Looking for help determining Safety, Match and Reach Schools for Aerospace Engineering

College Search & Selection
1

Background: White Male, Middle income family, Semi-Competitive High School, Severe Food Allergies ( that matter? ), Northern Virginia

Stats:

GPA: 3.94 UW / 4.38 W ( Class Rank : 21/429, top 5% )

SAT : 1430 ( Not Sending )

Subject Tests: Taking Physics and Math 2 in August

ACT: 33 Composite, 34 Superscore ( Most of my schools accept Superscore :smiley: )

PSAT: 1470 ( National Merit Commended, possibly Semi )

Course Rigor: all Honors 2 APs Sophomore year, 5 AP/DEs Junior Year, 6 AP/DEs Senior Year, taking online VASTS class through local college during Junior year

APS: Stats (4) World(4) Calc BC(4-5?) Lang(5?) APUSH(5?) APHG(5?) AP Physics C (?) AP Gov (?) AP Lit (?)

ECS:

Varsity Soccer ( 4 years )

VASTS Summer program @ Langley ( Selective aerospace program that involves working with NASA employees and other students to plan a theoretical mission to Mars over the summer @ Langley )

VASTS Online Aerospace Class through CC over Junior Year ( 6 Credits Total )

Debate Team Member for Freshman/Sophomore, Debate Team Captain for Junior/Senior.

Won multiple regional debate competitions in Varsity with 30-50 members

Engineering Club President and Founder ( Designing a patentable invention currently )

Pirate Club Co-Founder and Secretary

Class Council Secretary (Sophomore year)

Class Council Member ( Junior Year )

Student Council VP ( Junior-Senior Year )

Physics Honor Society / Club President

Computer Science Club Member

Awards:

NHS Member

Debate & Forensics Honor Society Member

Debate award with distinction of excellence from NSDA

Physics Honor Society President/Member

World Language Honor Society Member

National Merit ( Commended / Semi? )

AP Scholar ( possible distinction )

Preferences/Help: Iā€™m definitely in need of more safety school ideas, and general good programs to apply to in general. I do not have any interest in going to an exclusively engineering school like Embry Riddle. Any suggestions/ advice is greatly appreciated. I plan on taking Subject Tests in August for Physics & Math 2. I donā€™t know if I should retake the ACTā€¦ I think a 34 is good enough but want a second opinion! :slight_smile:

Current Schools I Plan on Applying to (Chance me for these please):
Virginia Tech, UVA, Cornell, MIT, Georgia Tech, University of Illinois, Purdue, Penn State, Colorado Boulder,

Any Advice on where else to apply, what else I should work on for my apps, and what schools are good safeties/matches/reaches that I have already mentioned is extremely appreciated!!!

Thanks for reading!

2

If you are from a middle income family, it is likely that out-of-state publics will be unaffordable unless you get a super-reach large merit scholarship, so treat them as reaches unless the necessary scholarship is automatic for your stats.

UVA and VT are the only Virginia publics with AE, but several others have ME.

You may want to investigate the automatic large scholarships at the UA schools (Arizona and Alabama).

3

The ASEE website has lots of data (admissions, enrollment, programs, class statistics, etc) for almost every engineering program in the US. Familiarize yourself with the site and examine the data from each college to help decide whether or not it belongs on your list. Its a good place to startā€¦

http://profiles.asee.org/

Adding: The ā€œParticipating Programsā€ link will give you every college in the country with 'Aero" type engineering.

4

I may actually be high income because I donā€™t believe cost will be an issue to an extreme where I will not be able to attend

5

Clarkson would be a good safety and you should see merit money with your stats.

UMD would be a high match.

6

Find out the price limit from your parents, and sit down with them in front of a computer and use the net price calculators on the web sites of colleges of interest.

A college cannot be a safety unless you are assured of both admission (to the college and your major) and affordability. Also, apparent matches may really be reaches if you need a top level competitive merit scholarship for affordability.

