Hey there.
It’s Dr. Bernstein, the president and founder of Get Yourself Into College.
I work with a lot of students who are applying to engineering programs, and today I want
to share with you a few key things that will help you strengthen your preparation—if
you’re in 9th, 10th, or 11th grade—and show you how you can put together a much stronger
application if you’re a senior who’s in the process of applying.
Along the way, I’ll be sharing important information from UPenn, Cornell, Rose-Hulman,
and Columbia.
So stay tuned.
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When admissions officers are reviewing applications from potential engineering students they’re
also looking for evidence of your ability to collaborate with others, your process of
problem solving, your capacity for systematic thinking, your adaptability, and your ability
to “survive under tough circumstances.”
These are underlying habits of mind and abilities that are crucial to your success in engineering
programs and as future engineers.
If you’re in 9th, 10th, or 11th grade, I encourage to think about what you can be doing
right now to cultivate these ways of being.
Maybe you’re already in Science Olympiad or robotics or some sort of extracurricular
activity related to your interest in engineering, if that’s the case, then I want to pay closer
attention to how certain projects relate to the qualities I just mentioned.
Cultivating these qualities is one thing.
You also have to make sure that other people are aware of them.
If you’re a senior, you’re going to want the teachers writing your letters of recommendation
to shed light on these habits and abilities.
They can’t do this. . .if they don’t know about this part of you.
You might also want to consider writing your main Common App essay on something that more
fully demonstrates a particular collaborative or problem-solving experience.
I want to dig a little deeper into engineering programs and problem solving.
I was reading an article in a January 2016 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education,
which explored how “universities nationwide” are attempting to “teach undergraduates
to think more broadly and aggressively about how they can help solve real-world problems.”
In the article, the author talks about the Grand Challenges course at the Rose-Hulman
Institute of Technology, which assigns students a “specific place in the world” and asks
them “to research the local population and figure out a technology that might help them.”
Students have designed “filters to clean water in Kenya” and invented “a process
for converting plastic trash into roofing tiles in Haiti.”
The University of Pennsylvania points out that when reviewing applications to the School
of Engineering and Applied Science, they’re looking for students with “an ability to
innovate, design, and practically apply scientific discoveries.”
In their supplemental essay, Cornell asks you to “describe an engineering idea you
have, or about your interest in engineering.”
So if you’re in 9th, 10th, or 11th grade, now is the time to start figuring out what
engineering breakthroughs you find most exciting.
. .it’s time to start reading about cutting-edge work in engineering.
. .it’s time to think about what kind of “real-world problems” you want to solve
through engineering.
You might even want to try to figure out how to start solving some of these problems. . .or
at least mapping out possible ways of solving them.
If you’re in 12th grade and applying to college right now, you might already have
a sense of these things, but if you don’t, that’s okay.
One thing that can be really helpful is to look at the profiles of faculty at the engineering
programs that you’re applying to and to see who is doing work that sounds exciting
to you.
Sometimes this research process actually helps you clarify what you are and are not interested
in in terms of engineering.
And yes, this research takes a bit of time, but it tends to have a good ROI—return on
investment. . .because engineering programs often want you to tell them why you are drawn
to their particular program.
In their supplemental essay, Cornell also asks you to “describe how your ideas and
interests may be realized by and linked to specific resources within the College of Engineering”
and to “explain what a Cornell Engineering education will enable you to accomplish.”
The University of Pennsylvania also asks a similar question.
We’ve covered a lot in this video, but there’s so much more I want to share with you.
I want you to head over to my blog where I have a much more in-depth article about successfully
applying to engineering programs at Tufts, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and the University
of Pennsylvania and share more details about some really interesting problem-solving projects
that students are working on.
This article will be really useful for you.
I’ve got the link to it in the description box for the video.
You can also just Google “how to successfully apply to engineering programs” and “get
yourself into college” and it should pop right up.
So that’s it for now.
Take care.
Bye!