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That’s his call. You will not find much support for that belief here but it may be relevant to his situation wherever you are located.</p>
<p>Purdue seems like an obvious choice regardless.</p>
<p>I apologize if my post was rude.</p>
<p>For out of state residents and internationals, Michigan is “neck and neck” with Berkeley for selectivity in the department of Engineering. Berkeley gets an edge, but not by much. They are also very comparable as far as undergrad rankings go for Mechanical Engineering. At least they were when my son was applying to both, as a Mechanical Engineering major, two plus years ago (accepted to both but ending up at Cal since we are CA in state). SAT scores is just one component of the admissions process and falling “within range” on the SAT scores can be a little deceiving. My son fell well within range of the SAT scores at MIT, Stanford, and Princeton and was rejected at all of these schools.</p>
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<p>The general ranking tends to be more strongly correlated with admissions selectivity (so that could result in an all-reach application list with high risk of zero acceptances), and also includes schools where engineering is relatively weak or non-existent (e.g. Harvard, Chicago, Dartmouth, Emory).</p>
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<p>For Berkeley *engineering<a href=“which%20is%20generally%20more%20selective%20than%20other%20divisions”>/i</a>, these stats (assuming unweighted GPA) would likely make it a reach, though selectivity does vary by specific engineering major. Note that Berkeley gives stronger weight to high school record than to test scores in admissions.</p>
<p>so he does have a good chance at michigan/berkley/notre dame/vanderbilt/cmu with his sat scores ?</p>
<p>^^^ All reaches. Just my opinion…</p>
<p>I would tweak his list to include some or all of the following schools in total:</p>
<p>Michigan reach
UIllinois match
Purdue match
UWisconsin match
UWashington match
Cal Poly SLO match
OSU match
PSU match
Northeastern match
NC State safety
Arizona State safety</p>
<p>I timed out on my post above…</p>
<p>UTexas would also be a nice option and probably a match.</p>
<p>thanks for everyone’s replies</p>
<p>I guess my question is when you apply to schools, I thought that you apply to admission to that university. At some places like Michigan or Penn State or Berkley, do you apply to gain admission to each specific school such as engineering or business instead of a general admission ?</p>
<p>At UCBerkeley, where my son is a MechE major, you apply to the school of engineering. Ditto for Michigan, Purdue, Illinois, and others. As far as I know business majors at UCB are not accepted into the business school (at UCB it is Haas, at Michigan it is Ross) until after they are enrolled for 1-2 years. I believe some freshmen get accepted into Ross but it is a very elite group.</p>
<p>I see, so it depends on the university. </p>
<p>And why do you say Berkley and Michigan are tough to get in compared to other public schools ?</p>
<p>The last time I checked, Berkeley was the #1 ranked public university in the world and Michigan was just a few places behind Berkeley. There are lots of different criteria as well as ranking organizations (USNWR, Forbes, Businessweek, etc.) but both schools are selective on who gets admitted. At Berkeley it’s about one in four applicants and out-of staters and internationals need to have better stats and resumes than the in-state applicants at BOTH schools.</p>