College Choice

College Search & Selection
1

Hi. I am going to be a senior in high school next year and would like to get opinions on where might be a good fit for college for me.

First let me give a little background on myself:

I have been good at math and science throughout high school and am therefore thinking about pursuing a major in engineering. However, I am not at all sure about this and may change to something else. Therefore I would like to attend a college that is good all-around as well as in engineering.

In terms of other aspects of a college I would ideally like to live in an urban area but probably not in the middle of a big city. I would also like my college to be relatively safe. However, these are relatively minor in relations to its academics and financial aid.

In financial terms my parents make a good living ~$190k per year combined. However, I would still like to get a good deal on college and substantial financial aid.

My stats are:
ACT: 34
GPA: 4.0 (straight A’s)
AP Exams: 5s on 5out of 6 of exams
Math 2 SAT Subject Test: 800
Physics SAT Subject Test: 800
I’m white

ECs:
Not the strongest. I am captain of my HS chess team, play soccer and varsity baseball. Other than this my ECs are not great. I always hated how students would do activities just to “look good” on a college application so I didn’t do this. Probably this was stupid of me.

Recommendations: Probably good, not great

That being said here is the preliminary list of colleges that I am considering applying to and a brief statements why. Any advice would be appreciated.

Harvard:
Harvard is known as the most prestigious school in the nation. Saying it stands out on a resume is an understatement. Has grade inflation taking stress out of college. Engineering program is okay. Also gives generous financial aid.

Acceptance chances: Minimal

Yale:
Yale is an incredibly prestigious school that stands out on a resume. Engineering program isn’t very good however. Has grade inflation which is nice. Great financial aid.

Acceptance chances: Minimal

Princeton (Early Action):
Princeton is just as prestigious as Harvard and Yale and also has a very good engineering school. Also is supposed to have incredible financial aid, I may be able to get a full ride. Also has grade inflation, although not as much as Harvard and Yale. From what I read applying early action may substantially increase my acceptance chances (and is non-binding).

Acceptance chances: Moderate

Stanford:
Stanford is a great engineering school and just an amazing institution. It is also in California which would be nice because of the good weather. Supposed to have great financial aid. Also has grade inflation which is nice. However, its acceptance rate is extremely low.

Acceptance chances: Minimal

MIT:
MIT is known as the best engineering school in the world. Having MIT on a resume will open tons of doors in the science and engineering community. I’ve heard the students there are supposed to be the smartest in the nation as there are almost no acceptances based on connections and it is almost all merit. Known to be a bit stressful but I have heard overall good things. Financial aid estimator shows that I will likely receive so-so financial aid.

Acceptance chances: Minimal

U Penn:
University of Pennsylvania is a great Ivy League school. Not sure how good its engineering program is though. It is known as more of a preprofessional school. I would likely get good financial aid there. It’s acceptance rate is a bit higher than other Ivy League schools but not by much.

Acceptance chances: Minimal

Duke:
Duke is probably the best school in the South. Going to college in the South would be nice because of the weather but I don’t know how I would like the conservative feel of North Carolina. Its engineering program is okay. If I decide to change from engineering to pre-med track it is great for that. Its financial aid calculator showed that I would likely get a decent award.

Acceptance chances: Minimal-Moderate

Cornell:
Cornell is known for having the best engineering program in the Ivy League. It is also the easiest Ivy League school to get accepted to. It is in a very rural area which I don’t know if I would like though. It is known as lacking grade inflation and being quite cutthroat, especially in science and engineering, which I don’t like. I’ve heard it is very stressful and has had a number of suicides recently. It will likely me give a good amount of financial aid.

Acceptance chances: Moderate

Northwestern:
Northwestern is one of the best schools in the Midwest (where I live). It has a pretty good engineering program and I like how its Engineering First curriculum would start students off with a taste of engineering. I also really like people I know that went there. I also am close with my family and like the idea of being a 30 min drive from home (plus low transportation costs). However, it is supposed to have harsh grading curves in science and engineering, and be stressful with the quarter system. Its financial aid calculator shows that I wouldn’t receive much compared with other schools.

Acceptance chances: Moderate

Brown:
Brown is an Ivy League school. Its engineering program isn’t very good. However, I think it is neat how students get to pick their classes very freely. It is known as having a ton of grade inflation which would allow me to focus more effort on things outside of the classroom. I would also receive decent financial aid based on an online estimate.

Acceptance chances: Minimal

Vanderbilt:
Vanderbilt is one of the best schools in the South. Its engineering program isn’t great however. Again, I would like the weather but I don’t know if the Tennessee environment would be for me. In terms of financial aid this school is supposed to give me ton which would be really nice.

Acceptance chances: Moderate

Rice:
Rice is supposed to be the best school in Texas. Its engineering program isn’t great however. Similar to Vanderbilt, it has good weather but I’m not sure that I would like the conservative Texas atmosphere. Rice is known for being very good for pre-med however, if I decide to go that route. Its financial aid is supposed to be decent.

