Selecting enginnering colleges for a CA student

College Search & Lists
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<p>Messed up on the previous title.</p>

<p>What are good schools in engineering that are in CA with the following stats?</p>

<p>GPA 3.2UW/3.7 W/ 3.72 UC GPA
SAT: 1800
ACT:26</p>

<p>plan to retake sat/act, shooting for 2000/30+
plan to take subject tests in math 2, us history, and physics</p>

<p>CA Resident
good amount of extracurriculars</p>

<p>I am interested in the Cal Poly SLO/Cal Poly Pomona/UCs/Purdue/WPI/ U Pittsburgh/U Rochester/CMU/ Case Western.</p>

<p>Which schools should be avoided for engineering?</p>

<p>Thanks. This is all really helpful.</p>

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<p>None of those should really be ‘avoided’ for engineering. You have chosen well–the Cal Polys, UCs, and the others if you’d like. For UCs, Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, UCI, UCD, and UCR all look good for engineering.</p>

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<p>your gpa isn’t strong for engineering; they are usually among the most competitive programs to get into.</p>

<p>As for what to avoid, avoid a school you wouldn’t want to attend if you switch out of engineering. A lot of kids think they want to be engineers, but a combination of a crushing workload and realization the work isn’t really a match for them causes them to switch. Nationally between 1/2 and 2/3rds of all those who enter college as engineering majors end up switching to something else.</p>

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<p>^^ that’s a very good point.</p>

<p>Definitely try to find a school that has at least adequate programs in more than engineering. Cal Poly SLO, for example, is also great in architecture.</p>

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<p>bump 10char</p>

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<p>San Jose State, Santa Clara University, University of the Pacific</p>

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<p>I’m curious to see where numbers like that came from. Of all my engineering friends in college, I’d say maybe 1/10 of them switched out. Also, I imagine people that go to “tech school” have a lot lower rates of swapping out of their major than people at large public or private universities. It’s like telling someone not to go to a small LAC excelling in the humanities because they might want to major in a hard science somewhere down the road.</p>

<p>I think your numbers might be a little on the low side for CMU, though I think you’ve got very good chances for Pitt. Case Western is somewhere between the two of them, so it should be possible. WPI also seems reasonable, though I don’t know how their selectivity’s changed since I applied there six years ago.</p>

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<p>There are some exceptions to the transfer rate, probably at the elite schools (Caltech, MIT, etc). But at many schools I think it is pretty accurate.</p>

<p>My numbers come from various industry trade magazines & newspapers; usually I’ve posted the links. Here are two:</p>

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