<p>I am a junior in high school in Arizona and want to go into electrical engineering. I've taken around 7 AP classes and 7 honors classes. I've done a lot of community service and have some leadership positions in the clubs I am in.</p>
<p>My unweighted GPA (out of 4.0 scale) is 3.76.</p>
<p>My PSAT was 205, and will be taking the SAT soon.</p>
<p>I am mainly interested in a college that gives out a lot of merit scholarships because I do not qualify for any financial aid, and I do not want to put a huge financial burden on my parents. I like large class sizes, and would rather stay wherever it is warm.</p>
<p>Rice is a good choice because it's inexpensive compared to other schools of its caliber. For merit scholarships, though, consider Loyola Marymount and Santa Clara.</p>
<p>Although it is rather cold here, and we have small classes (the largest is 30 people normally) look at Olin. Everyone here is on a full merit scholarship, no questions asked. You do pay room and board though. </p>
<p>I recall RPI being fairly generous with their merit-based scholarship for me. They've got a great engineering program and I think they're steadily climbing the ranks. You can also try CMU, but they aren't very loose with money. You might be able to weasel more out by getting them to match the offer by another school, though (what I did).</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon? Purdue? Pitt? UIUC? Come on, guys...the OP wants WARM weather. Those schools are all in frosty climates. </p>
<p>Anyway, if money's an issue, and you don't mind large classes, why not stay instate? Arizona and ASU both have programs.</p>
<p>I'll also second the recommendations for Rice, Clemson, VTech, etc. You may even be able to get some merit money from Clemson, since you're well above the average there.</p>
<p>I am surprised that nobody mentioned University of Texas @ Austin. It has probably the 2nd best engineering in the South. GaTech is probably #1 in the south but I've heard quite a bit of negatitives so you may want to look beyond its high-flying ranking and investigate deeper.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention that I was looking for colleges that have better engineering programs than my in-state ones: Arizona State University and University of Arizona. I don't really have anyway to rank colleges except US NEWS rankings, but I was also told to take those with a grain of salt. </p>
<p>Warm weather is just a preference, and I am willing to compromise.</p>
<p>Maybe I am missing out on something, but many of the universities mentioned above have a huge price tag, around $40,000/yr (except Olin), and when I checked merit scholarships, it was very little, around $10,000 a year. I guess I underestimated the cost of college because I wanted to go out-of-state for less than $30-50,000 total. The main problem seems to be that I want to go out-of-state for cheap, even though I don't qualify for any financial aid. </p>
<p>Thanks to all the suggestions, and I will gladly accept more advice and suggestions. I will look at the public universities more now since even their cost is lower than most private universities.</p>
<p>Well, I am back. I got a 1950 SAT/30 ACT without studying, and plan to retake it in the fall. Like previously noted, I am looking for engineering colleges that offer substantial merit-based aid, or are low-cost. I won't qualify for financial aid. I am somewhat different from the average CC student in that I am not willing to pay 30,000-50,000/year for a better ranking college. Since I don't have any other base, I have decided to use USNews Engineering rankings, unless someone can recommend a better source. </p>
<p>My current college list is:
1. University of Texas at Austin - Hoping to get an out-of-state tuition waiver - What ACT/SAT score should I be aiming for?
2. Arizona State University - Guaranteed close to full ride / Barrett Honors College
3. Georgia Tech
4. Purdue University
5. University Wisconsin Madison</p>
<p>Other colleges I have thought about are UMich, UIUC, Rice, USC, and CMU, but I have not been able to find much information on merit aid, and the sticker price is quite high.</p>
<p>So I was looking at through the section at which the site ranked the best engineering colleges, and it seems their source is US News Ranking. Other than that, it seems like a great source for information. Thanks!</p>