Need Help to Find an Engineering College

College Search & Selection
1

Hello,
I’m going to be a senior this fall, so this summer I have to prepare my applications for the schools I want to go. I’ve tried using collegedata.com to help search for colleges, but the website seems kind of bad. Anyways, I’m planning on Major in Mechanical Engineering and Minor in Biomedical Engineering, so I can work in the biologial field.

Here are my stats as of right now:
State: Illinois
Ethnicity/Gender: Asian Male
Income Bracke: $200,000-$250,000

SAT I: 1st Try: 1370 [M 710, EBR 640]—2nd Try : 1390 [M 790, EBR 600]
SAT II: MATH II: 650
Weighted GPA: 4.456
Unweighted GPA: 4.00
AP Scores: AP Human Geography: 4, AP World History: 5, AP US History: TBA, AP Physics 1: TBA, AP Statstics: TBA
Senior Course Load: AP Computer Science Principles, AP Biology, AP Literature, AP Calculus BC, AP Micro/Macro Economics,

Extracurriculars [No Leaderships Positions Given at all except for Interact Club]
Math Team- State Qualifier, won many ribbons in meets
Science Olympiad:
Robotics:
Interact Club: Done numerous volunteering work
JV Boys Volleyball: JV Athletic Award, won two tournaments against difficult competition.

Volunteering/Work Experience:
100+ Hours in Chinese School- Basketball Coach and Tutor. Organized Chinese New Year Events and School Events.
Currently Interning for Private Company (Engineering Related)- Using Auto-CAD and handling testing operations.

Miscellaneous:
Voted from 5 groups to take part in creating blueprints for a house thst will be built.
2nd Place for Photoshop Manipulation for a Local College.

Notes:
I’m currently working on my SAT reading and hopefully improve my score to a 1500+ during the next 3 SATs.
Will retake SAT II: MATH 2 since I took it when I haven’t learned all the material
Will take SAT II: Physics or Biology
Colleges I was considering: UC Berkeley, UCLA, USC, Stanford, UW Madison, University of Minnesota, University of Chicago, Loyola University of Chicago, Cornell.

If you guys can give me any suggestions or change my current College list that would be great.

2

Your parents are willing to pay list price for all of the schools in question?

No UIUC or other IL publics?

What schools do you intend to be your safeties?

University of Chicago and Loyola of Chicago do not have mechanical engineering.

3

You’ll be paying full price at most of the schools you listed, perhaps at all. If that’s a concern for you, you may want to apply to some schools where their average GPA/SAT is a tiny bit lower than yours, as they may offer you merit aid. You may also want to consider U Toronto and some other strong Canadian engineering schools. There, you won’t get aid, but the sticker price, even as an international student, can be less than if you pay full price at a US uni.

I’m surprised you don’t have U Illinois Urbana on your list. You’d get the lower, in-state rate on tuition there, and they’re fabulous for engineering. Top 5-6 school, and for you, a massive bargain.

Have you looked at Olin College of Engineering? Free of tuition if you can get in. Strong school.

Based on what you wrote here, and on the colleges you listed, you might also like RPI, Michigan Ann Arbor, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia U, Rose Hulman, Harvey Mudd, Northwestern, U Washington.

Please note that you don’t need a school that offers a minor in biomedical, unless you really want one. Most people get into biomedical engineering by majoring in mechanical and doing an internship in biomedical.

4

You have a lot of reaches with that SAT. The OOS publics like UW and Uminn (not the bargain it was with tuition increases) also have high stats in the eng schools, so there won’t be any merit, so you would do full pay at a big public no better than your instate options? Mices’ list is also very reachy. You need matches and your in state safety, Is Urbana also a reach for you for eng as instate?

5

FWIW, Olin is no longer tuition free. But every admitted student gets a scholarship worth half the value of the tuition. In addition, they have a needs-blind admission policy and are very generous with additional financial aid. So it is still a great deal for a fantastic (and unique) school.

6

Thanks for all your feedback. Sorry for my lack of knowledge, I don’t really have any guidance for this, so I may need more feedback again. Anyways, I’m pretty sure I can get into Engineering in UIUC since I believe the acceptance rate is above 50% and I’m pretty sure I’m well-qualified. I preferably want to live and study in California, but I’ll consider some schools outside. My parents are willingly to pay tuition up to 40k, but financial aid is obvious preferred. My parents told me that private schools are more willingly to give out scholarships and financial aid, but I’m not sure if I’m even the slightest qualified.

7

Be aware that engineering majors at UIUC are more competitive than other majors; some engineering applicants are rejected, admitted to second choice majors, or admitted undeclared (from which it is highly competitive to change into an engineering major).

8

If you want to work in CA, stay under $40k OOS with no aid, and go to a great ME program, I’ll throw out my son’s school, Cal Poly. It’s also a reach. You’ll need to up your SAT score. It’s worth a look though.

They don’t offer PhDs, so they are not in the typical ranking lists that you see. That means they focus almost exclusively on undergrads. In the college of engineering alone, they have more than 80 labs. Plus, it’s in a great location.

9

It looks like you are interested in urban schools for the most part. You might consider Case Western Reserve in Cleveland. Assuming a 1430 super score you would be very competitive. CWRU has a strong engineering program and is very strong in the biological sciences and BME. As a safer school consider University of Pittsburgh and as a true safety the University of Cincinnati.

