Creating a good college list for Engineering

<p>I'm interested in studying aerospace or mechanical engineering and i think i would like a school with a co-op program, but i'm not sure if want to go to a "Techy" school. I have a 4.2 weighted gpa with a 2020 sat 1 (plan on retaking in october) and a bunch of APS, and i think i have a shot at some good schools. but I've also heard that engineering at the Ivies isn't that good. </p>

<p>Some schools I'm considering:</p>

<ul>
<li>Case Western</li>
<li>U of Rochester</li>
<li>Rochester Inst of Tech</li>
<li>Syracuse U</li>
<li>Purdue </li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>U Penn</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>RPI</li>
<li>Northeastern</li>
</ul>

<p>Anyone have any advice or other schools I should consider?</p>

<p>What is your unweighted GPA, class rank, and ethnicity?
Those all play a factor in college admissions.</p>

<p>Do you have extracurricular activites?</p>

<p>You are correct; Ivy Leagues, for the most part, are not strong at engineering.</p>

<p>Not completely sure how to do my unweighted gpa, but without giving more points for my ap and honors classes i think it should be very close to a 4. </p>

<p>My school doesn't tell us class rank, but I think I should be around the top 5 % in a class of 300. </p>

<p>Race = white</p>

<p>EC:
-Golf team
-Jazz Band (trumpet)
-Concert Band
-Science Olympiad - secretary (if that counts for leadership)
-help kids with homework at the library
-internship at northeastern last summer in mechanical engineering
-3rd place in the Massachusetts state science fair 2 years ago
-national honor society</p>

<p>Meeeeechigan, on the reach end - very strong in aerospace and mechanical. Cal Poly SLO and Georgia Tech as well, if you don't mind a bit techier student body.</p>

<p>Engineering at Ivies- Cornell and Princeton have strong programs in engineering</p>

<p>Undergraduate engineering specialties:
Aerospace / Aeronautical / Astronautical
(At schools whose highest degree is a doctorate)
Methodology<br>
1 Massachusetts Inst. of Technology<br>
2 Georgia Institute of Technology *
3 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor *
4 Stanford University (CA)
5 California Institute of Technology<br>
6 Purdue Univ.–West Lafayette (IN)*
6 U. of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign *
8 Princeton University (NJ)
9 University of Texas–Austin *
10 Cornell University (NY)
10 Univ. of Maryland–College Park *
12 Texas A&M Univ.–College Station *
13 Pennsylvania State U.–University Park *
14 Virginia Tech *
15 University of Washington *
16 Univ. of California–Los Angeles *
16 Univ. of Southern California<br>
16 University of Colorado–Boulder *
* denotes a public school.</p>

<p>Undergraduate engineering specialties:
Mechanical
(At schools whose highest degree is a doctorate)
Methodology<br>
1 Massachusetts Inst. of Technology<br>
2 Stanford University (CA)
3 University of California–Berkeley *
4 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor *
5 U. of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign *
6 Georgia Institute of Technology *
7 Purdue Univ.–West Lafayette (IN)*
8 Cornell University (NY)
9 California Institute of Technology<br>
10 Carnegie Mellon University (PA)
11 University of Texas–Austin *
12 Pennsylvania State U.–University Park *
13 Princeton University (NJ)
14 Virginia Tech *
15 Texas A&M Univ.–College Station *
16 Univ. of Minnesota–Twin Cities *
17 Northwestern University (IL)
18 Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst. (NY)
19 Univ. of Wisconsin–Madison *
20 Johns Hopkins University (MD)
21 Ohio State University–Columbus *
22 Lehigh University (PA)
22 Michigan Technological University *
22 Univ. of California–San Diego *
22 Univ. of California–Santa Barbara *
* denotes a public school.</p>

<p>I thought Princeton and Cornell didn't even have an aerospace engineering major.</p>

<p>You should also definitely consider Stanford.</p>

<p>Berkley (did someone say this already?) Theres also olin college. Don't know too much about this college but i heard its good for engineering. I heard its even more hands on than MIT. Coulumbia Fu? Cooper union? Harvey mudd Pomona etc.</p>

