At Michigan, the competitive pre-meds will mainly be sharing chemistry with the first year engineering students, and possibly single variable calculus. A Michigan first year engineering student may be able to exempt some chemistry and math courses that are ordinarily shared with pre-meds with AP credit: https://admissions.umich.edu/apply/freshmen-applicants/ap-ib-credit#Engineering .
There will be more overlap with physics and chemistry majors, but there are relatively few students in those majors.
While doing engineering with a 2.1 GPA would result in diminished employment opportunities compared to 3.0 GPA or higher, the fact that Michigan does not intentionally weed out with GPA requirements higher than 2.0 means that a student who has a rough first semester has a chance at recovering later, rather than being forced out. First semester of college is risky GPA-wise for many students, due to adjustment-to-college issues, but many students figure out college the next semester and improve their GPAs.
Not disagreeing with you. Just going on what my second year engineering student at Michigan told me and the department itself. All his lab partners and or study group kids were pre med, science majors, and math majors… Throw in a few business etc majors for good measure.
As far as GPA I was speaking more of at the end of the first year but still can rebound in the second year also. @ucbalumnus.
@badgolfer – I hear you! S is taking PLTW and loves it – in 2nd year now and planning to do all 4 years. He will do one or two summer engineering programs plus, hopefully, some job shadowing over the next 18 months. I will pass on your sage reminder to him that it’s all math and science (and math!) at first.
He’s super into tech companies – love the technology itself and has self taught himself everything about electronic components that run everything. But he also is drawn to the strategy / market share angle of the companies and knows whose components are in which consumer products and how that impacts product lines, stock trajectories, etc. He’s a super social and charming kid – strikes you (well, me) more as the business type, tbh. But he does well in math – sitting on a 98 this year at a top public HS in our state and finds it easy (so far, I know he’s not at the hard stuff yet as he’s only a Sophomore.)
He’s got another year plus to decide and plans to tour both business and engineering programs at colleges. As of now, he says he’s thinking about engineering followed by MBA down the line. . .but obviously a lot could change still.
We’re a family of mostly lawyers, academics and a couple wild card doctors so this whole business/engineering thing is a brave new world! It’s prolly my protective side trying to make sure he consider engineering programs that aren’t totally brutal. I figure any engineering is tough – but best to avoid the excessively harsh ones if possible, especially since there’s a good chance he’ll end up on the business side of the house. . .
It can blend engineering and business. This is what my son plans on doing. It works on making the processes better. Many can go into consulting, financial sectors and management etc. We are doctors and agree this is an all new world that we are being exposed to. My sons attitude is that there is no other field that teaches the way engineering does. He did a few summer programs and got great exposure.
It will give him the idea of how engineers work together. My son had no interest in civil engineering but loved the program and it looks great on an application.
Purdue engineering is pretty well known for being easier to get into than to stay in but from what my D and her cohort have experienced “harsh” isn’t really a good description of their approach. Rigorous, yes. The U works pretty hard to support the engineers, there are many resources and a huge community to help the freshmen… and they do have hands-on engineering (group) work from semester 1 which helps them stay focused on what they want to do. I’ve never met a more enthusiastic and focused group of students than her buddies. They live to be engineers, not because it pays well but because they are passionate about what they want to do in life. The fact is - becoming a good engineer involves a great deal of work and many prospective engineers in any good program will decide they’d rather work a little less hard and do something else. If there’s a chance that he’ll decide to combine engineering with business I agree that finding a good business program in a University that also has ABET certified engineering degrees will cover all the bases.
In terms of engineering course work, some colleges follow the more traditional order of natural science and math first, then engineering science, then engineering design at the end. Others have added some introductory design courses earlier in the curriculum for students to determine their interest early.
A look at four year course plans may be helpful if this aspect is relevant to the student.
^ Not necessarily. It depends on the college how they will allow AP courses to be applied. My daughter started out as a second semester sophomore but still had to take the first year engineering physics and chem courses. She did bump up in math but so many other students do as well that they are still considered very difficult. I believe the mean on her last test was a 40.
My son had Calc 3 multivariate in high school and Calc based AP physics. His AP scores were meh… He redid the Calc 1-3 and now has linear algebra… It’s all hard with low curve as well. But somehow he will be junior status next semester. He took max credits each semester plus 2 classes over the spring. When I asked why his physics grade was just OK he said “engineering physics is really hard”… Well… Can’t fault that… Lol.
Keep in mind that the GPAs that seem “doable” to good HS students, like 3.5 or 3.2, are HARD to get for Engineers. Means of 50 aren’t uncommon (there’s a curve, but a 50 is rarely a B+. :p) Basically, the strongest background you can get in HS, the better off you’ll be.
URochester and CaseWestern are two possibilities for easy switch in and out.
Other possibilities would be the “best” directionals that offer Engineering: UMN Duluth (not UMN Twin Cities), OU and UCincinnati (not tOSU), SDSU (not Cal Poly SLO)… the classes would still be weedout but OP’s son would be stronger at the directionals relative to the “typical” student at the flagship.
SDSU’s EE department is known to change requirements with insufficient notice and without allowing current students to graduate under the old requirements. This resulted in some students previously on track to graduate on time to be unable to do so.
BIL transferred from Georgia Tech to UIUC because he didn’t like what he thought were unfair weed out practices for EE. This is a very smart guy, who came from a family of Engineers.
Not to familiar with engineering schools myself, but I have a friend that talks about similar situation. He likes Purdue, but like Rose-Hulman a little more because there is less of a “weed-out” mentality. If your midwestern based (which you appear to be) and are fine with smaller schools I think Rose-Hulman would be worth checking out.
I would read up on Rose Holman first. Very small private school with 80/20 male to female ratio. Their curriculum used to be set up that if after the first year you wanted to transfer a lot of classes won’t to other colleges due to the way they sequence classes. Students that like small schools tend to like the school.
Take a look at UMD. Highly ranked public university. Focused on wanting their students to succeed rather than weed out. If not admitted in engineering straight away (eningineering is an LEP), very possible to still get in simply by taking and passing necessary gateway classes and get in 2nd year. UMD has a very good living&learning community for engineers which increases the chance of success. There’s also no competition to declare your engineering major, unlike Purdue where the best will get into popular majors and the others not. When you ask Purdue about this they will say that more than 90% of engineers get their first pick… Don’t be fooled… It’s extremely likely that students were advised not to apply for a certain major before picking. So obviously on paper 90%+ “get their first pick”. Good luck!
I have 3 that have gone through Pitt engineering and it is not cutthroat - but very supportive. There are no competition or restrictions on declaring majors (PSU has enrollment restrictions by major) but yes, if you are below a 2.0, it’s probably likely that you should want to switch out. The engineering school also has alot of financial support for attending conferences, doing summer research, even study abroad that my kids have taken advantage of.
@Greymeer --depends on the school. I would think a lot of them will have a required course sequence that will make it a four year gig. You can start at Pitt with Calc 3, Physics 2 (having used AP credits for Calc 1 and 2 and Chem 1) but you still have to take first year Engineering Analysis 1 and then Engineering Analysis 2. You also have to take two semesters of Freshman engineering seminar. Heck you could start with 100 credits and you are still going to have to take those two classes in order before being allowed to move to sophomore level engineering. I would expect most schools are like that these days.
Can someone studying at USF Tampa let me know how easy it to get in to the classes, minimum GPA reqd or is it too competitive (especially asking for CS major).