My college tour plans have been a little untraditional (ty corona) and I can’t really “dig in” to online tours as well as I’d like to
THANK YOU FOR ANY HELP !!
Demographics
US citizen
PA Residency, Inner City
Private
White Female
Business and/or Engineering
GPA, Rank, and Test Scores
Unweighted HS GPA: 3.97/4
Weighted HS GPA 4.74/4
Class Rank: Top 10 / 130 - don’t know where I fall in that lol
ACT Score: 34 (took once)
Coursework (AP/IB/Dual Enrollment classes, AP/IB scores for high school; also include level of math and foreign language reached and any unusual academic electives; for transfers, describe your college courses and preparation for your intended major(s))
10 AP/College Courses (Max Possibe),
*All honors
Will finish w/ Calc BC and College Spanish
Comp. Sci literate
Awards
Harvard College Law and Government Award
City-wide Academic + Community Service Award
School awards for grades/GPA
Extracurriculars
Mission Coordinator (building homes, tutoring, just wherever to help out)
full time retail job
Published artwork/Poetry
Mentor program for younger students
*Varsity/Club Captain Athlete
Essays/LORs/Other
*I think my essays come off pretty honest/true to who I am, which is realllly important to me
LORs are from my favorite teachers, so I feel like they will also be pretty personal
Cost Constraints / Budget
*So super super super lucky not to need any loans
Schools
Open to any 8000-20,000 ish school
Would prefer to stay closer to home
Not sure what I would like, but I don’t think I would fit at a small liberal arts college
The great thing about Philadelphia is you have almost every type of school within a 25 mile radius. Most you can even hop on a train or bus to visit. I would suggest you take a few local day trips and try and get a feel for things that you like and don’t like about each one. Don’t worry if don’t think it would be a fit. You are just looking for some insights to the type of college that would fit you. Some of the best insights I got touring with my daughter were things that were on the visits she didn’t; like.
You can start with the Big 5 schools, Villanova (good fit for engineering and business), St Joes, Temple, UPenn, and LaSalle. You can add in Haverford, Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr if you want to see an LAC. While you’re up at Nova head over to Rosemont for a look at a smaller school. Drexel for a city school with Co-op.
Outside of the city you have TCNJ which has a great engineering program.
How close is close to home? Within a specific geographic range you may be able to narrow it down to to 25 or so schools that fit the bill for your intended major. You can take the shotgun approach and apply to them all and then push off taking any visits until the spring.
Thank yo so much!!! This was really helpful. I really like Penn, but I thought I pretty much had no chance haha
As for distance I was pretty much open to anything around 5/6 hours away by car
Aim high - you have good chances! Just include targets and safeties as well. Check out naviance for your school and see where you are.
Do you want a defined campus? Urban? Big school spirit? Northeast? Down south? Co-op?
There are so many options to think about. Most schools have business & engineering so that you will find. So I would research both programs at schools you are interested in. Some schools have you apply to that particular major and it may be hard to switch (Villanova)
Penn
Villanova
Delaware
Lehigh
Binghamton
Cornell
Rochester
Quinnipiac
UConn
Boston U
Boston College
New Hampshire
Carnegie-Mellon
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Lehigh is great for engineering + business (either or both https://ibe.lehigh.edu/ ) and it’s probably big enough that it wouldn’t have that “I wouldn’t fit at an LAC” feel to it. If you want to bring your artistic side into it, there are also art and design programs, and multiple ways to combine these with engineering or business. (For example, mechanical engineering and product design.)
Bucknell and Lafayette are smaller but still not tiny, and worth a look.
I thought it was something like human factors engineering? (not sure) Are they offering mechanical, electrical etc?? Is it ABET Accreditation? I remember looking a few years ago - but it could have changed. Great school and beautiful campus.
@user9. 5 to 6 hours is a huge range and gives you lots of possibilities. Schools are always looking for well qualified girls for Engineering so if you like Penn I would go for it. This is an Engineering focused list but it has a good mix of Reaches, Matches and Safeties for you. Most of them have good business programs.
UPENN
Carnegie Mellon
Cornell
Villanova
WPI - Take a look at their project based curriculum
Penn State
UMD
Lehigh
Manhattan College - Brand New Engineering Building opening this year. Great engineering program especially if you are interested in Civil Engineering
Cooper Union
Drexel - If you are interested in Co-op
RPI
Rochester
TCNJ
Bucknell