10

With your intended major, your first stop should be the ABET web site. You want to make sure you are receiving a degree from a school with an accredited program. Then you can start looking at other facts that are important to you. You can search accredited programs here: http://www.abet.org/accreditation/

Also, if you are looking for merit aid, a couple of pointers. While it is true many private schools have money to give, you need to be strategic in your approach. The most prestigious schools are the least likely to give a lot in merit aid - they don’t need to pay to attract top students. They often are very generous with need-based aid, but if there is merit available at all it’s incredibly competitive.

The best merit aid is going to come from schools where you are among the top of the group of applicants. Your list is very heavy on schools with high “prestige” factor. To make sure you have some affordable options, try looking at some schools that aren’t as “prestigious” but offer a solid, accredited education and would pay merit aid to have a student of your caliber.

Certainly shoot for the top, but do be sure to have a safety net. Good luck!

11

@eyemgh I’ll definitely take a look into Cal Poly. I never knew they had an outstanding undergrad program. What SAT score range you reckon would be good? Since I assume you’re very familiar with the California schools, are there any others school you would suggest me to look into?
@lvvcsf I’ll also look into Case Western since it’s somewhat close to Illinois. Would Purdue be something I should consider as well?
@InigoMontoya I’ll check out the abet website. I’ll let you know my results

12

Purdue would be a good option. It is a good match for you. It is not in a city though. If you are interested apply by the scholarship deadline (even if you don’t expect a scholarship). Purdue is a rolling admissions school so once they fill their engineering slots it is much harder to get accepted. You are also admitted to a First Year Engineering program not a major. You apply to a specific major the second semester of your freshmen year. They request your 1,2, 3rd choices and majors are given out by availability and grades in the FYE program. How hard it is to get that specific major depends on the number of students applying to that major and their grades. Usually, Biomedical Engineering is one of the harder ones to get in to requiring a minimum of a 3.2 GPA (at least in 2013 when D was a freshman, she is a Chem E). Not as easy as it sounds at Purdue. I don’t know about ME.

13

There are multiple good CA schools, but for your interests and budget, many of them can be overlooked. For instance, Berkeley doesn’t give merit aid to OOS students and is about 15k per year more than Cal Poly.

The best way to figure out if you are competitive at CP is to calculate your MCA score. Search Confused About MCA and go to post 52. It explains how to calculate it. 4700 has classically been the bubble for ME, but it varies. Higher is better.

As for SAT, they do super score. 1430 puts you right at the mean for the college and ME averages are slightly higher. If you’re going to retake it, concentrate on upping your CR score. The best way to do that is to do old test section timed and then go over every single answer, right and wrong, to know how they got the answer they did.

As you’ll see from the MCA, having a leadership position gives a boost. Get one. Your internship will count as major related work. That helps. Lastly, if you fill out an application, don’t overlook the fact that you include some middle school math and language classes if they were HS level (algebra, geometry, etc.). Thus will make sense if you fill out an application.

Overall, you’d be a solid candidate, especially OOS.

Now, prestige and the undergrad experience…they are unrelated. Prestige is based on the doctoral work done at the school and the professors doing it. Look deeper into what the UG experience is like. Good luck!

14

Actually, it does, but any significant merit scholarships should be considered super-reach.

15

WPI fits your criteria, and would definitely be a safety. Nice area, great robotics programs. They do lots of partnerships with Boston Dynamics.

RPI is also a solid engineering school. I think its on the border between safety and target.

JHU is very good at biomedical engineering, so you might just want to declare BME for JHU, but that is as competitive, if not more, than an ivy.

Northeastern is very popular among the engineers at my school. Best part is that they don’t require any additional essays outside of the common app.

16

@eyemgh Alright I’ll calculate my MCA score and see. I’m going to California in July, so I will definitely visit Cal Poly. However, I don’t really want to restrict myself with just one CA school, so how’d I go about finding other CA Schools that match my interests and budget? I know you said for example Berkeley can be overlooked since the tuition is 15k more. UCLA sounds like a pretty good choice for me I think.
@theOGreject2017 Thanks for your recommendations. Should I declare for Mechanical rather than BME for JHU since someone else said I could just do internship in biomedical? Since the schools you mentioned are pretty much form the east coast, is Vanderbilt, Cornell, and MIT schools I should reach for? They are 40K tuition and offer doctorates for mechanical engineering which I would like to purse.

17

All California UC’s like UCB/UCLA will cost you around $60K/year as an OOS applicant with little to no FA including merit.



Look at USC and Harvey Mudd although they may be reaches with your SAT scores.






18

CPSLO is a CSU, and other CSUs will have similar prices (i.e. lower than UCs). However, many other CSUs are heavily commuter-based, so they may not be the most attractive for non-local students.

19

I agree with @ucbalumnus and @Gumbymom, any UC OOS will cost you $240k. Although merit is possible, it’s so rare that you are best assuming it will be zero. That’s why we all tend to say they don’t offer it. For all practical purposes, they don’t.

Cal Poly is fairly different than the rest of the CSUs in that it is a typical college campus with very few commuters.

There really aren’t other great CA options given your stats and budget constraints. I wouldn’t count on admission at USC, let alone aid. LMU and Pacific have ABET ME, but they aren’t schools I typically recommend. The COA would be similar to a UC, but you might get merit aid. The rest of the CSUs probably wouldn’t interest you. Mudd, Caltech and Stanford are all expensive and likely high reaches given your stats.

20

@Gumbymom Ok thanks for the information. I can’t really believe OOS is that expensive. What do you think a good SAT score would be if I wanted to have a chance into USC or Harvey Mudd? I believe they allow Super scoring, too.