<p>@Oliver18
UM & Cornell are peers in engineering, which is what the OP is interested in studying. Don’t understand why you’re assuming that the OP must be aiming for another school when he clearly stated that he wants to go to UM.</p>
<p>@master0062
If you truly do want to apply to schools slightly better than UM in engineering, you should consider looking into MIT, Stanford, and Caltech. CMU and Georgia Tech are other peers of UM that are located out-of-state.</p>