<p>Could someone tell me if this is a good list for my stats and interest as an engineering major? Also if I have them in the right category.</p>
<p>My SAT is a 2040, 640 CR, 770 M, and 630 W, my SAT IIs, 790 Math 2, 660 Physics. My ACT score is 31.</p>
<p>I have your typical hardworking student extracurriculars, band, MUN, etc. I'm a white male and live in Texas. My class rank is 12/972 and weighted GPA 4.34, not sure how to calculate unweighted.</p>
<p>High Reach:
Rice University
Duke University
Northeastern University</p>
<p>Reach:
University of Virginia
Vanderbilt University
University of Southern California</p>
<p>Low Reach:
Virginia Tech
University of Maryland
Lehigh University
Michigan State University
Clemson University</p>
<p>Match:
Ohio State University
North Carolina State University
Clemson University</p>
<p>Safety:
University of Texas
Texas A&M University
Texas Tech University
University of Alabama</p>
<p>Northeastern and USC are closer to matches, low reaches at the worst. VT, UMD, Lehigh, MSU, and Clemson are closer to matches. Oh, you have Clemson in two categories. A safety has to be absolutely affordable, absolutely some place you would go if all else fails, a place you’re absolutely join got be admitted, and absolutely has your major. UT is a great safety if your family can afford it.</p>
<p>Affordability is the element of your list you haven’t addressed. Have you run the net price calculators for this list? Have you spoken to your parents about what they will provide?</p>
<p>Wow, I guess I was overshooting most of these schools then. For an interest in engineering should there be a preference to which school I go to or do all of them have decent engineering programs?</p>
<p>All are affordable according to the net price calculators, but the Texas schools would be the most affordable without any merit aid from any school.</p>
<p>High Reach:
Rice University
Duke University</p>
<p>Reach:
University of Virginia
Vanderbilt University</p>
<p>Low Reach:
Northeastern University
University of Southern California</p>
<p>Match:
Virginia Tech
University of Maryland
Lehigh University
Michigan State University
Clemson University
Ohio State University
North Carolina State University</p>
<p>Safety:
University of Texas
Texas A&M University
Texas Tech University
University of Alabama</p>
<p>Also, I live in-state for Texas and am top 7% so I get automatic acceptance to all Texas public schools.</p>
<p>You can probably remove Alabama from your list since you are auto-admit in state to TX schools, unless you think you can get merit aid and they’d be comparable cost.
My impression is that it would help you if you narrow it down. No one needs four safeties. One or two safeties that you wouldn’t mind going to, three to five matches that you’d really be happy going to.
Of course, if you’d really be happy at UTx, then don’t both with any other matches - just some reaches.</p>
<p>I would go to the University of Texas over my other safeties, but at Alabama I was told I’d get an automatic full ride merit aid, which is why I kept it as a safety.</p>
<p>What criterion should I look at to narrow down the list? The reason I constructed this list is because all of these schools have merit aid scholarships that I would have a competitive shot at receiving. I’d only go to the University of Texas if I didn’t get a merit scholarship elsewhere because my ultimate goal is to get out of the state of Texas.</p>
<p>That’s a more accurate list. Seldom do students underestimate their own credentials. It’s kind of fun to see yours. Your 770 in M is going to help with the engineering schools where the 1410 might hurt.</p>
<p>I think some of the eng programs are stronger than others, but that’s not to say their, for instance, EE program is stronger. They’re all good engineering programs, and, really, the differences won’t matter. Most engineering curricula in the US are fairly standardized.</p>
<p>You’ve talked to your parents about what they will contribute each year?</p>
<p>It cannot hurt to have 2 safeties in case your app to texas gets lost.</p>
<p>Yeah I’m retaking the ACT in September and SAT in October in hopes of improving either score just a little more because my merit scholarship chances increase drastically with a 32 on my ACT and a 1500 for Math and Reading on the SAT.</p>
<p>My parents only want contribute the cost of tuition + room and board at UT without any scholarships which is about $27000, though I have what would be the equivalent of about $6000 a year in a savings account that I was given in my grandmother’s will. All of the private schools and a few of the public schools will fit into that range of $33000 according to net price calculators and all will fit with about an $8000 to half tuition scholarship. </p>
<p>What statistics should I look at to determine which one’s I want to apply to? My goal is to apply to only around 6-8 schools.</p>
