<p>
I strongly disagree. You are ranked 2nd out of 180 in your high school and play varsity basketball. These make you a candidate for MIT and Cornell, though your scores aren’t terribly strong. Your scores are acceptable for UVA (not sure for UMich) but still, RETAKE. Try taking the ACT as well.</p>
<p>Practice the SAT a good 8 times and retake it in November. Your score should go up to 2100+ and then you have a real shot at Cornell and maybe even MIT. Don’t let others discourage you (you may regret later on why you didn’t apply to MIT and that perhaps feel later on that if you had applied you may have had a shot). The only way to eliminate your chances is to not apply. That being said, an 1800 is not stroong for MIT.</p>
<p>Other schools to consider:
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (improve SAT and excellent chance of great merit aid)
U.Mass/Amherst (best public engineering school in New England - again increase scores for chance of merit aid)
Rochester Institute of Technology (merit aid possible)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (merit aid possible)
Case Western Reserve University (merit aid possible)
Illinois Inst. of Technology (merit aid possble)
University of Rochester
U. of Pennsylvania (solid reach)</p>