<p>In fact, probably not a chance thread at all. I've been lurking the CC forums for a bit now and assumed that this sub-forum was the best place to ask something of this caliber.</p>
<p>I'm a rising senior planning on applying to a mechanical engineering program (or, in all honestly, an undecided engineering program - same thing), and I'm a bit of a late bloomer in terms of college research. I have a list of colleges in mind, but I need assistance with two things. One, I need help putting these colleges in order from most selective to least selective. I could just use acceptance percentages but those are heavily skewed by in-state data, and for colleges like Cornell which have multiple sub-colleges, I can't pin down a percentage and expect it to be comparable to a full-university percent. Besides, for something as qualitative as this, I feel anecdotal evidence will help, especially from undergraduates who've already gone through this process. I've been told by friends (too many, perhaps) that organizing my college list in this way will be helpful, so why not?</p>
<p>You'll see I started to put them in order (the super selective ones are on the top, and the safeties are on the bottom), but I'm having a lot of trouble making distinctions for the middle five or six colleges.</p>
<p>CalTech
MIT
Princeton
Stanford
Cornell
Northwestern
UC-Berkeley
UMICH
UVA
Georgia Tech.
RPI
Boston Univ.</p>
<p>The second thing I need help with is to check whether or not my college list is exhaustive, and especially whether or not I should make any alterations. I've shot down a few colleges due to personal preference (U-IL, Duke, and Purdue come to mind), but I feel like I'm either missing something from my list or should make a few key replacements. I'm sure you guys (both high schoolers and undergraduates) have done a ton more research than I have, so any responses would be highly appreciated.</p>
<p>I didn't particularly plan on making a chance thread with my stats and whatnot mainly because I don't feel anyone can effectively model how an admissions officer thinks, but perhaps I'll make one sooner or later just to subdue my curiosity.</p>