<p>If you’re interested in electrical engineering Michigan is a no-brainer; it’s got one of the very best engineering schools and one of the very best EE programs in the country, and you’re in-state. I think you’re an absolute shoo-in as an in-state resident with those stats.</p>
<p>But if you must look elsewhere, you should concentrate on the handful of schools as good as or better than Michigan in your chosen field. That would be MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UIUC, Caltech, Georgia Tech, and Carnegie Mellon, according to US News. Three of those—UC Berkeley, UIUC, and Georgia Tech—are publics, where frankly I don’t think you’d gain anything appreciable over Michigan, but you’d be paying a lot more for it; so I’d toss those out. MIT, Stanford, and Caltech are among the most selective schools in the country. Your somewhat limited ECs might keep you out of these schools, but it’s worth a shot at 1 or 2 or all 3 of them. Carnegie Mellon is also very selective but not quite as extremely so. Personally I’d take Ann Arbor over Pittsburgh any day, but if you prefer an urban atmosphere or just want to get farther away from home, that might be an option. You won’t get a better education there than at Michigan, but it’s a reasonable alternative. Cooper Union is also interesting; it’s in New York City and it’s tuition-free, but that makes it extremely competitive so it seems like a longshot, but maybe worth a shot. Cornell is another possibility; terrific engineering school, Ivy cachet, not quite as selective as Stanford/MIT/Caltech. US News ranks it just behind Michigan in EE, but very close. I could see reasons to choose it over Michigan. Beyond those schools, though, it seems to me you’d just be paying more to go to a school that’s not as good as Michigan in your chosen field, so why bother? Or even if you got substantial merit awards elsewhere, why settle for something less than you’d get at your in-state public?</p>
<p>I suppose another option if you’re looking for something different would be to apply to one or more LACs that have a 3-2 engineering program with a top engineering school. Bowdoin, Grinnell, Haverford, Oberlin, Pomona, Reed, Wesleyan, and Whitman are some of the schools that have this program with Caltech. It’s a little risky, though, because admission to the LAC doesn’t guarantee admission to the 3/2 program; that decision is made by a Caltech upperclass admissions committee based on your academic achievements and recommendations from your professors at the LAC. It also means an extra year of undergrad to get your engineering degree, but some people prefer being in an intimate small-college atmosphere and calculate it’s worth the risk and the extra time.</p>