Low-cost [<$30k] (with merit?) schools with engineering [MA resident, 3.91, 1500, not NMSF]

College Search & Lists
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Great - congrats to your husband.

I was curious about UMASS vs. Buffalo - just because they are two flagship types.

It really does seem like being close to home is most important to him - at least through your writings.

Hopefully he can do it and be debt free - yes, it does become real when it’s time to pay!!

He’s got wonderful options no matter which way you look.

Maybe getting the Ga Tech rejection was a blessing in disguise - the pull (if affordable) might have been strong but the comfort on distance not!!

Thanks for the insights.

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My son applied the CWRU, Lehigh, RPI and WPI (and got in to all four, ended up at WPI). I did the tours with him and I think they all have very different vibes, so I think you are right to wonder if maybe they just weren’t attending to that. (Or heck, maybe your son felt he could be happy at all of them so it didn’t matter.)

This is parsing hairs here, because all four are great schools with strong programs. But when my guy was writing out his pro/con list after the acceptances came in, sometimes it came down to the smallest thing or the weirdest gut instinct.

Our take was that Lehigh felt the most like a school-spirit-y, not just a STEM school. It was the most social feeling, by far, but also had really great engineering programs so it felt like you were giving up nothing else. This was my son’s first choice, but he didn’t get any merit aid (check the common data set, you will see they don’t give out very much to very many people) and at that full-pay price point, it wasn’t feasible for us. (Also, since we had to wait until April to find out if he’d gotten in, the other schools, where he got in EA, had all really grown on him in the interim - he’d had time to imagine himself at those schools and get excited. When we got zero merit aid from Lehigh, even after attempting to appeal and showing them what he got at CWRU, RPI and WPI, it was over even though this had been his long time favorite.)

To us, CWRU felt like the place where the kids were the most serious, or take themselves the most seriously. We really liked the things that Cleveland could offer and that gave the campus a really positive feeling of potential (as opposed to the other three, which are adjacent to towns/cities that either had their heydays many years ago and are working to revitalize or that are just less fun feeling).

RPI - my kid really didn’t like Troy. It had nothing to do with the students or the program, he just felt like the environs outside of the school were dreary and that he’d be less happy.

WPI - this is where my guy ended up, so obviously he liked it. :wink: Seriously though, we liked that the campus felt like a campus, the students seemed generally happy with the school and their programs and like they were having fun with each other and activities outside of class. But it just clicked different and better for him.

Of course, all of this is totally subjective and personal, and the best thing for one person is clearly not the best for another. Because the schools were just coming out of pandemic freezes on visits, the earliest we could visit was right before senior year of HS started - we went the last week of August so the schools were in session, but barely (or it was orientation time still) so it’s also highly possible that what we saw wasn’t a realistic portrayal either. All that to say - if he ends up really serious about any of these and can’t decide, another visit might be a good idea. Good luck!

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@MAmomto4 I saw your question on the UMass thread and recalled that it was you that had started this thread. Perhaps late for you, but I had created a thread for my S22 which may be of interest to those considering Industrial Engineering.

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I would be shocked if there are multiple colleges with 10k students where you can’t major in statistics. It might be called applied math, it might be in Arts and Sciences and not the business school where some of the data analytics programs are, but stats majors are everywhere. Which colleges have you identified without a stats major?

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Decisions all in. Thank you all for your advice and support! I’m 95% sure he is going to choose UMass Amherst, but he isn’t ready to hit commit yet.

Two wrapping-up thoughts I have:

If you had pushed me to say a year ago where I thought he was most likely to end up if he did not get NMSF, I would’ve said UMass Amherst. But I had significant concerns about the size, the reputed party culture, and whether he would feel comfortable on campus. I think getting into the Honors College reduces the size and culture concerns. And he really liked the campus when we visited, much to my surprise.

