<p>OP is very specific about her preference, my guess is;</p>
<p>Cooper Union (too techie)
Rice (too far)
Penn state (too big)</p>
<p>A few more choices I can think of, GW, SUNY Binghamton, Villanova.</p>
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<p>lololololololololololol I hope she enjoys her little bubble.</p>
<p>Cooper Union would be a big reach based on her stats</p>
<p><<<Not to poo-poo the suggestions, but she & I have talked about a number of these, and scratched or back-burnered them:</p>
<p>CMU, Lehigh, and UVA (oos) distant reaches <<<</p>
<p>Lehigh is slightly less selective than Bucknell. If Bucknell is a possibility, then Lehigh is certainly within reach.</p>
<p>I wish she would look at Smith. Does she know about the five colleges? If she went to Smith, she could take classes at UMASS, Amherst, Holeyoke and Hampshire. The public transportation is great, so getting around to the different schools is no problem. </p>
<p>But I know how it is…I didn’t want to go to a women’s college either. </p>
<p>We just went to an info session at Northeastern and I was surprised to learn two things about co-op. One, it’s not mandatory although about 90% of students do it and two, some of those students use co-op to study abroad. My son was not sure about Northeastern, inpart because of the co-op but after spending the day there he loves it and wants to do two co-ops! </p>
<p>I’m probably not helping too much, but just wanted to share some info for her to consider.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies!</p>
<p>We should probably give Lehigh, Villanova, Clemson, & Pitt a little more research. Also GW, SUNY Binghamton.</p>
<p>I was thinking Lehigh might be a stretch based on her grades, since 93% of their freshmen were in the top decile of their HS class (vs. 69, 65, and 75 for Bucknell, Lafayette, and Rochester). That makes me think they pay more attention to grades than the others; on the other hand, the others may pay more attention to other legacy status, designer clothes, or other factors that might exclude her. 
Rice and Vanderbilt (which nobody has mentioned yet) are beyond her stats for admission and probably too far from home for her. Cooper Union has a 9% acceptance rateouch!</p>
<p>She/we didnt like the Drexel & Temple areas, but those campuses are in a much more urban setting than other city schools she/we have liked (JHU, CMU, CWRU, and Rochester). So, yes, she lives in a bubble, but its not as small as you might think; it just doesn’t encompass some of the grittier environments that others may tolerate/enjoy. </p>
<p>NC State, Temple, and especially Penn State are too big. She seems to resonate more with the smaller places (but not too small, the Goldilocks scenario at work). If she applies to a 25K school, it will probably be UMD–an excellent in-state option. Pitt and Clemson may be too big, too, but she has Delaware on her list, which is a comparable size, so maybe… </p>
<p>UMBC is on her possible list, but is too close to home. </p>
<p>She is also wrestling with the admissions selectivity of the different schools, in her words not wanting to be either “the smartest or dumbest” student there. (I know, that sounds aweful, but academic rigor may be a legitimate element of “fit” and she is using selectivity as a proxy for that.)</p>
<p>Thanks again, everybody!</p>
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<p>Heres another question: Has anybody else formed personal biases (either favorable or otherwise) about a school based on knowing somebody who graduated from there decades ago? When I first started working, I knew a couple of folks well from one of the schools mentioned and based on my interactions with them, I still view that school as a non-diverse, frat-oriented, heavy-drinking, over-priveleged, preppy school. (In reality, its probably no worse than half the schools on the list!) Im trying not to project my personal biases on my D, but Im sure she picks up the vibe from me .</p>
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<p>Thanks, pug. I tried to get her to consider Smith but NO WAY. No luck with Northeastern, either.</p>
<p>I second Tufts. Small, nurturing, solid engineering but has lots of other good stuff, very supportive environment for female engineers (one of the EE profs is the international chair of the IEEE’s Women In Engineering group). It is a little further away than she would prefer, but not by much.</p>
<p>Marquette? probably too far away but a thought</p>
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<p>Guilty! I recommend RPI all the time because my family has three RPI grads who have very fond memories of the place but they all graduated in the 80s. However, one of them is a woman and I think the fact that she had a good experience 20 years ago does (hopefully) speak well of how they view women.</p>
<p>My bias more often runs towards, “I know two people who graduated from X, I respect neither of them and so X is off the list of consideration.” I keep it to myself, of course, but I have been surprised by how biased I can feel based on just a few people who graduated, at a minimum, ten years ago.</p>
<p>I also know a woman who graduated from RPI 25-ish years ago and had a very good experience there. Met her husband there and now their S attends.</p>
<p>Put us in the bias corner. DH and I have a bias against a particular school based on the “we’re better than you because we went to ABC Univ.” attitude that many students/alums carry around. Neither S would have considered applying to said sch.</p>
<h2>Not interested in girls school (no Smith)</h2>
<p>I can certainly see why she wouldn’t want to study engineering at a girls school, but what’s wrong with a women’s college?</p>
<p>Touche’
