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How can a Christian find a good engineering school that is also a conservative Christian university?

We looked at local Christian schools that offer an engineering degree. We loved Seattle Pacific University in Washington, and George Fox University in Oregon. But I had a client who lives on the other side of the country, and she wanted some suggestions about engineering schools in other parts of the country.

I have a friend at church who is a professor of engineering, and he gave me some helpful suggestions for a client. He gave his opinion based on the quality of the engineering programs quality and the conservative theological stance. Here is what my engineering professor friend suggested:

Cedarville University in Ohio

Grove City in Pennsylvania

Calvin College in Michigan

Seattle Pacific University in Washington

George Fox University in Oregon

LeTourneau University in Texas

Messiah College in Pennsylvania

Geneva in Pennsylvania

Olivet Nazarene in Illinois

Andrews University in Michigan

No single list can help every parent, of course, and I have only visited two of the colleges on this list. But if you how to even begin looking, this list can provide a starting place!

The most important thing is to make sure your school, and the engineering major in the school, are ABET accredited. Many engineering companies will not hire an applicant with a degree that is not ABET accredited. It’s a VERY big deal.

Do your homework, to make sure a college is a good fit for your child, of course. And I hope this list can help you start your college search.

 Important Tip for Parents of Seniors!

One of my friends saw me at the store and asked me a simple little question. “What should my senior be doing right now?” I suggest the following checklist just for seniors:

1. Fill out the FAFSA at www.fafsa.ed.gov

The FAFSA is a government form you fill out to determine your financial “need” for scholarships. Financial aid is sometimes “first come – first served” so apply as soon as possible in January.

2. Apply to colleges

Every college has its own unique requirements and time lines, so check each college website under “apply” or “admissions.” Most students apply to between five and eight colleges.

3. Sign up for college tests

Colleges may want to see the SAT, ACT, AP or SAT Subject tests, so sign up for those tests if you haven’t taken necessary tests already. Study for the test if you need to take one.

What do PSAT Scores Mean?

When your child takes the PSAT in October, you will get the results in December. If you just received your PSAT scores, you may want to know what those scores really mean. You can get more information here: College Board Score Report
http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/psat/scores/report.html

For more information, these reports will help.
Understanding 2011 PSAT/NMSQT Scores (pdf/870.7K)
http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/understanding-psat-nmsqt-scores.pdf

Sample PSAT/NMSQT Student Score Report (pdf/1.46M)
http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/sample-psat-nmsqt-student-score-report.pdf

When your child takes the PSAT next year, be sure to register your child as a homeschool student. When you do, the scores will come to you as quickly as they come to a school – which means you get the results a couple of weeks sooner. If you register your child as a student as the school where they take the test, then you will get the test results at the same time as other parents at the school.

Calendar reminders for January

Seniors
Parents need to fill out the FAFSA now, even if it is just an estimate. You can correct the FAFSA when you finish your taxes in April, but they need an estimate as soon as possible – every day later means missed financial aid.

Juniors
Register for the SAT or ACT, and take it in March. Plan your college visits; what colleges will you visit? What week will you go? It’s important to do these things now, so senior year goes well.

Sophomores
Look online at two colleges, a private and a public school. What do they want from homeschool students? What courses do you need? Do you need to take a subject test this year?

Freshmen
Be sure to cover the core classes: reading, writing, math, science, and history. Those are classes you need to cover every year.

Middle School
Avoid panic! Spend some time this month learning how to homeschool high school. That way next year you’ll begin high school feeling confident in your decision to homeschool.

Learn more about steps you can take right now to meet all of your homeschool high school goals.

Free Webinar! “Taking the Mystery out of the SAT & ACT Exams”

I’m so pleased to have the Institute for Excellence in Writing participate with this free webinar for homeschoolers. In it, I will explain the SAT and ACT. Then Andrew Pudewa will discuss how to teach essay writing for those tests. It will be a real meat-and-potatoes class filled with useable information, and I hope you can join us!

Andrew Pudewa is the founder, principal speaker, and director of the Institute for Excellence in Writing. Presenting throughout North America, he addresses issues relating to teaching, writing, thinking, spelling, and music with clarity, insight, practical experience, and humor. His seminars for parents, students and teachers have helped transform many a reluctant writer and have equipped educators with powerful tools to dramatically improve students’ skills. Although he is a graduate of the Talent Education Institute in Japan (Suzuki Method) and holds a Certificate of Child Brain Development, his best endorsement is from a young Alaskan boy who called him “the funny man with the wonderful words.” He and his beautiful, heroic wife Robin are parents of seven, grandparents of three, and educators to their two youngest children at home in Oklahoma’s Green Country.

