College Visit - Montana Tech

Third stop on the Montana College Tour was Montana Tech in Butte, MT. Butte is an old mining town with a claim to fame of being one mile high and one mile deep. Digger, the Tech mascot, attests to the mining history of the community and the college.

The most impressive feature of Montana Tech is the fact that they admit students from a variety of ability levels and those students are successful in their engineering fields. It appears that Montana Tech could be considered as a college that ‘changes lives’. The school provides opportunities and support for students interested in engineering who might not have opportunities elsewhere.

The admissions presentation focused on five themes, all of which were evidenced during our visit.

Tech is Quality Focused. They offer 21 degrees which includes study options in nine engineering fields. With only 2700 students, each student has plenty of opportunity to interact with faculty in classes and labs.

The second theme is Driven Students. The average ACT score of freshmen is 23, and yet 72% of them graduate. Students are active in their high schools and even more active on campus. The Admissions Office assigns an activity score to each applicant. The average high school activity score for enrolled freshmen is 5.2. The activity score is calculated for each student at graduation and the average is 6.7.

In addition to focusing on quality and driving themselves to succeed, Montana Tech students like real life experiences. They describe themselves as wanting to “do” science rather than “study” science. Students have either internships or jobs with engineering or other technical companies and also spend time on community projects helping the town of Butte. They compete in engineering competitions like mining, environmental engineering, human powered machines, bridge building, concrete canoe races and software engineering contests. Montana Tech bests teams from much larger, more selective colleges in these competitions.

The fourth feature of Montana Tech is the personal nature of the experience. The TLC(Tech Learning Center) supports all students with tutoring and other academic support easing the transition to college. Admissions representatives who establish relationships with students during their college search process follow Tech students through graduation, maintaining that relationship. All professors have agreed to measure student performance after 20 days into the semester so that students know if they’re in trouble and the faculty help students get the assistance they need. They joked that Tech students don’t need ‘helicopter parents’ because they have ‘helicopter advisers.’ Lastly, Tech is proud of their affordability. They offer scholarships to most of their students, from a $2800 scholarship for students with ACT scores between 20 and 24, to a $6000 scholarship to top students with ACT scores above 29.

Advice from the student panelists to incoming students is to retake the last math class you took in high school your first semester in college. For example, if a student took Calculus 1 as a senior in high schools and did well, their advice was to enroll in Calculus 1 in college. Getting a strong foundation in math increases the likelihood of success in all classes.

In summary, Montana Tech is a challenging institution for hand's on, success-oriented students.