I think you’re being extremely conservative in evaluating your chances at the schools on your list. I’m surprised no on else has mentioned that yet. You have very impressive credentials. Here’s my opinion:
UPenn (Early Decision)- Reach
Brown- High Reach
Columbia- High Reach
Cornell- High Match (legacy)
Johns Hopkins- Reach
Carnegie Mellon- Reach
NYU- Low Match
University of Rochester- Low Match
UC Berkeley- Low Reach
UCLA- High Match
Case Western- Low Match (w/demonstration of interest)
I actually don’t think you have much to worry about. Your list is reach heavy, but I think that NYU, Rochester, and Case are all solid matches for you, especially since you’re not applying for aid. And you have legacy to Cornell as well as an ensured safety. Obviously you should prepare yourself for some rejections, but I think you have a solid list that will give you plenty of choices. I also don’t get why people are concerned about your ranking when you’re in the top 15%.
@CHD2013 I find it better to be conservative, so I won’t be let down when I do get rejected haha and I’m pretty sure Brown and Columbia are both random shots in the dark for me.
@lalalemma Well it seems like everyone who does get into the top schools are either valedictorian, or one of the top ten students in their graduating class. I think I’ll be fine if colleges look at my weighted rank (where I am top 10%)…but if they look at my unweighted, it won’t be too good. I guess it makes sense, because wouldn’t the college rather accept the 97 ranked before me rather than me?
Colleges tend to look at UW GPA and weighted rank (they don’t care about the 97 others if all they’ve done is take remedial English, office assistant, and pottery.)
I have no problems with your list (although I would probably take out Columbia - as a RD applicant with no hooks, I think it would be a fairly high reach), but I think you should be very cognizant of the fact that you might decide not to major in engineering. This is not unusual - a large percentage of potential engineers decide against the major. I think you need to think about schools where it’s easy to switch majors or where, if you did switch, there are strong writing programs. Schools such a Johns Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon (already on your list) are excellent from that standpoint and I might think about two more reaches - Wash U (very easy to transfer among majors) and U Chicago (has a new engineering major, great writing and I think they would love your essays and the interdisciplinary feel of your application). In terms of moving down the list, I would consider adding in U Wisconsin - good engineering and good writing. I’m not sure why you would add in LACs. Even though some of them have 3-2 programs, very few students actually use such programs. If you did add in an LAC, it should ideally be one that actually offers engineering - the list of such schools is relatively small however - Swarthmore, Smith, Union, Bucknell and Lafayette are the ones that are most notable (and obviously Swarthmore would be another reach). I would leave in CWRU - good school, you’d probably get merit money and it has good writing options if you were to switch. Finally, I don’t really see the appeal of Drexel - while it should be a safety, I can’t imagine picking it over Ole Miss for free. Other match schools you might consider would be Lehigh (innovative engineering and business programs that might be right up your alley) and Northeastern.
The way your applications would play out you could apply to Penn ED at the same time as you apply to CWRU EA, UWisc EA, Northeastern EA, Chicago EA and Ole Miss. Regardless of what happens with Penn, that should give you some early acceptances in your pocket. If you don’t get accepted at Penn, you would then decide which of your RD schools you prefer over your options and apply to only those schools.
I think the problem she had with ranking is that when you weight, the ranking changed significantly and she shoots uo due to rigor in her schedule, and lack thereof in many of the kids ahead of her in the unweighted ranks.
My kid is in the same spot. The inflated grades for easier schedules are why his school does rank. They don’t weight, and they don’t rank.
I know people say colleges can see rank on the HS profile by looking at the distribution, but it is only unweighted. It is fundamentally unfair to match GPA against an inflated one without knowing the rigor.
On CollegeBoard, colleges will say that 90% or some percentage of their students are ranked in the top 10% of their graduating class. Are they referring to unweighted or weighted ranking here?
I was under the impression that most colleges take the UNweighted number - look at the rigor - and do as they see ffit - they have their own weighting system if needed
they dont want the high schools weighted number
Purple Titan - I know that the U Chicago engineering program is quite new and has a few themes that it is focusing on. However, since the OP has not shared which area of engineering she’s interested in and since she seems to have a pronounced interest in the humanities, I thought she might want to take a look at it. This past spring was the first year of the major in what Chicago calls the Institute for Molecular Engineering and I suspect there will be lots of opportunities for students to create their own areas of interest. However, it is clearly not the standard engineering curriculum.
@midatlmom, I see only one theme, and that theme, molecular engineering, is rather specialized. Any opportunities and areas of interest will be limited by what they actually offer. A company that traditionally hires EE majors (or CompE majors or IE majors or Civil majors) won’t be hiring molecular engineers.
@DrGoogle While I am very interested in the humanities, I am also interested in engineering (and I have done engineering related projects for Intel’s International Fair). I plan to major in either Electrical Engineering or Industrial Engineering.
Cornell
Brown
Columbia
NYU
U of Rochester (I really like schools in NY)
UC Berkeley
UCLA
Johns Hopkins
Carnegie Mellon
Ole Miss (State School)
University of Mississippi (State School)