Taking the Mystery out of the SAT & ACT Exams
with Andrew Pudewa of Institute for Excellence in Writing

Monday January 23

5:30pm – 6:30pm Pacific
6:30-7:30 Mountain
7:30-8:30 Central
8:30-9:30 Eastern

Register for  the Free Webinar Here

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/248414328

 

Hi Lee,

One of the times I heard you speak, you mentioned a certain publisher of literature books (classics) by a particular author that you had your boys read to prepare for the SAT. They were unique in the fact that on the back of each page words were defined.I cannot find that information in my file of notes from you. Do you recall those books, and would you mind sending me the name? Thank you for your time,

~ Valerie

What a good question! I love this question, because I can talk about one of my “favorite finds” for high school English! We used Kaplan books called “Score-Raising Classics. ” They have the real-literature text on the left hand page, and interesting vocabulary words are in bold (vocabulary words that are found on the SAT test, for example. ) On the right hand page is the bold words with their definition. I would generally read these books aloud to my children, one teenager on each side. As I read aloud, they were able to quickly grab any definitions that they needed, as they looked over my shoulder. It worked GREAT! Here is the link to one of those style of books, so you can see it:

We located a similar series of books for studying Shakespeare. The New Folger Library publisher, from Washington Square Press, has the same style for their Shakespeare. The vocabulary is in bold in the text. The right hand page has the bold words defined. It goes further – the difficult to understand phrases are also explained, to ensure you can fully grasp some of the Shakespearean context
as well. Here is a link to one of those books at Amazon:

I frequently mention these books when I talk about literature OR test preparation for the SAT, as they fit both needs at once.
I hope that helps!

How do you write a letter of recommendation about your own child? Often the letters of recommendation from teachers are enough, but remember that you want to do things exactly the way the school wants them (as long as it doesn’t contradict your values, right?) Do it their way, make it easy on them, and they will love you more and throw money at you If a college wants a letter of recommendation from the parent, give it to them. Often they want that information so they can check off a box on the application. Don’t over-think it too much, just give it to them.

Here are some resources from the College Board on letters of recommendation:

Tips on Letters of Recommendation

“What to include” from the College Board

5-paragraph Letter of Recommendation outline

My big tip on the letter of recommendation: brag, don’t critique. When counselors write a letter of recommendation, they only say the good things, not the bad stuff. Use that time to explain anything unusual. You can explain why your student took calculus but received a low math SAT score, or why junior year grades were the lowest.

Members of my Gold Care Club can receive tips like these on our weekly phone calls.

What if you don’t read the WHOLE book – what do you do with that? How does it fit into your course description when you didn’t finish every word of it? Julie asked some questions about her course descriptions…

Hello Lee.

I’m finding your book Setting the Records Straight quite helpful as I learn to write course descriptions. That’s triggered three hopefully simple questions though.

May I use the course descriptions from the book, both the page layout and the actual sentences describing the course, as a starting point for my own?
If only part of a book is read, do I indicate that with something like Title (Partially read)?
Are supplemental texts assumed to have been read in entirety unless noted?

I want to be honest in reporting what texts we used, but it seems we should not have to finish the whole thing to make it count. For example, we used the sourcebook of primary texts from The History of US for American history, but we certainly did not read the entire thing. Thanks for your advice!

Julie

Dear Julie,

Thanks for writing! Yes, the purpose of the book is for you to imitate it, and even your course descriptions word for word – that’s perfectly fine! For the reading list, author and title is enough. You can say “Excerpts” by books that were not completed. I was JUST speaking to another mom about this a few minutes ago, too. Remember those English Textbooks in high school? They NEVER have whole books, they are ALL excerpts. Even in college the books were that way – drove my kids crazy in college when they were supposed to read just 5 chapters or whatever. So the word you want to use is “excerpts.” Supplemental texts are not necessarily used in their entirety. But if you used them at all, you put it on there. For example, some moms use a history textbook more as a timeline guide, and don’t refer to it much at all, relying on hands-on or literature for history. But you still put it on the supplemental text list.

Michelle finished her transcript and was thrilled by how empowered she felt! Her letter can describe how important it is to have your transcript done when you visit colleges.

Lee,

Thanks for these links and for the encouragement and help on the call last week.

I finished my daughter’s transcript to take with me to visit colleges in New York. It was SO EMPOWERING to have this done. And it is nothing short of a miracle as I must be the most ‘head-in-the-sand’ member you have. (I hope nobody is worse than me anyway.)

Home in the early hours of the next morning, we had five hours sleep and then jumped on the train to the visit another school in Boston for a very full day of workshops, talks and tours.

We unexpectedly LOVED it. And had an impromptu private meeting with the Dean of Admissions for almost an hour. I felt confident talking with him, knowing that I had a transcript at hand. Also since he had emphasized that personally getting to know a student and their family made a big difference when deciding financial aid, this was huge.

He started out saying that as I wasn’t an accredited school my daughter would have to take the GED exam for them to consider her application. However, after showing him the transcript and talking about how we get approved every year, along with the fact that homeschooling friends who’d got into Dartmouth, Duke and Boston University had never taken the GED, he relented and asked that we just include all our annual approval letters from the school district. All in all we had a very positive visit with him.

I am so excited to have taken these steps towards seeing my daughter succeed! And without a doubt listening to your talks and getting the specific encouragement I needed made all the difference. Thanks!

Michelle

I love how the college began with “we need a GED” and it ended up a very positive experience. Preparation made all the difference. It also shows the flexibility that college admission people have, and how we can influence them simply by being prepared. I love how Michelle responds when they ask for a GED. A polite and firm statement of facts was able to change the situation in her favor.

So take your homeschool transcript with you on college visits if you can. It adds some gravitas to your homeschool, demonstrating that you have taken your job as school administrator seriously. Remember to speak up – and that polite and firm are the best attitude to take.

Best wishes with those college visits!

My Total Transcript Solution can help you create a great homeschool transcript that will impress colleges just like Michelle’s did!