I know it was hard for his ego to get these last few rejections. And as his mom, it’s hard for me to watch. I know he is smart enough and hard-working enough to do well at the schools that he did not get into, and I know that he would be an asset to their campus communities and a positive peer for the students around him. He did not get into any schools that had a sub 50% acceptance rate. He is going to end up at a place that will be good for him, but it does seem a little wild that a kid who has high SAT & GPA and essays & recommendations that were (at least) decent, only got into schools with high acceptance rates. On the other hand, there weren’t too many schools that have the majors he was interested in that fell in the 20 to 50% acceptance rate category, and it’s more important that he end up at a school good for him than that he get into somewhere more selective. :woman_shrugging:t2:

Final Results

  • Slippery Rock (accepted to IE; didn’t pursue merit or honors)
  • SUNY Oswego (admitted to Elec Engineering; 2 merit scholarships make it $26,000/year)
  • SUNY University at Buffalo (admitted to IE & Honors; $15,000/year merit makes it ~$31,000/year)
  • Kansas State (accepted to IE; didn’t apply to honors; OOS tuition waiver plus $3000 Engineering scholarship makes it about $21,000/year)
  • Mississippi State (accepted to IE & honors, auto-merit + $3K/year engineering scholarship, plus first year housing scholarship makes total cost ~$6000 first year, and about $14,000/year after)
  • SUNY Binghamton (admitted to IE; $15,000/year merit makes the cost ~$33,000/year; invited to the Scholars program & to the First Year Research Intensive)
  • University of Rhode Island (Admitted to IE & honors; $15,000/year merit makes it ~$36,000/year)
  • UMass Amherst (Admitted to IE & Commonwealth Honors College; $2,000/year merit makes it ~$33,000/year since he is in-state)
  • Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Admitted to Industrial & Systems Eng; $35,500 in scholarships & $4,100 in need-based grants makes COA ~$43,000)
  • Rochester Institute of Technology (admitted to Industrial Engineering; I can’t remember the exact merit award, but it made the final price about $48,000 per year)

Waitlisted
Case Western (They emailed him about two weeks before decisions were released to let him know that they are eliminating the systems engineering major that he applied for. If he had emailed them back that that was fine and there were lots of other majors at CWRU that he would be interested in, he might have been more likely to have been admitted. But he wasn’t interested without the systems engineering major.)

Rejected
Georgia Tech
Northeastern
Lehigh
Tufts

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Honestly, the rejections were tough gets and I’m not sure, depending on what he wants to do that they change his outcome. Kids from the four rejected schools will be working with kids from those he’s going to.

My question is - you had an under $30K goal (and there’s and there’s no assurance the four rejections would have gotten there) - and you have KSU and Miss State under and UMASS is over - you might have addressed this already - but that’s a pretty big financial delta on those three - does that come into play or they’re just too far?

You actually have a savings at UMASS that you don’t realize. Follow my crazy logic. Tons and tons of college kids eat out because they tire of the campus food - mom/dad, I can’t eat in the dining hall even one more time!! And the bills pile up.

UMASS is top rated and my colleague who went there said she’d choose eating there on a night out with her husband over any local restaurant. So maybe the student will take full advantage of the dining plan and reduce their off campus consumption.

I mean, maybe :slight_smile:

Congrats to him - I think, for STEM, he’ll be in great shape!!

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Congratulations! He had a lot of fabulous acceptances, and choices.

I’m sure he will thrive wherever he chooses to matriculate.

UMass is excellent. We know two very well positioned graduates of UMass engineering. If that is his final choice, it’s my opinion he has hit a home run.

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I’m sure the suspense followed by rejections was rough :frowning:

I can’t remember whether those full-need-met schools would have been as affordable as UMass, or if you would have been tempted to stretch the budget for them and now no longer have that temptation to contend with. (Not sure how GT would have been affordable anyhow, although of course it’s tops for IE… and tbh I’m surprised by Lehigh, but not sure it was his vibe anyway, from how you’ve described him.)

I’m so glad he got Commonwealth Honors! We definitely see kids get into his reach schools and get turned down for Commonwealth Honors, so I really feel that he can count that as proof of concept that he’s definitely “reach-worthy!” (Not just for his ego right now, but also on his resume!)

IE at UMass is really, really good; and Honors College is a score. It’s great that he liked the campus when you visited. And I’ll bet there will be times when he’ll miss his brothers (and parents!) and be glad that he isn’t so far away after all. I’m sure your situation with his sibs would’ve made it tougher for you and they to be the ones to visit him, as compared to most families.

There’s no way around rejections being a bummer, but I hope he will bounce back to feeling proud of himself. He has put a lot of effort into figuring out what’s best for him, both school-wise and major/career-wise, and I think that will pay off far more abundantly than getting sucked into the Fancy School Race. I hope and expect that he will have a truly rewarding college experience and great prospects when he’s done. :heart: :partying_face:

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I absolutely agree about the rejections likely being more costly! And that is a reason why I am glad he is not going to have to make the decision between a very affordable option, and one that might have some attractive features (size, prestige, unique program), but be more of a financial stretch.

