<p>I want to pursue an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering, but am having an extremely difficult time finding a school that is right for me. The main schools I'm considering right now are Cornell and Harvey Mudd, but I'm also looking into Carnegie Mellon, UMinnTC, and UPenn among others.</p>
<p>Admissions difficulty aside, which of these schools would offer (in your opinion) the best chemical engineering programs? I'm open to other school suggestions as well.</p>
<p>I suggest you use the search function on this board. It’s a great way to get an idea of what schools might fit, and you can search based on major, GPA, geo preferences etc.</p>
<p>Your original post is very vague, BTW, so if you expect help here IMHO, you will have to be more open about stats and preferences.</p>
<p>OP, if you like Cornell, I think you’re going to like Northwestern more. It has a very nice campus, wonderful student body, superb engineering department and in a much better location. You should consider Northwestern if you have the stats to get into Cornell. <a href=“Chemical & Biological Engineering | Northwestern Engineering”>Chemical & Biological Engineering | Northwestern Engineering; </p>
<p>MIT are perhaps the best. Berkeley if you are a rich OOS. </p>
<p>You many also consider: Michigan, RPI, Georgia Tech, UIUC, UT-Austin and Rice. They are all very well-respected schools for engineering. Purdue would be a great alternative – very well-respected for engineering but relatively easy to get into than its peers.</p>
<p>RML brings up some good suggestions and interesting points. What is your home state and what can you afford?</p>
<p>I live in Illinois. Also, I prefer medium-sized schools (5,000-15,000 undergrads) but I’m not too picky about this. I just want some diversity. My parents make a little more than $100,000 a year combined and I will definitely need financial aid. Oh, and neither of them graduated from college so that could help.</p>
<p>For some quick stats: 36 ACT, 2280 SAT, multiple 750+ Subject Tests. 4.0 UW GPA, many extracurriculars and a few leadership roles, but nothing too amazing for top-tier schools.</p>
<p>Some of my favorite schools I’ve visited are UPenn and UChicago, but UPenn lacks engineering strength and UChicago lacks engineering altogether. 
I also liked Swarthmore and Carnegie Mellon. The only school I really did not like was Haverford because it was too small and woodsy.</p>
<p>With $100K in income you won’t qualify for much FA. Your stats however could get you some good merit aid like at U Alabama. Case Western would probably give you some good merit aid as well. UIUC has great engineering and would be relatively affordable for you but would be too large for you.</p>
<p>At your family’s income level the schools that probably give the best combination of financial aid plus some strength in chemical engineering are Stanford and Princeton.</p>
<p>*My parents make a little more than $100,000 a year combined and I will definitely need financial aid. *</p>
<p>You have to QUALIFY for financial aid based on your parents income/assets. With an income over $100k, most top schools that “meet need” will expect your family to pay about $30k or so per year. </p>
<p>Schools don’t base financial aid on what you say that you need. </p>
<p>HOw much will your parents pay? If they can’t pay what a college will expect them to pay, then that will be an issue. If you don’t know how much they’ll pay, you need to ask them.</p>
<p>As Erin’s Dad’s said, you need to make sure that you also apply to a few schools that will give you huge merit for your stats as your “back up financial safety schools” just in case your fav schools expect your family to pay too much. As he mentions, Bama would give you free tuition plus 2500 per year for engineering. My son is a ChemE major there…brand new facilities.</p>
<p>Are you a NMSF? What was your PSAT?</p>
<p>Being first generation only helps a little for admissions…it helps more when you’re low income as well. </p>
<p>Again…ask your parents how much they’ll pay.</p>
<p>Dow Commits $25 Million per Year to Advance Research & Development in Leading U.S. Universities:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.dow.com/innovation/pdf/partnership/20111004a.pdf[/url]”>http://www.dow.com/innovation/pdf/partnership/20111004a.pdf</a></p>
<p>The California Institute of Technology
The University of California at Santa Barbara
The University of Minnesota
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Pennsylvania State University
The University of Wisconsin
Northwestern University
The University of California at Berkeley
Carnegie Mellon University
The University of Michigan.</p>
<p>I know this is a little late, but have you looked at Johns Hopkins? Similar in a lot of ways to UPenn and UChicago, and with a lot of strength in science and engineering. USNWR ranks their undergraduate chemical engineering program as #15 in the nation, and chemical engineering is one of the most popular majors on campus.</p>
<p>Some other smaller schools with chemical engineering that you can consider are: Lehigh, Bucknell, Lafayette and Wash U in St. Louis.</p>
<p>Delaware is highly regarded for chemical engineering, even though it seems to have little or no reputation for anything else.</p>
<p>Minnesota is highly regarded for chemical engineering, and has a relatively low out of state list price.</p>