Acceptance chances: Moderate

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:
This is my state school. It is known for having a top engineering school. However, when I visited the campus I was not impressed, and I am not a big fan of going to a big party school. Also, if I switch out of engineering my opportunities will not be as good as a top private school. That being said, I will be able to go to college with many of my friends from high school which will be fun. It is in-state so tuition and fees will cost around $20k for engineering (extremely unlikely that I will receive financial aid).

Acceptance chances: Almost a sure thing

University of Pittsburg:
This school is academically the worst on my list. Its engineering program is not great. However, I have heard that I could possibly get a full ride with my academic credentials, which is appealing. This would allow me to save a lot of money (possibly for graduate school). However, even with a full ride I am not sure if this is worth missing out on the opportunity to go to one of the most prestigious schools in the country (if I get into one).

Acceptance chances: Almost a sure thing

As you can see I have a lot of top schools on my list but very few medium level schools. This is because unless a school is amazing academically, I would rather just go to the University of Illinois or Pittsburg. Also, I did not list any out of state public colleges as they will likely give me no financial aid.

Again, I would love any advice on my list and schools to possibly add or delete.

2

If you’re looking for some engineering universities, I’d check out UMichigan, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon University, and some awesome options in your own state like UCBerkely and CalTech.

3

gdlt234, I live in Illinois, not California. Also as I said out of state public schools would give me almost no financial aid.

4

Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford and MIT do not give merit scholarships.
If your parents make ~$190K you will not get anything close to a full ride from these schools. Especially if you have siblings, and if your parents do not have much home equity or other assets to tap, then they may give you some need-based aid. Run their online net price calculators to get estimates.

5

You are surprisingly critical about the quality of the engineering schools at most of the colleges you’ve listed. This is an unnecessary bias. First it matters what you are majoring in. I suppose that if it’s petroleum engineering you may have a point. But if you’re planning on majoring in a mainstream engineering field (e.g. CS, EE, ME) you’ll find excellent (and perhaps exceptional departments) at all the colleges on your list, and in fact at your local state university as well.

As pointed out by tk21769 your list of private universities consists of need blind universities. Run the net price calculator. Get your parents involved in the “is it affordable” decision. Your thinking along the lines of “likely to get good financial aid” is not relevant. For need blind colleges you’ll get the aid that is necessary (as perceived by the university) for you to attend.

I’m very doubtful that your sense of “grade inflation” is relevant for an engineering major. Nothing is easy at top-level universities. Should you get in you’ll have incredible competition and you’re very very likely to find the work demanding.

Try to view the decision process of “where to apply” in a pragmatic way: what are you safeties, what are likely matches, and (lastly) what are the reaches.

6

Let me speak on behalf of Cornell since that is where I have first-hand experience:

“Easiest Ivy to get accepted to” does not apply to its engineering college.

It is rural if you’re comparing it to a large city. However, Ithaca is an amazing location and there is never a loss for things to do (unless, I suppose, you’re used to living in NYC). Having grown up 10 minutes from Ithaca surrounded by farmland, in an ACTUAL rural area, Ithaca is like a city to me.

It does have grade deflation so you certainly need to work very hard and be okay with not sitting back and taking the easy way out like with Harvard where you can get an A just for showing up. While it is hard, it is extremely rewarding and you will be much more prepared for a future career than if you didn’t have to work as hard.

I would not say, however, that it is cutthroat. Despite the grade deflation, I have never seen people directly compete with each other. People still generally try to help each other out and work together on projects or studying for exams.

With a $190K income, Cornell and most of the colleges you listed are not going to give you “substantial” aid, if they give you any at all.

And this is the point that never fails to make me angry. Cornell does NOT have a large amount of suicides. Not recently, not in the past, and almost definitely not in the future. There are very few suicides in the Ithaca area compared to other towns of its size. The problem is that often when people do take their lives in Ithaca, they do so by jumping into the gorges, which is very dramatic and very public. When people quietly take their lives in their own home, it is not publicized. When someone jumps off a bridge and there are potential witnesses, or at least people wake up to the sound of ambulances, it is widely known. However, most of the people who do kill themselves in Ithaca are NOT CORNELL STUDENTS. Many are from out of town or are adults living in the Ithaca area. People often make jokes about the nets surrounding the gorges, but they are there for safety and preventative measures. It’s not like people jump off all the time. It happens very rarely.

Not your fault you didn’t know all this. I volunteered for Ithaca’s Suicide Prevention & Crisis Services, so I am just very passionate about eliminating this incredibly misleading stigma surrounding our school.

7

Thanks for the advice. I’m curious about how the Cornell acceptance rate is lower for engineering. The overall acceptance rate is ~15%. What would the engineering acceptance rate be, 10%?

Also I’m not sure about which type of engineering that I may want to do, which is why I want to go to a school that offers a wide variety of engineering majors.

8

I’m not sure they are different. Here is data from 2012:
http://www.engineering.cornell.edu/magazine/features/17.cfm
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/03/applications-admission-cornell-top-40000

That doesn’t mean you don’t need better test scores or GPA for engineering, though.

