Maybe look at CMU as well, if he wants to remain in the Northeast. They do separate admissions for CS, engineering and Arts and Sciences and ask the student to pick a first choice school, which may not match his needs to explore science and engineering though.
I think Cornell and U of Penn beat Harvard for most engineering fields, but again he will have to choose engineering versus Arts and Sciences for those two schools. Harvard and MIT admit to the school as a whole, which may be a better match for your son. Harvard is strong in chemistry, physics and math if he is leaning that way, but Cornell is strong in all the sciences as well as a very top engineering college. Harvard is more of an LAC with some of the best math and physics programs, very competitive in the physical sciences.
Other ideas–
Case Western is very similar to U of Rochester, medium sized, well ranked and lets a student change majors readily between engineering and Arts and sciences.
I like Lehigh the best for engineering among Bucknell, Lafayette and Lehigh, which are all similar LACs with good engineering, Lehigh has a slight edge in my mind.
I think WPI is almost a safety, for his stats, and more hands on like RIT. If he needs merit, then the 800 on the SAT math will help a lot for merit at RPI, CWRU, WPI, and RIT.
What did he think about the schools when he visited them? what spark came from each one of those places?
Also these are 2 distinct types of schools at a variety of levels - does he want to go to tech only school RIT (ie) with only techie kids - or a small university with kids in other majors - URochester
This answer is usually very black and white when carefully thought about
@Coloradomama while often compared to Lehigh likely owing to their belonging to the Patriot League and, in Lafayette’s case, the long standing rivalry, Lafayette and Bucknell are true liberal arts colleges and are considerably smaller than Lehigh which is a University. As such a direct comparison between them is somewhat apples to oranges. That said, I agree that Lehigh is very strong in engineering. Full disclosure, my kid is a chem engineering major at Laf.
He is all over the map with schools and really felt comfortable at each of these for different reasons. All of these schools have engineering programs hence why they are on the list. Thanks for your input everyone.
My two cents: excellent list, well balanced. As noted, about 1/2 the schools are more liberal arts (with great science/engineering) and 1/2 are STEM, which is fine. He may very well find different things appeal to him by next spring, and one of the halves may suddenly look better than the other. So you’ll be all set.
We personally loved WPI. We did not know much about it but were blown away by the campus and especially the students. To us, great size, interesting program, great vibe. It also is strong in music . . . go figure.
I also was really impressed by Rochester. Others terrific as well.
Good list. I’d add Case as an extra match but that’s about it.
Make sure he applies to honors at UConn.
Run the NPC on every college and make sure it looks affordable.