Originally I was in debating between mechanical engineering and computer science, so I built my list of potential colleges leaning towards computer science. Now that I’ve decided on mechanical engineering, I need to reorganize my list and I’m feeling some pressure since I’ve just begun my senior year. One thing is that I’ve had an issue with is finding good match and safety schools. My parents are kind of lost in the stats of admissions, I feel like they are pushing me to go out of my realistic range for schools and I really don’t want to sacrifice a potential match for an unreachable reach or overestimate myself. Money isn’t too much of an issue. I don’t think that race really matters but I’ll tell you guys anyways, I’m half Asian and half White.
SAT: 750 math; 770 erw
GPA (unweighted): 3.98
AP’s (Junior Year): English Language (5), US History (5), Spanish Language (5), Computer Science A (5), Physics 1 (4)
Senior Classes: AP Eng Lit, AP Spanish Lit, AP Physics 2, AP Psych, AP Comp Sci Principles, AP Calc AB, honors econ/AP Gov
EC’s: Varsity Cross Country Captain, Varsity Track, Robotics Club
Volunteering is probably my weakest area, I only have 40ish hours now.
I plan on taking the Math 2 and Physics Subject Tests in October.
So here’s my broad list as of now (I want to end up applying to 7-9 schools)
Carnegie Mellon (Reach)
Cornell (Reach)
Northwestern (Reach)
UC Berkeley (Reach)
UCLA (Target)
Georgia Tech (Target)
UVA (Target)
Purdue (Target)
U Maryland College Park (Safe)
U Washington Seattle (Safe)
U Texas Austin (Safe)
UF (Safe; in-state school)
One thing that worries me about the California schools is the SAT essay requirement. I bombed my first two essays and I messed up by not completing the sign up for the August test. The way my schedule works out, I can only take it in December, which is right on the edge (or maybe over it).
Georgia Tech is a reach for OOS students. I don’t know that I would consider UCLA as a match (presumably that’s what your use of “target” means) for an OOS student; nor would I consider your “safe” schools as such, except for UF.
Thanks for the reply, would you recommend that I look at more in-state schools for safe schools? Florida doesn’t really have the best engineering programs. As far as tuition is concerned, I’m pretty sure that I would be covered, but knowing that there is no financial aid kind of lowers them on my list.
@taverngirl I looked into WPI and Stevens and they both look awesome. I really like the location of Stevens too. I guess I missed out on these schools because of the rankings thing.
@ucbalumnus I am pretty sure that my parents can cover the list price, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to save money. I’m in the process of creating a spreadsheet with info on each college, but I haven’t gotten around to doing the net price calculator on them yet.
@Alexandre the reason why I was attracted to UDub was it’s location, so I might still keep it there. I’ll probably cut Maryland out and I’ll do some more research on michigan and wisconsin-madison. What do you think about going 4 reache, 2-3 target, 2 safe?
In my opinion, you should have 2-3 reaches and 4-5 matches. You might think about adding Auburn, Clemson, University of Cincinnati, Pitt, and The Ohio State University to your list of schools to consider.
Also, have you actually visited any of the schools on your list in order to get a feel whether you even like the campus and student body? If not, then you should try to do so if possible; it might inform your application decisions. There is a wide range of “feel” in the campuses you have listed.
Finally, don’t get hung up over only applying to “highly ranked” schools. You can go to a highly ranked school, and if you hate being there, the high ranking isn’t going to do much for you. What you get out of a college education is probably about 20% due to the school and 80% due to the student, anyway.
I think you are one of the cases that it is going to be very difficult for you to beat your instate flagship (UFlorida) as an option. Are you eligible for Bright Futures? If you are, your COA would be around $15k/year. Are any on the lists above worth $40-60k more per year? I am assuming you are eligible for little to no FA. If you can get FA from some of the privates (Cornell, CMellon, etc), that is a different story. If I were you and wanted some more options, I would go and chase big merit aid as reaches. I don’t think any of the schools on your list fit that category. That is more like USC, Vandy, WashU, etc.
Mechanical Engineering has an acceptance rate under 10% at both UCs on your list. I would think both of those are reaches. A more affordable California school for an OOS student with an excellent reputation for engineering is Cal Poly SLO. It’s more stats based for admissions, so you probably have a better chance there, although I think their acceptance rate for ME is a little over 10%, so tough there too. UF sounds like a really good option, especially if you plan to continue living in Florida after graduation.
@gandalf78 I’ve visited UF, Carnegie, Cornell, and UVA. UVA wasn’t my favorite, I’d rather go to a more modern looking school. UF is cool and has a pretty active campus and good sports teams, but Gainesville is pretty much made of UF and I would like to live in a place that isn’t defined by the university. Carnegie was probably my favorite. It was kind of hard to get a feel for how “big” the universities were because most people were gone for summer vacation. I guess the reason why I’ve based a lot of my list off of rankings is that I didn’t really have one or two schools or school types that I was set on. I’m not too worried about the school size because you can pretty much make a large school feel small since you usually interact with 100 people or so. Although, this wouldn’t change where I apply to, I would love to run XC in college. The only schools that I would have a chance running for would be the D3 schools. Another thing that I should look into is studies outside of tech stuff. I’m interested in continuing learning spanish, maybe as a minor or just taking some classes.
@Eeyore123 I would be eligible for the Bright Futures scholarship if I got 50ish more volunteer hours. According to their website, the deadline for submitting a financial aid application is Aug 31 after graduation. It would save me a lot of money. I don’t plan on living in Florida after school. I’m not tied to the state since I’ve only spent 4 years of my life here. If I did go to UF, the money that I would save would probably go into some type of master’s degree later. I really want to work after undergrad so I would think that what undergrad school I go to matters. I’m not really sure that I want to go into graduate school, although for mechanical engineering it’s probably inevitable and I might change my mind later.
@youcee Yea, I think that I might cut both UCs in favor of other reaches.
If you want a place with a modern feel and is near a big city then look into UCF. They would be a good safety school and their engineering program is considered on par with UF and some say it is even better because of internship opportunities (keep in mid that the school was originally made to be a feeder for NASA and still is). Though it UCF lacks the obvious “prestige name” of UF keep in mid that the school nationally is considered to be a major up-and-coming university so your degree will only grow in value over time.