9

I think you might be overestimating your chances at the top schools. You said that you won’t have great recommendations and your academic record, while formidable, is nothing unique to the people who apply for the schools you’ve listed. You’ve also mentioned that you expect a lot of aid. You will not get it at the schools you’ve listed. You will need to be a NMF at a state school or go to a small (not Ivy) private school. Rose Hulman, RPI are examples but you want a well rounded school that doesn’t do just engineering. So my advice would be to either look at smaller liberal arts schools (possibly even religious ones if that appeals to you) or lower your expectations of getting into the top 10 schools and apply to public universities that aren’t UIUC (Iowa State, University of Iowa, UW-Platteville, UW-Oshkosh).

Unfortunately, you can’t have all your cake and eat it too. By which I mean if you even do get into one of the prestigious schools, Mom and Dad are probably not going to want to re-mortage their house just for you to go. And usually, parents don’t have $100,000+ saved up per kid just for them to go to the best school in the nation. Just because you end up going to a school that isn’t a top school doesn’t mean you won’t excel and have amazing opportunities to pursue your studies and future career.

10

You have two “Almost a sure thing” institutions on your list, but you haven’t included an “Absolutely sure thing”. Read through these threads, and find at least one. With your stats, there are a number of ABET accredited engineering programs that would guarantee admission and some of them come close to being free.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1562918-updated-list-of-schools-with-auto-admit-guaranteed-admission-criteria-p1.html
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/

11

It’s *Pittsburgh.

Also: check out Case Western Reserve? Alabama?

12

IMO a disservice is done by the current practice of reporting admission and matriculation statistics of multi-college universitites such as Cornell and CMU as an aggregate, when admissions criteria and applicant pools differ by college. This was not always the case; when I applied to colleges the college guides generally reported statistics for each of the individual colleges separately.

Traditionally Cornell’s engineering college had an acceptance rate somewhat higher than the university’s composite average. But the profile of its incoming freshman class on purely objective academic criteria (eg SAT scores) was higher than most of the university’s colleges; similar overall to CAS but with higher math scores. More recently engineering has become an increasingly popular choice, and now the college may actually be somewhat more selective that the university’s aggregate.

But my point is one has no necessary relation to the other, even if they happen to be the same in a particular year you happen to look. Engineering college students constitute only about 1/5 of all undergrads there, the applicant pools are different, and the relationship varies. Moreover, even if the acceptance rates happen to match, at some point that you happen to look at them, that does not mean the academic profiles of the student bodies at each of the colleges match identically.

The most recent breakout for engineering alone I’ve seen is here:
http://profiles.asee.org/profiles/6574/screen/19?school_name=Cornell+University

13

No one can put his/her chance at Princeton as “moderate”.

14

Well, I have heard that applying to Princeton early action is supposed to increase chances. The early action acceptance rate there is around 18-19%, which is higher than most of the other schools I listed. Granted, some of these are athletes and legacies or just more qualified students, but the acceptance percentage is so much higher than the regular action percentage I have to believe that it gives an advantage.

15

Not really sure how you came up with your rankings in terms of acceptance - my daughter was admitted to Yale and wait listed at Northwestern, who would have thought? When you’re dealing with the top tier schools (Ivies, MIT, Stanford, Northwestern, Duke) with okay ECs and recommendations and nothing, from what you’ve said, that makes you stand out, they’re all a crap shoot. Sorry to knock you down a peg or two but you are nothing special to these schools so while your stats allow you to apply with a slight chance of acceptance, you should really look at some of the other schools suggested here - UMich (great engineering school), CMU. RPI, RIT, Harvey Mudd.

Good luck!

16

First, Rice is an outstanding school for engineering. One of the best in the Southwest, and the best if you’re interested in a smaller school. Second, you also seem to underestimate just how competitive many of the universities on your list are. Remember, even if a school like Rice accepted 14.7% of applicants, that means 85.3% were rejected. Many likely had similar qualifications as you do. The same is true for schools like Princeton EA where 81%, most of whom were almost certainly outstanding applicants, were rejected.

Some other suggestions which are strong academically and may offer merit include Case Western, CU Boulder (super safety), and the University of Rochester. What’s great about CU Boulder and the other engineering school in the Denver metro area, Colorado School of Mines, is that the 2016 expansion of Denver’s public transit system will make it easy to access urban areas on the weekend while still being in a college town environment on the weekdays.

17

Thank you whenhen. Although Rochester, CU Boulder, Case Western, and Colorado School of Mines may be good schools that may give some aid, are they going to be significantly better or cheaper than University of Illinois in-state? It just seems to me that if a school is in the academic range of UIUC it just makes the most sense to go there.

18

And to amtc, it says that most of the school I am applying to have mid 50% of student ACT scores from 31-35. Mine would be at the upper end of this, so I don;t believe that I am overestimating my chances. Although I realize that it will still be super competitive, I think that getting a 34 will give me a good chance at getting into at least one of the top schools.

19

I hope you don’t end up in a position like this:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/192395-no-acceptances-one-kids-story-a-year-later-p1.html

20

Trinity College in Hartford. Liberal arts school with a strong engineering program. Also, hefty merit aid potential for someone with your stats