<p>Uof Rochester is a good school but not known for engineering.
Penn State is a good choice.</p>

<p>University of Notre Dame--excellent alum base for future job ops!</p>

<p>I think I want to go somewhere in the suburbs or with easy access to a city and I don't think I want to go to a huge state school like michigan or penn state. For size I would be looking for about 5,000-15,000 undergrads. </p>

<p>and a co-op program would be a huge plus.</p>

<p>Northeastern and Drexel are famous for coop. I think that RPI has a program also. Look at Olin. Tuition is free, and they work closely with industry, so it it is a lot like coop. But, it is tiny and very hard to get into. I think that your list is good.</p>

<p>RIT has co-ops, but they are required and may be too time consuming if you think you're going to want a graduate degree. RIT is on the quarter system. If I remember correctly, it requires 5 co-ops for engineering. S considers this a negative. </p>

<p>The schedules for each major show how many co-ops are required and when they are usually done. It takes 5 years to get a 4 year degree at RIT because of the co-ops. However, you can get a masters in 5 years and take a couple less co-ops. But you need to apply for this and have a very good gpa (3.4 I think). </p>

<p>Recently an IE student there interviewed for co-ops before he needed to just to see if he could get one and got offered 3. One was at an international corp on the design team of a project. They don't just have local co-ops where you file papers. </p>

<p>A lot of big name corps interview at RIT.</p>

<p>"I think I want to go somewhere in the suburbs or with easy access to a city and I don't think I want to go to a huge state school like michigan or penn state. For size I would be looking for about 5,000-15,000 undergrads."</p>

<p>That size constricts you a bit and even rules out a big bunch of the schools on your original list (just from personal knowledge, Purdue, Caltech and MIT all would be excluded on size alone). How certain are you of that range?</p>

<p>Someone mentioned Olin, which is arguably the most selective engineering school in the country, but falls far short of your size criterion at 300 students.</p>

<p>I'll second the Mudd recommendation. Size initially appears small at 700ish, but when the populations of the contiguous (and cross-enrolling) members of the claremont consortium are added in, you get very close to the 5000 lower limit that you threw out. Also in the suburbs and easily accessible from one of LA's secondary (i.e., uncrowded) airports. Like others on your list, it would be a bit of a reach even with another couple hundred points on your SAT retake though.</p>

<p>Finally, don't forget the SAT II subject tests. Chart out which subjects are required for your most likely schools.</p>

<p>If you want to avoid huge schools, your list would look like this...:</p>

<p>SAFETIES:
-Case Western
-RPI
-RIT
-Northeastern</p>

<p>LOW MATCH:
-Syracuse</p>

<p>MATCHES:
-U Rochester
-Harvey Mudd</p>

<p>REACHES:
-MIT
-Caltech
-UPenn
-Cornell
-JHU</p>

<p>All are below 13,000 undergrad. I think it's a good mix of schools. You should be fine.</p>

<p>Any medium sized school would be fine, it doesn't have to be in that specific range. So MIT would stay on the list. I'm still debating on Caltech because right now the size seems to be the only negative. And size isn't the most important thing for me, but I would much rather have it be too big than too small. Penn State might also be a good school so I think I'll look into that more. Michigan might also be good too but I'm looking at schools in the Northeast as well as where my relatives are (Indiana, California, Florida). </p>

<p>Subject Tests: Math 2=780; World History= 770; Physics = 760</p>

<p>Thanks for all the help:)</p>

<p>Could anyone suggest any high matches? </p>

<p>And would Case western and northeastern really be safeties?</p>

<p>With those SAT II scores, if you can get your SAT close to 2300, Mudd would likely be a high match to a reach for a white male. </p>

<p>In my son's case (last year), he had Mudd, MIT, CalTech, and Olin as his low to high reaches, roughly in that order, and got into the first two of them. Cornell was the only other school on your list that he applied to, and it was among his matches/safeties.</p>