students from their major and forcing them to major in something else or transfer, and constraining a students ability to transfer into other engineering majors if they change their mind.
It is becoming a significant issue at many schools.
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I like to say "a quarter of a million dollars" to people. I think it is even more hair raising to phrase it that way <<<
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Lol…yes, especially if the person has more than one child!
Also, let me actually contribute to this discussion. I’m a New Jerseyan who goes to a North Carolina public university (as probably most of you know). I had zero interest in attending Rutgers; no problems with the academic quality at all, it just wasn’t my ideal type of school. So I didn’t apply to any in-state public, and my only NJ school was a private school that was a safety. While I would probably go back in time to switch the in-state private for an in-state public if given the choice, I’m not too worried about it considering the fact that my school costs less than $40k a year for OOS and I’m only $13.5k in debt after year one. I feel that my school is most certainly worth it, especially because it’s on at least an equal level with Rutgers and TCNJ. But if you’re wanting to go to an OOS public, you should know that it isn’t particularly cheap. And unless we’re talking about the VERY top publics in the country a la UCB, UVA, UNC, UMich, you shouldn’t have to spend upwards of $50k a year to do it. Especially if you have better, more suitable in-state options.
OP, I don’t have a problem with you wanting to advise your friend on the potential costliness of sending his son to an OOS public. But you should approach this very carefully, and only step in when asked. If you can’t wait until then, tell your friend to get on CC and we will gladly help out.
@mom2collegekids Re: Counselors. Older son went to a strong public HS. Then we moved, and younger son went to local private HS, because the public schools in our new state were either too large or just too scary for us as newbies. Older son could have handled these environments, but we worried that younger, introverted son would get lost in the crowd. Older son’s public school counselor was wonderful, but she was taxed with handling all issues, not just college, and she had 250 kids assigned to her. The new private school counselor for second son was focused on just college issues for a much smaller high school. I don’t recall that the public school counselor ever asked us about our finances or even provided a list of suggested colleges. We ended up hiring an outside college counselor back then, which cost $3,000 and turned out to be generally a waste of time. (I hid the cost from my husband, as he would never have agreed to it!) Through discussions with knowledgeable friends, this CC website, books, college visits, and my own online research, I felt like I knew as much as that paid consultant. He especially knew nothing about the ROTC programs that my older son was pursuing. Plus, I was much more familiar with my son’s strengths and interests and had a more vested interest in his success. So, after that experience a few years ago, I have to admit that it was very refreshing at the private school to have someone working with my second son who knew more than I did about colleges and applications. She was the one who asked gently about our finances. She was also one of the most positive, enthusiastic, and diligent people I have ever met. We did feel really fortunate to have her for our son, and we all profusely thanked her throughout this year. I wish every kid could have her as a college counselor.
@Much2learn Could you list some of the universities that you know make it potentially difficult to get the major you want after being accepted into engineering. The uncertainty can be unsettling for kids. I know that my own son was not willing to attend a UC school without being accepted directly in his desired major at the start. He did not want to take the risk of not getting the major he wanted later, in case he got a low GPA that first year or the university resources were saturated in that major
Purdue, Minnesota, Texas A&M, Virginia, Virginia Tech are all examples of schools which admit to first year pre-engineering and then require a high GPA or competitive admission process to enter the major. How high it competitive depends on the school and major.
Wisconsin admits to major, but has high GPA requirements to stay in the major (progression requirements).
There may be other schools that do similar things.
Schools which admit to major may be difficult to change major in, if they admit to fill the available capacity. Some do both direct admission to major but admit others undeclared; the latter may find it difficult to change into the major later.
“The uncertainty can be unsettling for some.” For some , yes, but not all. My kids were in two of the engineering programs just mentioned above ( Virginia , Virginia Tech). General engineering can give you a chance to explore all the options before committing to a particular engineering major.
@Momandboystwo “Could you list some of the universities that you know make it potentially difficult to get the major you want after being accepted into engineering. The uncertainty can be unsettling for kids.”
I would be happy to.
