Transfer into Cockrell or UTSA engineering?

goingnutsmom
Thu, 21 Apr 2016 05:46:48 +0000

I am posting for another family who has this dilemma.

Their S applied to UT Austin a year ago but was CAPped. He enrolled in a satellite campus and is doing well with a heavy load of math and science classes. He’s set to go into UT COLA under the CAP agreement. He had been a very unfocused kid in terms of academics because of a lot of family problems but senior year in high school found a passion for biomedical engineering and is now intent to major in it.

This is a kid who didn’t do Precalcus/Calculus or AP Bio/Chem/Physics in high school so there were major gaps in his education. After spending this year doing intense catch up in math and science, he applied to UTSA Biomedical engineering program and was accepted. The dilemma now is that he is thinking about going to UT Austin and trying to see about transferring into Cockrell after a year of classes. He thinks that he could graduate with a degree in BME at UT in the same time as UTSA BME (5 years total). I think it would be longer and that is if he gets accepted into Cockrell. I think he would get chewed up and spit out by the intensity of UT Austin.

My impression is that he misses his family in Austin and would like to live at their house and commute to UT. The UTSA BME program would mean more expenses for them.

I let him know that going into COLA then trying to do an internal transfer into Cockrell would be very risky. If he is OK with possibly graduating with a degree in COLA then it’s an OK plan but if he wants The BME degree then UTSA BME is a good plan for that. He let me know that he would not be OK with another degree. He really wants biomedical engineering.

The complicating issue is also that UTSA BME is not ABET accredited. Something that upon researching, I made them aware of only so that he and his mom would not be surprised should he get in and find out later. His mom is very worried about this. I told them to contact the dept for more info on this and how it impacts career goals /job prospects. In Tx, it looks like he would need to work 8 yrs under an engineer then could get his license.

I think that UTSA BME would be the way to go. But of course, he’s an adult now and will make the decision. His mom really wants him to decide but I think she really hopes he gets to go to UT Austin Cockrell. I think he’ll have a difficult time keeping up in the masses and fall behind, get discouraged and not complete his dreams. UTSA seems much more personable and use to dealing with a kid who is a late bloomer and graduates a lot of Hispanic engineers. His mom is a college grad (elem school teacher) but his dad is not- lower middle class. So he’s not really guided by his parents in terms of the bigger picture.

I’ve known this kid when he joined an SAT/ACT prep and college admissions prep that my H and I ran for minority’s kids. The group is free. He’s a good kid. He’s trying really really hard now. My H and I crafted a great LOR for him (for the UTSA BME program).

I’ve gone through some threads and the internal transfer rate to Cockrell does not look good- makes sense since they are concentrating on the freshman class coming in.

Any thoughts would be welcomed.