<p>I'm a high school junior from MA, thinking about becoming an engineer. I'm either going to major in Computer Science or Chemical Engineering. I'm looking all around the country, but I'd have to have a pretty good reason to go too far outside the northeast/east coast. Here are my stats:
GPA: 3.8 UW
SAT: 2260 (760 M, 720 CR, 780 W)
800 Math II, will take Chem
APs: Junior English, Chemistry, Calculus AB, pretty much everything else honors that can be
Senior Schedule: AP Physics C, AP Senior English, Concert Band, AP Stats or Micro, and 3 classes at my local (well regarded) LA college, probably Linear Algebra, Multivariable Calc, and Computer Science I.
- Made Chem Olympiad national exam (one of 13 kids in western MA and CT)
- Applied to SSP, but I probably won't get in, if I don't, summer class at community college this summer
- 3 years of school band (trumpet)
- 3 years of district band
- 2 years of all state band
- 2 years youth orchestra outside school
- Local yoyo team, we do yoyo demos around the area for kids
- Debate club founding member
- National Honors Society </p>
<p>Don't think I'm forgetting anything big. Given that, here's what I've been looking at, in no particular order:
MIT
Cornell
Tufts
UPenn
Swarthmore
Carnegie Mellon
Harvey Mudd
Stanford
UCs (Berkeley, LA? SD?)
UT Austin
Michigan
Wisconsin - Madison
Trinity
NYU
Northwestern
Rice
UMass Amherst?</p>
<p>As you can see, I'm a bit heavy on schools that are extremely hard to get into... What I'm looking for is a few more colleges that are matches, as well as a good safety school (I would rather not go to college so close to home at UMass). And are these reasonable schools to look at, or do I need to totally refocus?
Thanks for the help!</p>
<p>Rose Hulman, Case Western</p>
<p>What is your budget?</p>
<p>You have a lot of OOS publics that will expect you to pay.</p>
<p>UM Amherst does appear to have a much higher reputation for CS than in general. Keep it on your list.</p>
<p>Most out of state publics won’t give much financial aid (or may give some, but only up to the amount that they would give in state students, leaving you to pay the full out of state supplement on the tuition). Virginia and North Carolina are said to be exceptions (but North Carolina does not have engineering, although it does have computer science).</p>
<p>Less expensive (list price) schools include Minnesota (one of the highest reputation schools for chemical engineering while also being good for computer science), Virginia Tech, North Carolina State, and SUNY schools.</p>
<p>You can check the accreditation listings at [ABET</a> -](<a href=“http://www.abet.org%5DABET”>http://www.abet.org) for schools with chemical engineering. For CS, ABET accreditation indicates meeting a decently high minimum standard, although some non-ABET-accredited computer science major programs are good (e.g. Stanford, Berkeley L&S CS).</p>
<p>Make sure that you have some solid safeties (admissions, cost, and desirability of attending).</p>
<p>I’m not sure about CS or ChemE (as my son is looking for BME, same age as you), but here are some suggestions to look into:</p>
<p>University of Maryland has highly rated engineering; we were impressed with engineering info session. Lots of research opportunities in the area.</p>
<p>University of Delaware, a safety for you, has excellent chemical engineering (with support from Dupont). You would likely get into honors and get merit aid. It’s public, but 70% out of state.</p>
<p>Other privates to consider: Lehigh, Lafayette, Bucknell. But note that Lehigh will WL you if they think you are overqualified and using it as a safety.</p>
<p>Your list can get out of hand. Are you focusing on size or location at all? City or suburban? That could help you narrow it down.</p>
<p>RPI, Purdue and any other big 10 research university. Case Western also.</p>
<p>Cost wise, things are up in the air. My family is receiving a very sizable inheritance this year, so I may not get any financial aid at all. Some of the publics (Madison) might end up being cheaper or the same price as some of the privates that might be inclined to give more aid normally.
As far as size goes, I like the idea of a medium to large school. Small schools are okay, but when I visited Hamilton I just didn’t feel like it was a good fit because it was so small.
I’m definitely looking into the suggestions I’ve gotten, thanks! In general, do you guys think it’s reasonable to apply to a bunch of those reach schools? Do I have at least a decent shot of getting into some of them?</p>
<p>Figure out your safeties first. These are schools which you will certainly get admitted to, you will certainly be able to afford, and which you will like to attend.</p>
<p>Do not make the mistake of not having any safeties, resulting in the likelihood of coming back here next April wondering what to do after:</p>
<ul>
<li>Not getting into any school that you applied to.</li>
<li>Getting into a few schools that you cannot afford.</li>
<li>Getting into a few schools that you do not really like.</li>
</ul>
<p>After you figure out your safeties, then you can add any number of other schools to your application list.</p>
<p>One other thing to consider is that some schools may admit by major, so popular majors may be more selective than the school generally is. In many of these cases, an already enrolled student who wants to change major into a popular major may need to apply to do so with a high (college) GPA.</p>
<p>I’m going to second the suggestion of Delaware, as it has a top ten chemical engineering program. Additionally, I inexplicably landed a full ride scholarship from there with a decidedly less impressive resume than yours, so you might be able to do the same if cost is an issue.</p>