<p>Ok so I sort of have a large list of colleges I'm looking at and was wondering if you could help me narrow it by maybe giving me some interesting info about the schools on the list or noting any schools that seem like outliers. I THINK that I am interested in Engineering but I'm not 100% sure. So far my list looks like this: </p>
<p>(Not in any order)
Stanford
UPenn
Georgetown (No engineering)
Villanova
MIT
Johns Hopkins
Santa Clara
Gettysburg (No engineering)
Pomona (Engineering with Harvey Mudd)
Notre Dame
Northwestern
Vanderbilt</p>
<p>Also, if there are any other schools you think I should consider please let me know (although I am trying to NARROW not expand). Also, if there are any schools that are pretty good at engineering and have minimal to no supplement (as in no supplement essays like Vanderbilt) or good engineering schools that give good scholarships I'd be interested in them as well.</p>
<p>Dartmouth has engineering and no supplement. No merit scholarships, but very solid financial aid. </p>
<p>Gettysburg is a nice school, pretty isolated though. Its a very cute, college town like feel. It seems a good bit smaller than some of the other schools on your list. Its also a little less competitive though, so its probably good as a safety.</p>
<p>I personally love both Georgetown and Hopkins. The Georgetown area of DC is really great and physically its a beautiful area. I like Hopkins because it has a very school spirity feel–lacrosse is taken really seriously, although that is true of a lot of schools on your list. A lot of students who look at both of them also look at Duke, I don’t know if you’ve considered it at all.</p>
<p>I think Lehigh and Bucknell have engineering too and are in Pennsylvania but somewhat bigger than Gettysburg. You might consider a change there. It’s hard to tell without your stats. You have 7 schools that are quite difficult for almost anyone, but if you have 1440 or higher maybe that’s OK. If not, it seems like you don’t have much in the mid-range between top schools and Santa Clara/Gettysburg. Maybe you could drop one on the bottom and one at the top and add one in the middle. Or apply to 12 which is probably OK.</p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestions… I actually had looked at Lehigh and thought about Bucknell and think that they wouldn’t be bad to have on the list either…I agree that Gettysburg doesn’t really fit and the main reason I’m interested is because of the athletics…by scholarship I was thinking merit-based…Dartmouth is interesting but I sort of don’t want to be in the middle of nowhere…for the Pomona/Harvey Mudd thing I was looking at this:
[url=<a href=“http://sts.pomona.edu/]Science”>http://sts.pomona.edu/]Science</a>, Technology and Society<a href=“not%20an%20%22Engineering%20Degree%22%20but%20has%20some%20engineering%20aspects”>/url</a>…finally people are asking about my scores so…</p>
<p>CR: 740, M: 770; WR: 700
Then SAT2s: Bio: 750, Chem: 770, Phys: 750, MathII: 800
I also have a 5 in AP Chem
However…my grades have been on a decline from All A’s Freshman year to A’s and B’s Sophmore year and then Junior year was mostly B’s… I can probably get mostly A’s Sr Spring if I work hard</p>
<p>“for the Pomona/Harvey Mudd thing I was looking at this:
Science, Technology and Society (not an “Engineering Degree” but has some engineering aspects)”</p>
<p>STS is far more of a humanities major, though it does require some understanding of the processes of engineering and science, but not really an in depth technical knowledge. Apparently it requires 4 science/engineering classes, but honestly I would not recommend taking them at Mudd unless you really like working hard for some knowledge that will be largely useless, as further classes are required for a good understanding. Mudd does have one STS professor that is quite good though.</p>
<p>Strength in engineering:
Stanford - Top-2
UPenn - Good/Very Good
Georgetown - Non-existent
Villanova - Not Sure/Average
MIT - Top-2
Johns Hopkins - Very Good
Santa Clara - Not sure/Average
Gettysburg - Non-existent
Pomona - Non-existent
Notre Dame - Good
Northwestern - Very Good
Vanderbilt - Good</p>
<p>Re: “middle of nowhere” —there are places like Colby which isn’t even adjacent to the town it’s in and the town is over an hour from Portland. But Dartmouth is larger than an LAC and must have a ton of things going on on campus plus the town is adjacent and has blocks of stores and restaurants. They have shuttle buses to NY and Boston. I don’t know if I would dismiss it unless you just can’t live without big city activities (which you probaby won’t have time for anyway).</p>
Your grades in spring semester HS Senior year are mostly irrelevant to college admissions. If they are bad enough you can get rescinded, and if your schedule isn’t rigorous enough it will look bad, but basically your GPA is what you have at the end of the junior year. Your test scores are great, but your declining GPA will make it quite difficult to get into many of the schools on your list.</p>
<p>But schools where you’d get great merit money are Case Western Reserve University and Rose-Hulman. So my first paragraph is a narrowing of your list (because of your declining GPA) and this one is an expansion. Case Western is a small university like so many others. Rose-Hulman is sort of a LAC for geeks - everyone majors in engineering, science, or math, but they have an average of one non-tech class per semester.</p>