The good science jobs may require or strongly prefer a PhD, rather than MA/MS.
But also, there may be an oversupply in the PhD job market: Education: The PhD factory | Nature (from 2011)
I know a freshman at Purdue with similar stats, albeit 50 pt lower SAT, and quite strong ECs. Denied at GaTech.
Not sure why he is taking the ACT. SATās look fine.
His ECās look pretty good to me too, though I cannot tell how long he has been doing some of the community service. Helping the local business with product and website design sounds interesting. He sounds like a likable, well-rounded, smart kid.
You may fall on the side of underestimating chances rather than overestimating.
I hope he does not apply to too many schools. Applications are stressful and time-consuming. My kids were pretty successful with admissions and did essays late in the game, but that is because they only applied to 4-6 schools. That freed up the fall for normal life, academic and otherwise.
If he is willing to go to the Northeast there are many possibilities: Olin, which someone mentioned, is a really special, small, project-based engineering school that is as selective as MIT, in Needham MA. It is right next to Babson, a business college, and Olin students can do entrepreneurial studies there. I think there is also a consortium with Wellesley, not sure.
Tufts, WPI, RPI, U. of Rochester all come to mind as well. But then again, I just suggested keeping the number of applications down 
and the MI schools sound like great options.
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I donāt have any specific insight into your sonās chances, but wanted to chime in with a big ādonāt worryā. So far as I can tell, and despite all the angst, the top kids at our local high school are going to the kinds of schools you would expect (we are in MA) - Cornell, Columbia, MIT, Brown, Tufts, UCLA, Northwestern etc. While the specific schools vary year to year (for some reason a lot of CA this year) for the most part kids in the top 10-15% of the class are going to the same excellent colleges as they do every year. Your son sounds great and should get many acceptances!
Not sure what the #s mean, but hereās my take- as your son is very strong. Donāt make the mistake that resume padding works - it doesnāt. What they want is a great activity or two where you go in depth and you have that with robotics. Well I guess 1 = safety, 3 = stretch:
Michigan - if youāre in state, slight reach probably right.
MSU - safety
Purdue - safety to target - my son got in with lower scores, only Calc AB, and got $10K. His friend had a 36 ACT and didnāt get a scholarship. My son attended a week long camp and that might have helped.
UIUC - safety to target - yes, itās tough - but itās not your son #s tough.
Rose-Hulman - Iād say safety - very good school, but youāre easily in.
University of Pittsburgh - safety, very good school, but not a hard admit.
Case Western Reserve 2 - thatās right.
Wisconsin - safety
CMU - a stretch for all.
You can pay - but do you want to pay? You may look at Alabama - yes, it lacks pedigree but itās facilities are new, first rate, kids get jobs and theyāre stealing kids from the midwest and NE with their aggressive merit and top facilities. My son goes there - is interning now at a major auto OEM in MS - with kids from GA Tech.
Where you pay additional for engineering at other schools, Bama pays you $2500 a year extra.
ASU - with Barrett Honors. U of Az has solid engineering, gorgeous Honors dorm, and itād be cheap.
UMN has good scholarships.
I donāt see why you couldnāt throw a flyer at WUSTL, an IVY or Northwestern/Vandy type if interested.
Good luck
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You have to realize - you have kids like your son applying to 8 schools - all Ivy level, Duke, etc.
Your sonās GPA, rigor, test scores are exceptional.
You are smart to put in safeties, targets, and reaches.
Schools like Pitt, Michigan State, Iād argue even Purdue - are a slam dunk.
In fact, Iād argue that your son is closer to a stretch but a Pitt, Rose-Hulman, Michigan State are very nice fall backs.
I think youāre in good shape.
This is a good list, but I would say that UW for OOS students isnāt a safety. Maybe a match or low match, but not quite safe.
Michigan State, RH, and maybe Pitt are safe.
Regardless, he should have good options.
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Curiocity, we did not go full Tiger Parents on test prep. He took two practice SATs at home under time pressure to become familiar with the exams, and had a tutor review questions with him. The first time he took the test he made stupid mistakes like leaving questions unanswered. The second time he scored a 710 math and 770 language, which was not a strong math score for someone who plans to apply to STEM programs. Interestingly, he had the most trouble with the math-with calculator portion of the exam (which his tutor said was oddly common for kids a with strong math aptitude). Our son sees things in black and white, and the tutor needed to help him see the nuance in unclear questions and not become frustrated at the lack of clarity. The tutor worked with him on common problems he would see on the exam, and their work paid off.
