I’m completely unaware of what colleges can be considered safeties and reaches for me. I am currently a junior attending a competitive all boys high school (ranked top 10 in the U.S). I’m looking for advice on what colleges I should apply to, and if I’m reaching too far. Here are my stats/extracurriculars/info:
3.99 W GPA (School Doesn’t Report Unweighted & Doesn’t Rank)
By the end of this year it should be a 4.1 due to a strong upward trend since freshman year (All As after freshman year)
1560 SAT
AP/AC(Honor) Classes: AC Geometry, AP ComSci Principles, AP English Lang & Comp, AC Algebra II, AP Macroeconomics, AP U.S Gov & Politics — Senior Year Predicted = AP Physics, AP Lit & Comp, ?AP Calc AB?
Team Captain of JV lacrosse team sophomore year and probably varsity senior year, lacrosse all four years
NHS
High School Aerospace Scholars
Service/Volunteerwork at multiple organizations (Around 175 hours)
Mission/Service Trip to the Texas border for a week to help the people living on the border this summer if I’m (hopefully) accepted into the program
Student Ambassador
I’m a Texas(Houston) resident(Conservative White & Asian Male), but will apply for financial aid/scholarships at private and out of state colleges. I’m looking for advice on my college list along with recommendations (preferably not in Houston, I know about Rice). My intended major is aerospace engineering or mechanical engineering.
Here is my current college list in no particular order since I’m not really aware of where would be considered reaches/safeties. Although I have made sure that my current Weighted GPA is already above the lowest that has been accepted from my school for each of the colleges I list.
University of Colorado at Boulder
Cornell University
University of Michigan
University of Notre Dame
University of Southern California
Stanford University
Texas A&M
University of Texas at Austin
Virginia Tech
My parents are willing to pay up to $30,000 and we haven’t gotten back junior PSAT scores but I’m guessing not unless I got lucky and chose the right answer on 3-4 questions.
Stanford is a reach for everyone. UMich is a reach for OOS students. Cornell will be a reach. Virginia Tech might be a reach for you as an OOS student, unless you get your GPA up.
You might look at the Common Data Sets for the schools that interest you, especially Part C; that may have some information that would be of use to you in estimating your admissions chances. When you look at the statistics for admitted students, be aware that, for those schools which have direct admit to engineering programs, generally the GPAs and standardized test scores of admitted engineering students are higher than for the rest of the admitted student body.
Top mechanical engineering schools
MIT
Georgia Tech
Stanford
Berkeley
Caltech
Michigan
Illinois
Purdue
Cornell
Carnegie Mellon
Top aerospace programs
Caltech
MIT
Stanford
Georgia Tech
Michigan
Purdue
Texas AM
Princeton
Illinois
Texas
From your list :
Safeties : Texas AM, Virginia Tech, Colorado, (60% acceptance)
Match : Michigan, Notre Dame, USC, Texas ( you are instate), (25 to 40% acceptance)
Reach : Stanford, Cornell, (less than 10% acceptance )
Texas AM and Virginia Tech are essentially the same school.
I would not consider Virginia Tech as a safety school for OOS students. A friend who runs a college admissions counseling service spoke this past Spring with an admissions officer from Virginia Tech, who relayed how their office had gotten a directive from their provost to lower the admissions rate. So they did and put all the students whom they would normally have accepted (beyond an elite group of applicants) onto the waiting list — apparently, it was a huge list. In the end, Virginia Tech took a good number of students off the wait list; but if you’re on that list, you just never know.
Aerospace is a tough field to get into, but Houston is where a good chunk of those jobs are located. I think you have a big advantage staying in Texas, because the Texas aerospace companies recruit from UT and Texas A&M.