<p>So, I'm approaching senior year and my school requires me to come back with a list of 10 schools to which I plan to apply. I've got a few so far, but these are (of course, remember what website you're on) reaches / high reputation schools. If anyone would be willing to help me with matches / safeties that would be excellent.</p>
<p>Info:
Interest - Engineering (specifically Aerospace and/or Mechanical)
Parents' Income - <$60k / yr, so financial aid and scholarships will be required.
State of Residence - PA
Race - white (possibly relevant to recommendations?)</p>
<p>SAT was a 2330, 800 on Math II (still need to take another SATII). Cumulative GPA was 4.0 through my first three years. My high school is a moderately prestigious boarding school in PA (attendance made possible by financial aid). I've taken a lot of AP courses and done some decent extracurricular stuff (mainly sports) but exhaustively listing all of that would seem to serve no purpose, so I won't unless someone asks.</p>
<p>My "list" so far is (roughly in order)
MIT
Stanford
Cornell
UC Berkeley (though I doubt I would get the aid required since I'm not from California)</p>
<p>Beyond that, Penn and Northwestern seem like good options as well.</p>
<p>Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>These schools are all stretches for anyone. I’d add in a couple along the lines of URochester, Vanderbilt, UMichigan, Purdue, CMU. I’d also consider GA Tech which is not a safety for anyone. Would also consider Penn State for financial reasons. If you do some research, you can find some fine engineering schools where your stats are way above their average and where you could qualify for merit aid.</p>
<p>Thank you, and yes I do realize that. I looked at GA Tech but it seemed like I wouldn’t get enough financial aid, especially since I have a sister a year younger than me also heading for college. That is part of the allure of the stretch schools for me - MIT offers guaranteed 100% need met in the form of grants rather than loans, which is obviously an excellent deal.
I will check out the schools you listed.</p>
<p>You may want to add some admission and financial safety schools as well. I can say from experience that it is nice to have something already in your pocket when all the super-competitive acceptances and financial offerings are taking their sweet time coming in when April rolls around.</p>
<p>Look at University of Alabama, University of Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, University of Florida, University of South Florida, Ohio State.
Good Luck!</p>
<p>A friend of my D got very good merit aid from GA Tech just so you know. She didn’t qualify for financial aid so your situation is different --but the merit package led her to choose GA Tech over two Ivy schools (she also has a sibling a year younger which played into the decision) and she loves it there.</p>