Engineering Major. College Suggestions???

College Search & Selection
1

Greetings! I am a rising senior and I will eventually be applying to schools at the fall. However, there are so many options and I have yet to come to a decision as to which schools I should apply to. If you know from my previous posts, I have listed what colleges I want to apply to, but I’ve been told by many folks that college X is a lot better/worse than college Y. And also, I feel that my college list is too much, and I want to narrow it down. So far, UMass Amherst is my safety school and I live in MA (in-state tuition).

Furthermore, since the SAT plays a big role in a student’s college application, my goal is to get above a 2000. Right now, I’m practicing and I’m around the 1800s. I’m still planning on improving (no, I’m not planning on taking the ACT). I want to look at colleges that have the SAT requirement range from a 1900-2100. Nothing like MIT where they need a 2400 haha.
I’m also going to take the SAT Subject Tests later this fall (Math Level II and Physics).

Here’s my list:
-NYU Poly
-Northeastern College of Engineering
-Stony Brook University College of Engineering
-University of Buffalo School of Engineering
-WPI
-UMass Amherst College of Engineering
-UConn School of Engineering
-RPI
-Rochester Institute of Technology

Of all these colleges, which ones should I consider and apply to, and which ones should I just cross off and not even consider it. I really like NYU Poly since it’s in Brooklyn, NYC, but people have been saying that its just terribly expensive and that their financial is terrible. The same applies to Northeastern since it’s expensive, but I kind of want to apply there since its in Boston and its close to home. I absolutely LOVE WPI! Their engineering program and the location is absolutely ideal for me and its close to home. The only problem is the expense (sort of like every college xD). UMass Amherst is a must (in-state tuition). And for UConn, my uncle suggested it, but how’s is their engineering program? And what about the cost. My uncle’s friends’s son got accepted with an granted offer of in-state tuition, even though he lives in MA. RPI, I’ve been getting their mail and e-mails, and it’s probably around the top 10 best in NY state. However, its been criticized heavily about the town and its expense. As for the rest, I just googled them and thought they were fairly reachable, but still expensive (lol).

Some friends of mine suggested BU and Stevens Institute. What do you guys think? What 5 schools should I apply to?

PS: If you find any grammar mistakes, please don’t mention them, I had only 6 minutes to finish this.

PSS: My goal for critical reading is to get a 660, math: 800, and writing: 760. Since CR is my weakest part of the SAT, does it matter if my CR score is at the 25th percentile and the M/W are at or above the 75th percentile? Would they weight my SAT II’s more than my SAT I? I don’t want to be a writer or whatnot lol, I want to be an engineer. Engineers need to have more knowledge of solving an equation rather than finding the main idea/tone of a book xD.

PSSS: I know I already made the same exact post before, but not a lot of people responded :stuck_out_tongue:

2

I would add Drexel University to that list. Similar to a Northeastern but they really put a lot of emphasis on their engineering department. They are generous with merit aid and grants so don’t panic at the sticker price. If you like a city environment with a student vibe (next to UPenn) then you would be happy. Most students do the 5 year 3 co op program and the average co op pays 17k for engineers. Good luck!

3

@Westnovasalle Thanks so much! Are there any colleges I should cross off? I have a long list of colleges, and the application fee would probably be costing around $550 which A LOT

4

Someone also told me yesterday about Penn State University Park. How’s the location and the engineering school?

5

Eyyy that’s where I go!

If you don’t want to pay the out of state tuition, cross it off your list straightaway. But if that’s not a problem–

UP is located in State College, PA, also known as “the middle of nowhere.” However, with 40k students on campus, there’s never a lack of things to do. I volunteer at the local animal shelter and am going to be an officer of the book club this year, in addition to being a member of SWE. The engineering program is highly respected and places lots of engineers into jobs every year. You don’t mention your GPA, but PSU places high emphasis on that, as well as decent test scores. You can look up the Common Data Set for any school to see how you stack up. If your GPA is high, consider applying for the honors college, Schreyer. They don’t look at test scores, afaik. We get perks like early registration and quiet honors housing.

6

All the schools you list are ABET accredited so they would all be fine for engineering. http://main.abet.org/aps/Accreditedprogramsearch.aspx The real question is how much can your family pay. NYU Poly and Penn State will be very expensive OOS. There are some schools which aren’t very expensive overall for OOS students - the SUNYs like Stony Brook and Buffalo among them.