I can’t believe I wrote that! [insert blush emoticon here] </p>
<p>OK, how about “institutions of higher education whose discriminatory admissions policies exclude any individual carrying a Y chromosome?”</p>
<p>Case Western is known for offering awesome Merit packages, but I am not sure about GPA=3.4. D got over $25,000 / year two years ago, but went to a different school. Case is also known to be very good (and killer tough) for engineering.</p>
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<p>Case engineering is tough? Maybe that would explain why my S is currently struggling to keep a 3.0 to maintain his merit scholarship there!</p>
<p>Case’s merit money is apparently predictable and is documented in their general bulletin. Sounds like they have to bribe kids to put up with the weather ;)</p>
<p>Top 10% of HS class + 1500 SAT or 35 ACT = Trustees Scholarship (~$27K)
Top 10% + 1400/33 = Presidents (~$22K)
Top 15% + 1300/31 = Provosts (~$17K)</p>
<p>I would think if you qualify for a scholarship, you would probably be accepted with those stats, which is why I think my D has a good chance unless her rank drops next year…</p>
<p>I would say that 3.0 is very good for engineering anywhere, and awesome at Case. But I do not know details of this school. I have no doubt that your D will be accepted, I was not sure about Merit $$. She should apply and see. Good luck!</p>
<p>It seems that many of these posts totally miss what the OP is saying. Dad’s D does NOT want a tech school, so quite a few of these suggestions drop out. Furthermore, while she has strong Math SAT scores, her GPA would make several of the other suggestions reach schools for her. For example, Tufts, Rice, Case Western, Villanova. even TCNJ are very competitive.</p>
<p>I’d suggest adding Merrimack College to the mix as a good match/safety. Merrimack, which has approx 2000 FT students, is located in No Andover, MA. That’s about half an hour north of Boston with commuter train service nearby. The college is set up like a small university with some surprising features, including a 4-year engineering program with degrees in electrical and civil engineering. Also, the campus is very pretty. In the interest of full disclosure, I have taught at Merrimack for many years. But a review of my posts will show that I rarely suggest it unless it’s appropriate to do so, as I think it is in this case.</p>
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<p>That sure makes me feel better about my D’s 3.2 at Santa Clara in engineering (double major biology).</p>
<p>Tufts is a reach but worth the application fee, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Tufts’ engineering school graduates more people than it enrolls. In other words, kids at Tufts transfer INTO engineering, while at other campuses, engineering is so harsh and unappealing that kids line up to transfer OUT. And in the event that your daughter decided that she didn’t like engineering, Tufts has excellent liberal arts offerings.</p>
<p>I also think the University of Maryland at College Park might be a better choice for your daughter than she realizes.</p>
<p>Does your daughter know any students who are currently at UMCP? If so, she might want to talk to them about the size issue. My son went to Maryland (computer science, not engineering), and he didn’t find the feel of it to be overwhelmingly large. UMCP has a lot of special interest programs for freshmen and sophomores that make the campus seem smaller for entering students. With your daughter’s stats, if she got in at all (never a sure thing nowadays at UMCP), she would probably be invited into College Park Scholars, which has multiple programs for people with different interests. The people in each program live together, do some activities together, and take a couple of classes together. It’s a nice introduction to college. (Hint: My son was in Science, Technology, and Society, which had only a few women, none of whom were ever hurting for male company. On the other hand, if your daughter prefers to be in a program where she would have plenty of opportunities to make female friends, she might want to choose something else.) </p>
<p>Also, because your daughter is in-state, she’s would know dozens if not hundreds of people on the UMCP campus at least by sight, which would also make it feel personalized from the very beginning. (My son thought that he would know only the 30 or so people from his high school class who were going to UMCP with him. He forgot about people in the classes above him, people he had met at various jobs, etc. He rarely walked across the campus without having someone say hello.) Attending the huge flagship university of your own state is a very different experience from attending a similar school in another state where you know nobody. </p>
<p>I would also keep Delaware on the list because it’s easier to get into Delaware from out-of-state than to get into UMCP from in-state. My son had a GPA slightly higher than your daughter’s and slightly lower SAT scores, and Delaware offered him a partial merit scholarship! And he wasn’t even the more desirable gender for his major.</p>
<p>Does your daughter really want to study engineering? Or is she just more mathy? Some schools with a separate engineering school (like Cornell, CMU, or Tufts, lets say) makes it hard for students to transfer out after they are admitted to the engineering school. My daughter is also more math and science, but decided to go the A&S route, but majoring in math and econ. It is something to consider if she is not sure about engineering. Columbia comes flat out to say if one wants to transfer from engineering to A&S it’s treated as an external transfer. Cornell doesn’t make it easy either. Before she commits, find out each school’s policy on transfering.</p>