We have $100,000 saved for his college education, and the ability to cash flow another $10,000 per year comfortably. Anything above that he would have to pay for himself. (Although, my husband had some sort of complex formula in his mind where if S24 put in a certain amount of money—$15K/year—then we could supplement from cash flow again… But honestly when I look at the numbers, I think it would be challenging if not impossible for us.)

So, the $30,000 per year for the first year is the amount where he could be pretty sure he did not have to put in any of his own money over the four years of college. When he started this process, that was what he wanted, because that was what he thought he would get with NMSF. When he did not get NMSF he was really disappointed and he wanted to find options that would allow him to essentially go for free (even if it wasn’t free for Mom and Dad). He put in some other schools that had specific features that he really liked, even if he knew they might go over the target amount, and would require him to put in his own money.

And UMass really is a great fit for him:

  • Ideal distance from home (1.5 hours)
  • High quality engineering departments
  • Ability to change within engineering easily, or to other majors (except CS or business)
  • Excellent food, with strong allergy awareness (he has Celiac) and the standard dining plan is unlimited swipes (which is good for him because he has some digestive issues that mean he prefers to eat 6 small meals rather than 3 large ones)
  • There is a campus faith group that is active and he has contacts in already (older kids he knows from when they were in our church youth group with him)
  • Honors College has the best dorms on campus and A/C
  • ALL his DE classes will transfer, so he will start college with over 40 credits (when he was choosing his DE classes, I helped him pick out ones that would apply to either his major or Gen Ed requirements at UMass)
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Thanks so much for the update. Your son has many admits with very nice merit aid to some wonderful colleges…with terrific engineering programs! He should be incredibly proud of himself (and his mom should be proud of herself to helping to guide him through this college search process). It sounds like UMass is going to end up being a terrific fit for your son, and I’m confident there are great things ahead of him. Hope he enjoys himself as a Minuteman!

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Congratulations to your son!
Honors at UMass and Scholars/1st year research at Bing are closer to a 20% admit rate so these are really much more selective than the “general” rate.
And UMass Honors sounds like a terrific fit for him. Kudos all around! :clap:

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Congrats to your entire family! Reading the above list of fit factors, I can’t imagine a better choice for him!

And don’t forget that UMASS belongs to National Student Exchange. NSE allows up to 2 semesters of exchange at any of the other participating schools. Cost is either what student is already paying at their home institution or the instate/base cost of the partner institution whichever is LESS, and credits transfer seamlessly (which is a big deal for engineering majors in ABET programs.) Some really interesting programs participate, including publics such as Cal Poly SLO, UMN, UGeorgia, as well as some wonderful nurturing LACs (how about a semester at St. Olaf for a change of pace?!)

https://nse.org/exchange/colleges-universities/alpha-location/

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Wow, Cal Poly SLO should definitely be on his radar! In case you don’t know much about it, it’s a fabulous CA public university that specializes in hands on/experiential learning with smaller classes than at UCs (it’s very competitive to get into engineering at SLO.)
American University (in DC) is also on the list if he wants to take 3 courses and intern for 1 day with one of the MANY Nova/DC companies.
Both would be terrific 2nd semester sophomore/Junior year experiences.
St Olaf doesn’t have Engineering but is known for math&science and the environment would be a complete change from UMass, one he could try out as early as 1st semester sophomore year (bc the environment isn’t sink/swim despite being challenging).
And of course he could go abroad in addition to or instead of a NSE semester/year since UMass Amherst is part of Engineers abroad. The experience expands ways of thinking and creative problem solving beyond the typical curriculum.

UMass has especially solid programs for Engineers with Germany, but also with Sweden, Hong Kong, South Korea, Australia, Queen’s Belfast, Ireland, Scotland…

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I just wanted to update (for any parents reading in the future, looking for inexpensive options):

By the time my son withdrew his application to MS State near the deadline, they had increased his scholarships to make the first year cost under $2000 (including room & board). Not all those scholarships were multi-year (the multi year scholarships brought it to about $12,000) but they suggested future year scholarships were available if his academic performance was excellent.

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