Need help finalizing list of engineering schools to apply to this year

[jwxie]

<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.

Class rank is not helpful at all, provided that most MIT and Cornell applicants are top 10, if not, top 5%.</p>

<p>Scores still matter in the first place - that is, SAT, or ACT, and SAT.
Remember even in college there is GPA inflation. How can one prove that there is no bias in GPA? Essentially, high school GPA and class rank aren’t something the most impressive that people look at.
It’s certainly great! If I stay in the high school I went to in freshman year I would be top #1 (consider only 85 students only).</p>

<p>Other credentials might help - such as completing in a national competition. Also MIT looks at the essay part heavily, since most of their applicants are so “perfect”.</p>