I PM’d you since we’re straying off topic!
Thanks for posting that! We also looked at that article, which shows how unusual gender parity is in engineering. Part of why USC is a true outlier in that regard. (And not to stray, but the words “if gender parity matters” has my mind racing – yes gender parity matters SO much, and it should matter to everyone, not just women and not just engineers, and if everyone hasn’t read the book Invisible Women, I highly recommend it, but I digress…).
Another thing to consider regarding the gender gap – be sure to look at is the breakout of women behind the numbers. For example, BioMedical Engineering is more women than men in many places, which props up the overall engineering student ratios. So if a woman is a, say, mechanical engineering student at a school with a high number of BME women and the total ratio is 35%, the ratio within her actual major may be way lower.
Weed-out culture – to clarify, I am not speaking about the normal attrition that might happen due to kids changing their mind, maybe even due to the coursework being rigorous. The work will be hard everywhere. Having explored different schools, our experience is that there is very much a difference among the approaches to freshman year particularly. I only mention it because the truth is until my daughter went through the application cycle, I sort of thought the “hard” part about freshman year was really just due to the rigor of the coursework, so therefore it would be somewhat the same at all schools. So we were a little surprised by how different the philosophies were across schools. Very broadly, I would say some schools are more “you need to show us you are smart enough to be an engineer your freshman year” and some schools are more “hey we know you can do this and if you want it, we will do whatever we can to help you become an engineer.” (Very broad I realize, but just to capture the point.)
Final thought about USC in particular – yes it will actually be slightly MORE than 400k. It’s CRAZY expensive. That said, they do offer a fair amount of aid and merit, so it’s worth applying if it’s appealing and seeing where it lands. I will say that I have three kids who may be there next year and to be frank, my experience is NOT one of “wow they were so generous.” But I know a lot of people for whom that IS the case, so it’s worth applying IMO.
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short answer - her ACT is 35 and her class rank is 9/573 in an IB Diploma program so yes, academically competitive. Gender parity is always interesting to me. When we visited GT for “women in engineering” day they said their goal is 30% female by 2030. She knows aerospace leans heavily male.
However, programs are highly competitive so even with all the supposed “things they look for” we are aware it’s still a craps shoot at many of these highly competitive schools. After much discussion and thought this weekend, she still would like to learn more especially about different engineering related fields.
you make a REALLY good point here - something I didn’t realize until we started to research and tour engineering schools. The “prove you are worth it” v “we are going to help you succeed.” This actually has become more of a priority as she continues to research schools. There’s also the "we will focus on super technical skills " v “we are going to teach you to think like an engineer and the skills will come with the problem solving.” I guess everyone has a preference but she seems to prefer the latter (on both philosophies). And I agree with you about USC - if she applies and if she gets in, we can have more serious talks with her about the cost.. You never know with financial aid.
thank you!
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I don’t know which schools specifically. It was brought up to us by our college consultants as a “weak spot” in her resume given the competitive nature of the schools at the top of her list. They did specifically express concern with GT which surprised me given her strong rigor, grades, ACT, in-state and female. I personally think her application is strong. But I’m just a mom, lol. The only other school(s) I could see would be UT-Austin where OOS is just crazy hard + major specific admissions, and possibly UC-Berkeley. But right now, I think Berkeley is off of her list.
Hmmmm save your money. You DEFINITELY don’t need a consultant and short of 2-4 schools I don’t think there’s a top.
And you don’t need a consultant to tell you MIT.
Are you interested in spending that much ? Has she been to Austin ? See the school ? The city ?
I’ll disagree here - you need to build your list bottom up. The most important school is not MIT or UIUC or UT.
It’s UAH or Florida Tech, Arizona or UMN?
It’s because you may very well end up at one and guess what - salary/location wise you’re not going to be off base.
My son’s aero company hires Michigan and W Michigan and everyone in between - paid by location, not school. His intern company had Gtech but also Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU.
He was at a rotation on Ogden Utah. Came home from trivia in some bar. Met a Columbia grad and declared - wow. I make more than the Ivy grad at another nearby company.
I’m in the car business (I mention because it’s relatable to me) and a person named to lead a Japanese luxury auto brand the other day was a W Michigan MechE with Michigan State NBA Not UMich or Harvard etc. this race to it can only be the top is damaging - perhaps really for a female engineer.
You don’t need a consultant. Your daughter has the goods.
The trick is to to build her preferably a balanced list, or at least a list with two assured and affordable safeties.
So you ask why UAH - hmmm it’s Rocket City. Loaded with jobs. Florida Tech - grads at NASA.
RPI is MIT-ish junior with incredible outcomes. It’s a very likely.
Reach for the UTs. Another fabulous big city school - maybe a sub sans weather - that’s safe. UMN.
With aero you have only 80 schools to suss. If you want exploration time, a school like Purdue would be solid as an example - it’s likely a match.
The point being - relax if you can, the consultant is just added stress.
Figure out - not pedigree - what does your daughter want in a school - rural, urban, suburban?? Warm, cold? Large small. Sports or none. Big Greek etc?
Would you like to spend $20k a year or you’re ok at $95k even if the outcome is similar ??
You got this - without paid help.
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A few years ago we were watching a SpaceX launch and my brother noticed a woman in a Florida Tech sweatshirt in the control room. Asked my daughter about it and she said “Oh that’s XXX, one of my sorority sisters.” She couldn’t have been more than 25 years old.
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In that case Proximity. I’m sure ERAU grads too.
Florida Tech is well known for good food too.
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My son (HS ‘23) had similar requirements for an engineering program. He wanted cooperative, not competitive - and he didn’t want additional “entry to the major” requirements (he wanted direct admit to EE). He’s at Tufts, and has been very happy. It’s a smaller engineering program, ABET accredited, with equal gender distribution (maybe slightly more women?). Smaller class sizes so his professors all know him. Rather than the attrition seen at many engineering programs, Tufts Engineering often graduates more engineers than the number who enroll as freshmen (adding transfers from A&S). As for engineering internships during HS, my son didn’t have one. He did have interesting personal “passion projects” (building all kinds of things in our garage) that I think helped his application. Tufts allows students to submit a “maker portfolio” (highlighting this kind of activity/passion/EC) with their application.
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The programs where “weed out” may be a reasonable description would be those which have more than nominal secondary admission requirements or competitive secondary admission, or those where progression requires a college GPA substantially higher than 2.0. In such programs, the popular engineering majors tend to be the most difficult to get into in secondary admission (or meet the progression GPA), though students “weeded out” of such majors may still be admitted to less popular engineering majors.
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