For the ACT we plan to have him take a full practice test under time, and then focus on the science section, assuming he does well on the math and language.
He has not been taking any AP review classes, but his tutor has been working with him on AP questions that often are not covered in school. His Physics and Calc teachers have also focused on typical AP questions in class. Due to COVID and remote classes in the Fall they did not cover electricity/magnetism in physics, though the teacher made material available via Google Classroom. He took a past multiple choice portion of the AP Physics test and scored an 85% (according to the teacher 65% is a 5). Jack is one of two Juniors in his AP Physics class and his HS releases Seniors two weeks early, so he will have two weeks practically one-on-one with his teacher reviewing for the AP exam. So he has that going for him, which is nice (name that movie.) Iām not sure if he has the same situation in AP Calc.
Tsbna44, thanks for the upbeat assessment. I have seen too many stories, however, about students with better credentials than Jack getting rejected by schools that a few years ago would have been slam dunks to get complacent.
Interestingly, I have a friend from undergrad who manages the facilities at Bryn Mawr and deals with the faculty and staff there all the time. His advice is that schools are hurting now and would love to have a student with strong credentials whose parents can foot the bill. He told me to apply to big name schools like Duke and Cornell. I think he is missing the fact that those prestigious schools have record applications and can be extremely selective. Second and third tier schools that have seen applications drop might be desperate, but not the top schools. That said, we might add Northwestern to the list as a reach (two of Jackās grandparents, his aunt and cousin all went there).
Again, I donāt know what to believe.
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That all sounds good! If heās been doing well in AP Calc all year, he should be pretty well prepared for that exam, which could help him place out of college calculus. All Iām saying is if he takes that practice ACT and gets the feeling itās not the test for him, he has little to lose by walking away since his SAT superscore is already superb.
The timing for the ACT English section isnāt too bad, and since heās strong in Math hopefully that will feel ok too. The second half of the ACT is a speed race for even the strongest students.
On Science, students have 5 min 45 seconds for each of six passages (6-7 questions each). He should go straight to the graphs/data tables and identify whether given variables trend together (directly) or inversely, then immediately move to the questions. Reading the text is not a good use of time, just skim it quickly to find the definitions of any italicized words, all-caps abbreviations, or variables.
On Reading, students have 8 min 45 seconds for each of four page-long passages (10 questions each). Itās usually best to spend about 3.5 min on the initial read-through, focusing on the big picture and identifying the main idea of each āchunkā of the text, so that he knows where to look back when he finds a question referencing a particular topic. Hope that helps!
Curiocity, thanks for the ACT guidance. Jackās tutor understands how the tests are structured and how best to approach them. He has coached a lot of students on standardized tests and heāll instruct Jack on the tricks of the trade.
For both the SATs and ACTs we opted for the testing service to not send his grades to any schools in case he did poorly the first time he took them and had to try again in the Fall. Thankfully, that will not be necessary with the SAT (I donāt know if he has much to gain by taking it again.) There is a chance he would score even better on the ACT with the science component than he did on the SAT, so there is no reason not to take it.
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In an earlier post I mentioned applying to Michigan EA. But I also recommend applying early to Michigan EA (i.e. well ahead of the deadline). Michigan often gets so many EA apps that they canāt respond to all of them in December, and so it becomes a rolling decision process for the overflow. Some decisions come in January which is too late to decide where to apply for RD. If you want a decision in December, apply a couple weeks ahead of the EA deadline.
Yes ā¦ but realistically the HYPS colleges are too high of a reach for an early app. MIT can be an early app because it is non-restrictive, but the others are restrictive EA.
If you are going to do a strategic ED app, I recommend aiming at something ranging from CMU to Cornell with other options being Vanderbilt or Rice (I am not paying attention to geography). Case-Western would be aiming too low for an ED app.
We were full pay with a D with similar stats and some impressive ECs and by no means was her admission process a slam dunk. Reaches are still reaches. Cornell and Duke have huge endowments and saw record applicants.
