This aspect of college admissions is not widely enough discussed.
Students need to know what the conditions are for them to matriculate in a particular major. Even with a four year schedule and engineering major, there should not be restricted upon admission… particularly in the first year. There are a lot of options to learn about in that first year while many options can remain open in the second year.
Discovering options is part of educational growth. One department I know of at WPI picks up a number of majors in the second year through this first discovery process. BME or Data Science anyone? Discover and grow.! Hopefully most students do.
Actually, if one is interested in engineering he or she is best served by starting out in engineering. The curriculum requirements of accredited engineering programs have many courses with a specific sequence, prerequisites, and lock step in terms of their dependencies. There are also engineering specific courses (in particular, the first year basic design and lab courses) on which second year or upper level courses depend. It is much easier to transfer out of engineering than into it after the first year. If one were to start out in a non-engineering major and then transfer into engineering, one likely will need to make up coursework that he/she didn’t have in the first major, and that may result in the need to attend school in the summer, during intersession breaks, and/or take longer than four years to graduate. Practically (if not by rule) some restriction is inevitable in engineering if that penalty is to be avoided, but, again if one is accepted initially as an engineering major one should not be subjected to a “secondary admissions” or qualification process.
We’ve done the engineering tours at NC State, VT, and WI. At all three, students all start in a general engineering first-year and then apply to the major of choice. They have the opportunity through their first-year design classes to explore the various options.
We grilled the tour guides about students’ getting into their major of choice and they said it’s pretty unusual to not get your first choice. I think mechanical was the exception b/c it’s so popular.
I’ve read the UT Austin, University of Washington and UC-Boulder have sig. overcrowding and it’s pretty hard to to get into many specific majors. So, agree it’s something to investigate at all serious contenders.
My S wants to start in engineering and switch out if it’s not the right fit b/c he knows you can’t really go the opposite direction. He’s done PLTW most of HS, did a two-week engineering program at Stevens last summer and is very involved in his school’s robotics team so he’s had good exposure to the field.
For Leigh and Case (or any other private) he’d need to get combo of merit and/or need aid. We are willing to let him take out federal loans – i.e., about 20K over the 4 years. Also, we’re thinking the first year he’s in school we may qualify for more need aid b/c my S18 will be a senior in college. Finally, my BIL who doesn’t have kids, will kick in a little as well. So, we’ll look at privates but he knows that parental contribution max is the 50/55k per year and we won’t allow more than the federal loans. He realizes this may take privates out of the picture if the $$ doesn’t work out, so he’ll apply to them eyes wide open. Fort., he’s mostly interested in strong public engineering programs.
For the record, we did this with my D18. She got a lot of merit offers during RD, and ended up coming in right at $50k per year at a top LAC so it worked out well.
I don’t think this is a fair characterization of how these programs handle major selection within engineering colleges at all. The great majority of undergraduates who start in an engineering tract but don’t complete an engineering major do that by choice, not by failing to meet the cut. Some colleges have the same number of senior engineering majors as freshmen do that by accepting a lot of transfers. Some have many more freshmen and allow attrition to whittle the class.
Required GPAs are far from arbitrary. They are selected to ensure that students are willing and able to put in the work to finish a demanding engineering program. And, many have a ‘second chance’ path back into the major they originally wanted.
There is nothing fraudulent about it. The requirements are well-publicized and students who are in danger are full aware of it.
All colleges want their students to succeed. But about half of all who start a four year degree don’t finish it. The extensive resources required to educate certain professions (engineering, nursing, to name two) must go to those who are able to and want to go the distance. No one is intentionally or capriciously throwing road blocks in front of capable students to prevent them from completing a degree program!
At UT Austin, students who are admitted to the major as frosh just need to stay in good academic standing. However, some students may be admitted to the school but do not meet the higher standards for direct admission to the major as frosh. For such students, or those who want to change majors, doing so can be very competitive, since the majors are “full” with frosh direct admits.
Washington used to admit to general undeclared with a free-for-all highly competitive admission process for enrolled students to enter engineering majors. It has now changed to a first year engineering type of system (“direct to college of engineering”) like NCSU and VT, but it is not clear how competitive each major is later ( https://www.engr.washington.edu/admission/directtocollege/faq does say that a 2.5 college GPA is the minimum, but does not say that it is sufficient for every major).
CU Boulder has both engineering admission and pre-engineering admission; apparently, those in pre-engineering (with lower high school credentials) must earn higher college grades to enter engineering.