7

So the first question is do you have any financial constraints? Can you afford to go out of state without financial aid? So the following is assuming you donā€™t need financial aid.

Your stats (and college list) are similar to my sonā€™s who just graduated and is heading to Ga Tech in the fall. He had a little higher GPA, similar test scores, and a little more rigor (math up to Differential Equations and research mentorship at NASA). We are also from VA, but the Hampton Roads area. He applied, for Chemical Engineering, to all the schools on your list except CU and Cornell and was accepted to all but MIT. He also applied to U of M (w/l), CMU (denied), JHU (denied), Princeton (denied), RPI (accepted $20K/y merit), and WVU (accepted $20.5K/y merit).

MIT - High Reach
Cornell - Reach
Ga Tech - Reach
UVA - Match maybe low reach (seems like NOVA is more competitive for UVA)
Purdue - Match (if you apply EA but moves to reach if you wait until RD)
UICI - Match
VT - Safety/ low match
Penn State -Safety/ low match
CU - Safety

For more safety schools I would look at WVU and RPI (maybe not quite safety). You will get significant merit from WVU making it equal or cheaper than in state. Another possible match would UMD.

8

Sonā€™s friend from high school really enjoyed his first year in the aerospace engineering program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

9

SUNY Buffalo has a program.

If you do become a NMF, the Florida public schools will give the Benacquisto scholarship that covers everything. Youā€™d get quite a bit of merit scholarship money at Embry-Riddle and Florida Tech.

10

University of Alabama Huntsville as a safety with merit and a well connected Aerospace program. Case Western for a match depending on affordability.

11

CU Boulder is a good match/likely. True safeties are hard to come by in engineering. Look into U MD, RPI and Syacuse as other strong matches. I love that you co-founded the Pirate club, matey.

12

If you have not already done so, look at WPI Aerospace. Many NASA connections. See https://www.wpi.edu/academics/departments/aerospace-engineering. For graduate hiring/placement download PDF https://www.wpi.edu/student-experience/career-development/outcomes, contents are listed, Aerospace is on page six.

The WPI degree requirements are very different even considering they are ABET accredited programs. See https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/wpi-plan

Fall of 2018 admission profile from CDS (USNEWS from 2017):
Average GPA 3.9 on four point, unweighted scale (matriculating class)
42% of applicants admitted
Very extensive off campus/overseas project research (see https://www.wpi.edu/project-based-learning/global-project-program)
Very interested in students motivated by project research as part of a small team.
Encourages interdisciplinary thinking.
About the same as RPI regarding selectivity, but admission decision are not made by an algorithm.
Who are YOU? What is your passion?

13

Case Western has ties to NASA Glenn in Cleveland and really strong programs in aerospace.
For costs, Case Western is likely to give you a 1/3 to 2/3 off tuition scholarship with your stats. \

U of Colorado Boulder is
well ranked and respected in aerospace, but will cost more OOS than Case Western with a merit scholarship.

CU Boulder grads get into jobs like Jet Propulsion labs in California if they also earn a masters degree.

14

Also for Gatech, apply by Oct 15. (non binding) Although its rare to win merit at GaTech, you may not get accepted if you wait until regular decision, because GaTech has a policy of admitting ALL Georgia Valedictorians who apply early or RD, and many seem to wait, so out of state students get shut out of GaTech if they do not apply by Oct 15.

If you want to go to Cornell, you will up your chances by applying BINDING ED.(which means you would have to withdraw your GATech EA application in December, if you got into Cornell ) The chances go up to more than 25% for Cornell by applying binding, but you have to have the money for Cornell, and want to spend 4 years in a small town in snowy upstate NY.

I think 34 is OK, but depends on your math scores, your reading scores matter much less for any aerospace program.
What is your ACT math score?

15

33, and Iā€™m also planning on taking Math and Physics SAT II

16

RPI, Ohio State, Maryland as additional Match/Safeties.