Wisconsin and Purdue both accept a student into engineering generally. Purdue calls it FYE (First Year Engineering). After a year of math, science and engineering, you apply to the major you want. At Purdue I was told that, for example, D2 would need a 3.2 or 3.3, I think, in your first year, to be admitted to Chemical Engineering. I thought that was reasonable, at first, but then I asked what the average Freshman Engineering gpa was, and I was told that 2.8 was the average. That made me think that it was pretty high.
Wisconsin told us that a 3.5 gpa in freshman year was an automatic admission, but you may get in with a somewhat lower gpa, depending on demand.
Illinois takes a slightly different approach. D2 was admitted directly to Chemical Engineering, so that would not be a problem. However, if she wanted to change to a different engineering major, we were told that she would have to apply for the new major, and could be rejected. So in this case, you have admission to your major, but you may be stuck there, and unable to get into your new area of interest, if you change your mind.
We were not very comfortable with these partitioned programs, so we ended up focusing on good engineering programs at schools that offer a broad range of majors, and also allow students to change majors much more easily. That led us to focus on Lehigh University and Case Western Reserve. At Case Western and Lehigh, you can basically decide to change to any major by filling out a form. That includes changing within engineering, or to liberal arts, or to business. Both schools are very flexible.
Those are the main schools that I had investigated for the class of 2020.
@sevmom From what we saw, most engineering schools seem to have a fairly generic first-year schedules, with courses like physics, math, chem, writing, intro to eng, comp sci. I think the unsettling part is just the worry about attaining the required GPA freshman year to get into the desired major. Lots of kids (well, boys) I know, including my oldest, struggled in engineering freshman year as they learned to balance their time with activities such as fraternities or sports. Just saying, unless there is grade inflation at VA Tech ot UVA, it could be a challenge for some lids to get the majors they want.
By the way, my sons & I really liked the UVA eng school, despite that pressure of applying into the major. If I recall, the tour guides estimated that a majority of kids get their first choice major, but definitely not all. When we lived in VA, VA Tech got all the acclaim for engineering. But in recent visits from OOS, we liked UVA’s smaller program & the UVA campus better.
@MOMANDBOYSTWO ,I don’t think there is grade inflation at either UVa or VT engineering. Both of my kids were very active in other things (UVa kid in a fraternity, VT kid in a very competitive club sport) but did very well. Most kids that apply themselves and have an aptitude for math and science can probably get into their first choice major at either school, just like at many engineering schools. If a kid doesn’t work hard , all bets are off no matter where they end up. We liked both UVa’s and VT’s engineering programs- they served both of our kids very well.
@Muchtolearn I agree that 3.2 and 3.5 GPAs sound high for freshman engineers. At both my son’s colleges, the average GPA in engineering overall is about a 2.7 or 2.8. I would guess that means most kids likely don’t earn over a 3.0 freshman year.
As you found, Lehigh and other private engineering colleges we looked at seemed relatively flexible in declaring and switching majors. Can’t remember about Carnegie Mellon though. Seems like that was more restrictive, especially if you wanted Comp Sci. Son was waitlisted at CMU so I have blocked it out of my mind!
I was curious to hear what you learned. We did not get to visit Purdue, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, or Case Western, but they were all on our lists of top engineering schools. I kind of wondered what we missed.
For those that have gotten off topic regarding the engineering major: I am not sure why @Much2learn brought it up, as far as I can tell it was not mentioned by the OP. This is not what the thread is about. If you want to start a new thread to discuss that topic, please do. It’s a good one. But any more on this thread will be deleted and warnings given. It is distracting from the thread discussion.
@fallenchemist My fault. I asked a question.
OK, thanks. So we end it here. Like I said, it is an interesting development worth discussing in its own thread.
Here is a continuation thread on the engineering competitive majors:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1904488-colleges-where-engineering-majors-must-earn-high-gpa-or-compete-for-admission-to-their-majors.html
OP- I think your neighbor’s son’s bigger problem for CS admission to a UC is going to be his lack of Calculus. Many colleges admission reps have told me that calculus (whether AP, Dual Enrollment or regular) is a must to be a competitive applicant especially when the student wants to major in CS or engineering. In addition, the UC’s are shifting after a recent state audit to a mandate to admit more in-state students and to reduce out of state admission numbers. UCSB is one of the students targeted by the state audit.
@bopper Be sure to come back on next year to let us know how this plays out! Assuming some of us are still around on CC…