If you are looking for a more-selective-state-flagship-level school that starts engineering students undeclared but does not have capacity limitations on specific engineering majors, look at Michigan and Pittsburgh. Also, while Minnesota has a system similar to NCSU and VT, computer engineering there historically has not been capacity constrained and admitted all interested students in secondary admission: http://www.advising.cse.umn.edu/cgi-bin/courses/noauth/apply-major-statistics
Schools that do not have engineering department-level capacity limitations are more likely to be:
Wealthy, so that their departments can be oversize with plenty of reserve capacity. E.g. HYPSM.
Small, so that capacity constraints on the entire school size make it unlikely that department-level capacity will be exceeded (e.g. in school with 500 per class, it is unlikely that all 500 will want to study the same major and overflow that department).
Not very selective, so that engineering departments do not end up overcapacity because many of the students self-weed after finding the engineering is too hard for them.
@momsenior1 – I agree re: Case and Lehigh. My only thought is he’d be a geographic diversity pick at both since we’re from the South.
@ucbalumnus – Now that I think about it, the challenges at UT and UW that I’ve read are not getting into the majors – it’s getting the right classes. Too many students and not enough sections. This was not on CC – it was an article I saw when I was out in Seattle for work and it mentioned similar problems at UT. The story line was that Austin and Seattle are so tech heavy now that the computer engineering and CS programs at those universities are slammed w/ too much demand. Students and families were doing a lot complaining!
I would not be surprised if getting into popular courses (e.g. CS courses) were not that hard for those already in the majors that require them, but difficult for undeclared students aspiring to get into those majors (of course, even if they do get into the courses, they need to do well in them and compete for admission to the desired majors).
The required college grades/GPA to show ability to finish the engineering program (or any other major) at the great majority of colleges is C/2.0. Of course, many students self-weed if the grades/GPA are below B/3.0, and employers commonly screen out college applicants from interviews if their GPA is below 3.0. Also, some students with 2.low GPA get some D or F grades that need to be repeated, contributing to self-weeding (or dropping out because they do not have the money to finish the extra semesters needed due to repeating courses).
Higher required college grades/GPA are typically set for capacity control in departments where student interest (net of self-weeding) exceeds instructional capacity of the department. This is most obviously the case when the required GPA is set competitively, rather than being predetermined. It is not surprising that this is most common at relatively selective large but not wealthy colleges (e.g. some of the most popular and selective state flagships).
Per original question
Penn St would fit as a match/safety with his stats. They also accept to specific engineering majors.
Now it would still be a reach, but is there a reason he is not considering Ga Tech? If he is a 4.0 student with very high rigor even with his scores he should have a shot. My son was accepted last year from OOS with similar level scores (lower 1400s sat) though his math score was in the 75th percentile. GT places gpa, rigor, and ECs above test scores for admissions. They also accept direct to individual engineering majors and have almost no restrictions on major changes.
GT is a long shot for just about anyone these days. My son 3 years ago had his only wait list with them (we consider that a win ?).
3.9 with 34 ACT with 35 in math /science. 8 APs with 6 senior year with all “A” s. Had physic BC and Multivariable Calc 3… But it was good enough for Michigan so we’re good. Lol… ?
Lots of good suggestions…adding Clemson, where both the Engineering and CS major acceptance rates are in line with the school’s overall acceptance rate of just under 50% or so.
According to Naviance, GT is a long shot for S21 even if he gets a tippy top ACT score. Lots of kids from our HS apply, and very few are admitted. Most are applying to engineering so I’m sure that’s part of it.
Clemson is going on the list – I worry he’ll find the culture too Southern but it otherwise ticks the boxes as an easier admit and a good reputation, esp. in the Southeast. He’d like the sports part of it!
Whomever asked about how far he’s willing to go, it’s a good question. I think in the abstract he’s willing to consider places out west (like Utah) but when it comes down to a decision I’m not sure if he’d pull the trigger to go that far.
He’s def. fine with Madison – there’s tons of nonstop flights to Chicago and then a two-hour ride on the Badger bus would be fine with him.
Ohio St. and Penn St. are good suggestions, though of course very big. They obviously have strong national brands so he’d like that.
He could check out the University of Washington or the University of Oregon, even though it’s on the west coast.
Both are nationally and globally recognized schools.
UW especially has a great business school as well, and being in Seattle you get really good internship opportunities in the area. I know people who ended up working in Facebook and Microsoft etc… They also have great exchange opportunities with some of the best schools in the world!
Honestly I don’t know if I’d look beyond those top 4 if admitted to any of them. But a few random possibilities to consider for the list: Northeastern, UMass, Pitt, Maryland. The Midwest flagships others have mentioned would all be great. Agree that Utah and Montana State might be fun to consider and are fairly inexpensive. UW Seattle on the west coast is outstanding for CS but definitely not a safety or match for OOS. Santa Clara and Cal Poly SLO are well known for CS on the west coast at least.