Class Rank: Top 10 of class, school doesn’t do ranks
ACT/SAT Scores: estimated 1550
Coursework
9th: Nothing of significance
10th: SUNY Alg2/Trig, AP World, SUNY Spanish 1
11th: SUNY Precalc, APUSH, AP Bio, AP Lang, SUNY Band, SUNY Spanish 2
Awards
Presidential Award Extracurriculars
Varsity Lax (1 year)
President of Equity Club (15 members)
Volunteering (monthly food drive, annual blood drive, 100+ hrs a year)
Research manuscript before senior college apps
Work over summer (12 hrs a week)
Essays/LORs/Other
No essays yet, 9/10 LOR’s
Cost Constraints / Budget
No cost constraints as of now Schools
Criteria I’d like in a school:
Want a strong greek life
Sports are important as well
Not liberal arts, want a big school
-East Coast preferably
You’re too early and you don’t have a 1500 but if you want east coast start with SUNY, Rutgers, UF, UMD, Va Tech. Syracuse for private.
If you expand geographically you’d go to Bama for dirt cheap. Arizona relatively cheap and others.
Purdue would be a solid target if you have the profile you think.
Mainly you are a bit early to chance but you might note some names and have your folks take you to a large campus to ensure that’s what you want. It’s easy to think that but large is often large and then there’s some that are ‘super’ large. Maybe a mid size too.
But you’re a bit early. Keep up the great work.
And at some point you’ll need a budget. When you say no cost constraints as of now - that often becomes, mom and dad don’t want to spend $325k+. And now what?
So this summer have that discussion with your folks.
Lots of strong engineering programs. Many / most will get you to the same place.
You have just described a large public university to the hilt.
Depending on what your family can afford, and what merit funding will be available at that point, you have SUNY Buffalo as your in-state, Rutgers is a great choice, V-Tech, Penn State, Pitt, and UDel are good choices if they are affordable. For more reach-y places, UMD is a great choice, NCSU, SUNY Stony Brook.
For Privates, Cornell, of course, Rochester, maybe RPI, Boston U, and Johns Hopkins.
That is assuming that Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland are close enough to the East Coast for you.
To be honest, if those are your main school criteria (aside from having a solid engineering program, of course), you will have a pretty easy time finding colleges at which you will be happy, and to which you will be accepted, because those are, as I wrote, the defining characteristics of large public universities. Since you are still a Junior, I recommend that you put your college search on “slow mode”.
This list was developed not taking finances into consideration. I would urge you, however, to have a frank discussion with your family to find out what your annual budget is. A strong student such as yourself will have many good schools available to you at a variety of price points. When we know the budget, we can make sure we don’t suggest schools that are going to be unaffordable. Make sure to run the Net Price Calculator at any school that you are considering to see what the price is likely to be. If it asks for your academic stats, the price is likely to include the minimum level of merit aid that you might expect.
Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
U. at Buffalo (NY)
James Madison (VA)
U. of Alabama (which has some very generous merit aid packages)
U. of Delaware
U. of South Carolina - also has a very well-reputed honors college
West Virginia
Likely (60-79%)
Clemson (SC)
Rutgers – New Brunswick (NJ)
Syracuse (NY)
U. of Connecticut
U. of South Florida (which may be a very economical option as even a small merit aid scholarship may convert you to paying in-state rates)