Engineering Schools?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I'm a high-school senior (long-time lurker, short-time poster) looking for any advice you can spare about where to apply. My academic strengths lie in math and science and I'll probably major in some kind of engineering undergrad. I've also been looking at medical, law (maybe patent law), economics, and pharmaceutical. Whatever I choose, I intend to pursue a degree past bachelor's.</p>

<p>I'm not quite sure what I want in a college. Those reps manage to put a positive spin on everything and I'm too gullible to sort through the lies. I'm not very religious, I don't really want much of a frat/sorority scene, I feel ambivalent about parties, a small school would be nice but I'm not sure how much I want to limit my options. I'd like to live on campus for all four years ideally too.</p>

<p>Here are my stats:</p>

<p>SAT: 2180
CR: 720
Math: 740
Writing:720
Math 2c:800
Physics (expected):High 700s
Chemistry(expected):Low 700s maybe even high 600s</p>

<p>School: Public
GPA: 4
Rank: 1/400?
I've had a very science heavy schedule, with 18 semesters. I've had math up to linear algebra (calcs 1, 2, 3, and multivariable).</p>

<p>ECs:
I've been in Boy Scouts since 1st grade and now I'm a Life scout. I don't plan on getting Eagle.
I'm involved in many games and their associated clubs: I'm the reigning school scrabble, chess, and connect four champion.
I've also been in science bowl, high five (a TV trivia gameshow), speech and debate, and I founded my school's connect four and bridge clubs.</p>

<p>Recs/Essays:
My Recs will probably be OK (nothing outstanding) and my essays are probably going to be somewhat mediocre.</p>

<p>So... I'm not sure what schools to apply to or what my reaches/matches/safeties will be. I've looked at:</p>

<p>Harvey Mudd College
UC Berkeley
MIT
CalTech</p>

<p>These are all reaches. Can you mention any colleges that have strong engineering/general programs and mesh with what I said above? I'm especially looking for schools that regularly accept people with stats worse than mine. Thanks a bunch!</p>

2

<p>Definitely add Princeton and Stanford to your reach list and add Cornell, Michigan and Northwestern to your match list. All of those schools are excellent in Engineering and all of them have strong Econ programs, good Law and Medical School placement (although Engineering rigor is usually not the way to go) and excellent connections to the Pharmaceutical industry.</p>

<p>Furthermore, if you are interested in Biomedical Engineering, look into Duke and Penn as good match/reaches.</p>

<p>Finally, a good safety for you, assuming you are a California resident, would be UCSD. </p>

<p>Oh, by the way, Harvey Mudd and Cal, although certainly very selective, are not reaches for Valedictorians with 2200 SAT scores.</p>

<p>So, a recap:</p>

<p>REACHES:
CalTech
MIT
Princeton
Stanford</p>

<p>MATCH/REACH:
Cal (if out of state)
Cornell
Duke (if interested in Biomedical Engineering)
Harvey Mudd
Penn (if interested in Biomedical Engineering)</p>

<p>MATCH:
Cal (if in-state)
Michigan-Ann Arbor (safe match)
Northwestern</p>

<p>SAFETY:
UC-San Diego</p>

3

<p>Add Johns Hopkins to MATCH/REACH if interested in Biomed. Eng.</p>

4

<p>I forgot about JHU. Good catch. I would say in the case of the OP, JHU is more of a straight match.</p>

5

<p>Slorg:</p>

<p>Assuming you are a California resident,
UCB: Match (Engineering)</p>

6

<p>other possibilities for biomed engineering:
Case Western
Texas A&M
RPI
Boston U
U Iowa
Arizona St
U Illinois Chicago
Georgia Tech</p>

<p>also have bachelors in biomed eng, perhaps rated somewhat lower than above:
UC Davis
UC Irvine
USC
U Conn
U Miami
Fla State
Tulane
WPI
U Missouri Columbia
Washington U St Louis
Rutgers New Brunswick
Columbia
CUNY
U Rochester (new building, great biomed sciences)
Syracuse
SUNY Stony Brook
Carnegie Mellon
Penn State UP
U Penn
U Pitt
Brown
Vanderbilt
Rice
U Texas Austin
Virginia Tech
Virginia Commonwealth
U Washington
U Wisconsin Madison</p>

7

<p>What makes biomedical engineering so special? It seems rather narrow in focus. Aren't chem and ECE usually better, broader majors?</p>

8

<p>I think all Alexandre was saying is if you want BME, there are schools that are really excellent in that but just okay in other types of engineering. Duke and UPenn are examples. Conversely, some really good engineering schools may not have BME dept. </p>

<p>ChemE is a broader major. Besides pharmaceutical, they can also work for biotech companies provided you take couple biology and biochemical engineering classes (biology is now a required core course for chemE majors at Northwestern) in college. This is because a lot of engineering principles/theories utilized in biotech are borrowed from chemical engineering.</p>

9

<p>JHU would be a match, but not its BiomedE program. Also, keep in mind that UC San Diego is really good for BME too.</p>

10

<p>How good is UW? Strong but not top tier?</p>

11

<p>There is nothing "special" about BME. You mentioned Pharmaceuticals and Medical school, so I threw it in there just in case. Duke and Penn have decent but not great engineering schools, but they are amazing in Biomedical Engineering. So I felt it was worth noting.</p>

<p>As for UDub, I would say it is good but not great in Engineering. As can be expected, it is strong in Aerospace Engineering (Boeing), Biomedical Engineering and Computer Engineering.</p>

<p>If you really like Chemical Engineering, add Wisconsin-Madison to the list of schools you should look into. For you, Wisconsin would practically be a safety.</p>

12

<p>What's Rose-Hulman like?</p>

13

<p>Depends on what you want to do:</p>

<p>Entry into industry is important: undergraduate engineering's ranking is most important. For this, Rose-Hulman, Harvey mudd, etc. would be ideal for this if you want a small school.</p>

<p>Getting into Engineering grad is important: Generally, best if both the school and program are prestigious. Schools like Cornell, MIT, CMU, Princeton caltech etc...</p>

<p>Having an engineering background but not necessarily an engineering career: Renown of the school is more important than the prestige of the engineering program</p>

14

<p>Slorg,
My family visited Rose-Hulman this summer and we were favorably impressed with it. The campus was pretty, with lots of new construction. Because it was summer, there were not a lot of students around, but the students that we did see seemed quite intelligent and personable. Both my kids applied, and just received their acceptances. The application process for them was amazingly simple (they're still working on all their other apps) - FREE online app with no essay requirement, and rolling admissions, so you find out your result fairly quickly. In your case, Rose would be a safety.</p>

15

<p>Northwestern University... If you can take the work! Also, if you want to do law after undergrad, you should look into the honors engineering and law program NU has.</p>

16

<p>"I don't plan on getting Eagle."</p>

<p>Ouch! Ever person i have heard of who has decided not to get eagle has regretted it at some point.</p>

17

<p>rose is great for engineering. well regarded nationally. close to terre haute/Ind St Univ/ off campus fun. not so great for liberal arts environment</p>

18

<p>if you want to know anything about rose, I go there now, so just ask. We are very good for Engineering, since that's all we have. I'm in the BioMedical engineering program and used to be in the Computer Science (worst choice ever), so I know a lot about completly different areas of Rose.</p>

19

<p>Rose-Hulman only has a undergraduate engineering program.</p>

20

<p>According to U.S. News rankings, MIT, Stanford, UC-Berkeley, CIT, University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign, Georgia Tech, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell, and Purdue have the ten best engineering programs.</p>