How should him indicate if he is willing to do marching band? I thought it is after you are admitted and then you join those activities after you enroll, or am I wrong about that?
UW-Madison and the University of Minnesota have good engineering schools. And Madison has a great marching band. Go Badgers!
University of Washington has excellent engineering programs and a great marching band. Should be a safe bet, and your son would probably get a decent (up to $7,500 per year) merit scholarship to help offset the extra OOS tuition. It’s also nice to stay in the same time zone and have quick and relatively inexpensive flights to and from Seattle.
However, Washington is more selective for direct admission to popular majors (including engineering and CS majors). Frosh admitted undeclared can face a highly competitive admission process to enter such a major later.
If he’s interested in the Northeast, RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) is a great engineering school, and he would likely get a lot of merit money. They have a great venue for musical performances and things, but I don’t know much about their various bands.
23, should not be a concern for the applicant in question:
“SAT: 2210
ACT: 34
GPA: 4.0 (unweighted) 4.4286 (weighted)
SAT Subject: Math 2 (800) Physics (760) Chemistry (740) Chinese (700)
Take a total of 15 AP classes by end of senior year”
However, if the student gets admitted to Washington but not in the desired major, he may want to check what kind of college GPA he needs to get in order to get into the desired major (but admission is also based on subjective reading of an essay): https://www.engr.washington.edu/current/admissions/admitstats
He may? He must.
However … still not worried about this applicant.