<p>Hey all, I've gotta get a move on regarding applications and I need some input on my list. I'm not really sure how I would rank these schools in terms of match, safety, reach etc, and I also want to take out a handful to bring the number down to about 10-14 at most.</p>
<p>As it stands the list is:
EA mit
RD carnegie mellon
EA georgia tech
caltech
u illinois urbana-champaign
princeton
rensselaer
uchicago
umich
upenn
hopkins
cornell
umd college park
purdue
duke
tufts
bu
nyu
worcester polytech</p>
<p>stats are 2360 first time SAT
800 math 2 & 790 chemistry subject tests (plus more, but lower scores)
GPA 4.4 unweighted /3.9 unweighted (rank 8 weighted/19 unweighted out of 344)
FIRST Robotics for all 4 years, committee chairman for programming & electronics since soph year
NHS
biology student scholars founding member (club that does bio related experiments on a monthly basis)
minimal volunteer hours
only one short term job
ap national scholar
self studying for ap german exam
national merit semifinalist
plus whatever smaller things I might have missed</p>
<p>Ok</p>
<p>What do you want in a school?
How much can you afford per year? Have you run the net price calculators on the school websites?
What state do you live in? UMD, Purdue, UIUC, Umich, and Gtech can be expensive for OOS residents.
What kind of weather do you want?
Do you want to be in a city or rural environment?</p>
<p>I am in NJ, and I don’t really have a preference as to weather. I would like an urban or relatively busy suburban surrounding area. I haven’t run any sort of calculator yet, but I’m pretty sure I will be reasonably ok with costs. </p>
<p>Can you expand on what you mean by what am I looking for? To be honest right now I’m pretty open in terms of the kind of atmosphere I want. I don’t have any kind of preference of large or small or anything like that.</p>
<p>I will be pursuing a major in engineering (not really sure of specifics, likely biochem or biomed) ideally with a second major in computer science. I am considering med school afterwards, but that’s not at all firm right now. </p>
<p>You can EA to tos of schools like Caltech, u of Chicago, u of michigan,rolling to Purdue, ea or rolling to UIUC.</p>
<p>
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<p>Talk to your parents now to get the price limit, and run the net price calculator at each school’s web site so that you won’t be surprised in April to find that you have a bunch of unaffordable acceptances.</p>
<p>As a NJ resident, throw in Rutgers. You may get what is effectively a full ride scholarship, which can be useful in case your parents’ ability to contribute is less than you think it is or is severely diminished for some unexpected reason. Even without, it may be relatively affordable, if your parents are high income but not high ability to contribute a lot to your college costs.</p>
<p>If you really need very low cost safeties, consider the list at <a href=“http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/”>http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/</a> .</p>
<p>If you go to a low cost school, will your parents offer the money saved to medical school costs if you do go?</p>
<p>Your ECs are your weakness for almost all the ivies, uchicago, and caltech.</p>
<p>EA mit It could happen; great in almost everything
RD carnegie mellon it could happen; don’t mention CS to cmu because they’re overloaded with CS apps; great in CS and engg and not much else
EA georgia tech match; ditto
caltech it’s not likely; great in engg and CS
u illinois urbana-champaign safety; great in engg and CS
princeton it’s not likely; great in non-engg and okay in some engg
rensselaer safety; great in engg and good in CS and not much else
uchicago it’s not likely; great in much else but not engg and CS
umich match; great in everything
upenn it’s not likely; great in much else but not so much engg
hopkins match great in bioengg and much else but not CS
cornell match great in everything
umd college park academic safety great in everything STEM
purdue academic safety great in engg and CS but not much else
duke match great in much else but not engg or CS
tufts match great in much else but not egg
bu academic safety not worth a tinker’s damn
nyu academic safety ditto
worcester polyptych academic safety good in engg</p>
<p>I’ll get blowback, but I am being pretty cavalier with my distinctions and I am comparing the schools to each other. On this list, and for your purposes, NYU and BU ain’t worth much compared to the rest. I think if you think there’s zero chance you’ll major outside of STEM, UMD and Purdue can be two good safeties. UMD has some non-STEM strengths, too. A lot like MIT this way, although MIT’s strengths are what they are. I’d put UMD ahead of GT, Illinois, Purdue, Rensselaer, Penn, Princeton, Hopkins, Duke, tufts, BU, NYU, and WPI given the uncertainty of what you want to do but the likelihood it will be STEM.</p>
<p>So I’d drop NYU, BU, Duke, Tufts, Princeton, Penn, Rensselaer, Illinois, WPI, and GT, if you really want to pare this thing down. </p>
<p>Hold on. Okay. I’m in the asbestos barcolounger. Flame On.</p>