<p>I’d go visit Texas and make sure you want to go there, if you haven’t already. I’m not much on choosing schools according to stats, so then I’d visit the schools you’re most likely to apply to. Visiting those might change your mind about others on the list, moving them up or down in preference. Getting onto campuses this summer could really help focus the list. Reading as much as you can about each to he favorites is a second way to focus a list. Lots of the people in the college fora on CC are knowledgeable about that particular school (many are not), so try to learn what the issues, strengths, and weaknesses are at each of the favorite schools of engineering and their departments. If you have matches on your list, learning about them is probably more important than learning about the reaches. </p>
<p>Yeah I’ve visited Rice, Vanderbilt, USC, UT, A&M, and Texas Tech and then other schools I’ve visited that don’t make the list because they’re way too expensive and don’t give good merit aid are UCLA, UC-Berkeley, and UC-Boulder.</p>
<p>My main interests after having done some research are Rice, Duke, USC, UMCP, Lehigh, NCSU, and UT, but I’d still consider any of the others, but most likely not over UT.</p>
<p>^^ Then I’d go with the UT schools and that list. There is no reason to apply to such an extraordinarily large list if those are your primary interests. I think that is a rather solid list given your range of reaches, matches, and solid fallback of UT schools. You really can go wrong. Plus the UT schools are phenomenal in engineering so I have no doubt in your ability to succeeding there</p>
<p>Thanks! I was just unsure if I was majorly missing something by not applying to some of the other schools because preferably I only want to apply to 5-8 schools and needed to narrow down that large list. </p>
<p>Also, a list of reaches, matches, and safeties doesn’t need to be pyramid based? With the most safeties and the least reaches? Because with the 7 schools I’m interested in I’m at 3 reaches, 3 matches, and 1 safety.</p>
<p>Growing up in Texas sports, especially football has always been a big deal and I love attending games. So all of the schools are D1, that means their will still be plenty of mainstream athletic events(football, baseball, basketball) to attend correct?</p>
<p>As long as your safety is one which you are 100% sure to be admitted, 100% sure to be able to afford, and happy to attend, then you need no other safeties. You can also eliminate any other schools which you would not choose over your safety.</p>
<p>Some students do not have a 100% sure-thing safety like you do, but have a number of almost-safeties which they estimate 90-99% of admission. Such students would need to apply to several such schools to minimize the chance of a shut out.</p>
<p>Note that NCAA Division I for football is divided into the bowl subdivision and the championship subdivision. The bowl subdivision includes the better known schools for football (including those in conferences like the Big XII, Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC, ACC, etc.), while the championship subdivision contains mostly lesser known schools for football like UC Davis, CSU Sacramento, Portland State, Appalachian State, Eastern Washington, Northern Iowa, Youngstown State, Charleston Southern, Richmond, etc. (the exception being the well known Ivy League, although its schools are less well known for football than other things).</p>
<p>If that’s the case I’d choose UT over Alabama since UT has a better engineering program. Someone had just mentioned that I’d automatically qualify for a large merit scholarship at Alabama, but didn’t give any details. Now looking at it, UT is better choice for me.</p>
<p>For the football thing, all play D1 football in the bowl subdivision, except Lehigh? Not completely sure there.</p>
<p>So with the schools I’d be interested in going to over UT, after researching them, my list looks as follows, with the schools ranked in order of preference:</p>
<p>Reach:
USC
Rice
Duke</p>
<p>Match:
UMCP
NCSU
Lehigh</p>
<p>Safety:
UT</p>
<p>And then my list of all the schools based on preference without merit scholarships is:</p>
<p>Where are you getting the info on merit scholarships for those schools? NCSU does not give much out in merit aid. The Park Scholarship is very competitive and major impact on your community is a key factor in the award. You don’t mention anything specific about community action. I don’t know about the others, but in am familiar with that one.</p>
<p>I didn’t see originally that he had them listed under both with and without merit aid. That makes sense. I was wondering if he thought State had guaranteed merit scholarships.</p>
<p>My main goal is to apply to schools that have merit awards available even if they’re competitive on the same level as the UT 40 Acres Scholarship. Also both NCSU and UMCP have low OOS tuition costs in comparison to other schools and any small amount of merit scholarships bringing them closer to $30000 and I’d definitely choose them. What’s considered community impact?</p>
<p>I’ve started the ApplyTexas essay since that has the earliest deadline(October 15th), but I hope to have them all done before the Summer is over.</p>