You are all amazing with the information! Thanks! Will add WashU and look at the others! 
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My son was mech e at rice. Let me know if you have questions.
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Thank you very much! My son goes back and forth from Mech E to others. How was your sonās experience there? How was the ability to get internships/ job placement ? Also wondering about the junior year when they live off campus. How was it for them to find places to rent? Thank you.
Fabulous on all fronts. He had great internships both the summer after sophomore and junior year with well known companies and now works for a top tech company in SV. He is still very close friends with his mech e group. They get together annually. PM me for more info
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If Iām reading this right, your son plays baseball now but doesnāt want to play in college, but wants the college to have baseball so he can watch? If so, be careful of northern schools that have baseball but may play a lot of it in the south over spring break, over long weekends in tournaments, etc. My daughter went to school in Florida and there were always northern schools coming down to play, but rarely did schools head north much farther than the Carolinas.
CU doesnāt have a baseball team (used to) but some of the D2 schools around here do. It is a little easier for them because the travel isnāt so bad and they can reschedule more easily than the D1 schools with plane travel.
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How strong is your interest in biomedical engineering ?
How important is playing college baseball ?
Johns Hopkins University is strong in biomedical engineering and plays baseball in Division III.
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Hello, Heās interested in playing baseball at the D3 level, if possible , due to level of academics, and is interested in schools like Johns Hopkins. Heās probably most likely a dedicated pitcher or pitcher/infielder with a really great ability to focus as heās pitching and awesome positive leadership ability for his team(s).
Biomedical Engineering would be great, itās one of his main interest areas, as he has a strong interest in the design side of engineering, and perhaps combining with business in the future.
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Heāll bury his preconceived notions about this once heās deeper in school. Some ādesignā engineers do routine iteration of the same thing over and over and some testing engineers get to conceive and build unique testing fixtures often. They also get to tell the product designers how to fix their stuff. There are a LOT of angles into being able to create, which is essentially what heās saying by ādesign.ā
Also, not sure why he feels BME is the best avenue, unless heās interested in biological systems. ME is much broader. As I understand it, BMEs often need advanced degrees to do the type of work heās alluding to.
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It is VERY late for him to get recruited at a high academic D3 school such as Johns Hopkins. But it canāt hurt to reach out to coaches to see if there is any interest there.
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We havenāt discussed DII schools yet - many arenāt as academically competitive as DIIIās but there are a few great engineering schools on that list:
- Colorado School of Mines: Highly-regarded mid-sized (about 6K undergrads) STEM-focused school with lots of fun campus traditions. (Notably, āEngineering Daysā) The MechE major is particularly strong, and can be paired with the Biomechanical Engineering minor. Thereās also a Business Engineering and Management Science major, and a Design Engineering major and minor.
- U of Alabama Huntsville: mid-sized (7K undergrads), STEM-focused with strong engineering and also a business school, gives great automatic merit - heād get a full-tuition scholarship here.
- Missouri S&T: AustenNut already mentioned this one - 5500 undergrads, highly-regarded engineering, and heād get significant merit: Scholarship Calculator ā Student Financial Assistance | Missouri S&T Wide range of majors and minors including MechE, Biomedical, Business, etc.
- Cal Poly Pomona might not be as much of a contender on āvibeā (Itās larger and more commuter-ish than the others) but it has some great offerings academically, with Cal Polyās ālearn by doingā philosophy, and being on a team could provide the necessary social āglue.ā
I agree that itās late in the recruiting cycle already, but worth contacting coaches to see where things stand.
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There are some engineering schools in Florida in the Sunshine State conference (DII), and the baseball is competitive. Florida Tech and Embry Riddle. Florida Techās field is dedicated to Tim Wakefield who played there. One thing thatās nice is there isnāt as much travel as at other schools as the Sunshine schools are fairly close to each other.
I know at Florida Tech, the school works with the coaches to balance academics and athletics. Since the school is heavily engineering, there will be a lot of engineers on every team.
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My daughter was a BME and there is no way she would have majored in Mech. As she liked to put it, it was the āBioā part that most interested her. And I think most of her classmates would agree. Her goal was to work in R&D for a medical device company and she had no problem finding a job doing that after graduation. Most of her co-workers do not have advanced degress (Masters), but a few do.
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Just to clarify, students are not required to live off campus at Rice and if they do, itās not always junior year. Each residential college has it owns rules about housing and there is a risk of living off campus one year. At some colleges itās sophomore year and some itās junior. I believe Rice can house more than 70% of students now on campus and is building more housing to increase that to over 80%. Some students choose to live off campus after freshmen year (this seems especially common for athletes) and some end up not getting a room on campus and realizing they like apartment/house living and never go back. A parent on the parent board who was MOST upset about her daughter not getting housing sophomore year, now has a student who loves living off campus and doesnāt want to go back. But a decent number of students end up staying on campus for 4 years - mine was one of them. It really just depends on the residential college and sometimes a little luck.
Rice is in the middle of a large city and across the street from the biggest med center in the world. There are a LOT of housing options nearby. But, itās in a high income part of the city so housing close to the campus can be a bit more expensive than if you live further out. Itās not like California expensive though (my daugher lived near Berkeley one summer for an internship and her rent was 3-4 times what it was the year she rented rear Rice for grad school). But more and more super student friendly housing is being built close to campus by companies who realize they have a good flow of customers.
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