Heck, Purdue just released that they had more than 58k applicants this year.
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With a well curated list like your sonās thereās no need to worry about who to believe. Will Jack be happy to attend any of these colleges? If yes I donāt think thereās a need to worry. I think heāll have many acceptances on the list. If you want some more suggestions I can add Colorado School of Mines and Cal Poly SLO on the West Coast. Mines might give your son some monetary incentives and is a great school, and Cal Poly is a great school and cheaper than the UC system for out of state folks. I find Northwestern to be too expensive but thatās just me.
If youāre interested in anecdotal evidence my daughter applied to too many schools and as a result received too many acceptances. No Ivies etc., just strong engineering schools. She has great academics and non-engineering ECs but nothing like I see on these forums. Sheāll be studying engineering at UCLA in the fall as she preferred to stay in state after a freaky health adventure that knocked the wind out of her sails. All Iām saying is that with a well balanced list, prepare for some hard choices come decisions time! Good luck to you and your son! I think heāll do great.
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Hebegebe, philosophically we would rather have Jack attend a school where he is one of the stronger incoming Freshmen, than one of the weaker ones. In other words, weād rather he be in the 70th percentile of the incoming class than the 20th percentile. Even if he did not want to stay within striking distance of home he would not apply to super reach schools like CalTech, MIT or one of the Ivys (which, in my opinion, are over-rated at the undergrad level).
Fit is also more important than rankings. He would likely be better off at RHIT where classes are all under 30 students, all classes are taught by full professors, advisors talk with each student several times a semester and know the strengths and weaknesses of each, than go to a more prestigious school where he is in classes taught by graduate assistants with 200 of his closest friends.
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Just to clarify, even at big school, profs teach the classes. While my D did have some large classes as a freshman, she also had a bunch where she had 20 students. For the large classes, TAs did lead small group recitations but they were typically fabulous and profs were still readily available. (That was one of my concerns when my D had all big schools on the top of her list but weāve been very pleasantly surprised).
momofboiler, while at CMU a friend who was a Chem E major did an exchange semester at Harvard as a Junior. All of her upper level classes at Harvard - every single one - was taught by a graduate assistant who spoke English as a second language. She was flabbergasted. At CMU all lectures were taught by full professors and breakout sections were run by grad assistants. To this day, this story has stuck with me and colored my opinion of Harvard, and to a lessor degree, the Ivies in general (unfairly, I admit). It also led me to conclude that when selecting a school we should focus on factors that directly affect the quality of the education like class size, access to professors, etc. rather than rankings and prestige.
On a different note, are you by chance, the mother of a Purdue student? If so, how does she like it? (It is, after all, on the list.)
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Yikes about Harvard using TAs for upper level courses. Thatās crazy!
Yes, my D is a junior chem e at Purdue and she LOVES it. Far and away exceeded all our expectations. Sheās a co-op student in honors college. Purdue was her top choice throughout the process. Michigan her #2 (the split campus and not having a developed co-op program put them behind Purdue). Let me know if you have any Purdue specific questions.
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Thatās strange for multiple reasons.
First, my son is a current Harvard student finishing his freshman year. Every one of his classes has been taught by a professor.
Second, students have access to previous posted reviews of an instructorās classes with information about how much they liked the class, workload involved, etc. Students would avoid instructors with poor reviews.
Third, Harvard students generally donāt sign up for classes in advance. Instead, students show up for classes they think they like the first week, known as āshopping periodā. Instructors have no idea if they will have 2 students in the class or 25 until the shopping period is over. This has been going on for at least 15 years and likely much longer. Nobody would stay in a class taught by someone with poor command of the language.
momofboiler, Jack is attending the Summer Catapult program for HS students at Rose-Hulman this Summer, and we plan on touring Purdue on the way back. I might have a slew of questions for you after the visit. One goal this Summer is to narrow the search based on school size. A back-to-back comparison between a small school (RHIT - 2,200 students) and large school (Purdue - 35,000 undergrads) will help here.
I do have a couple questions nowā¦ Did your daughter apply to Purdue as an IN resident? Based on Jackās academics in the initial post and your daughterās experience what do you think of his chances at Purdue?
Again, after visiting Purdue and doing some more research Iām sure to have more questions for you later.