New here. Son needs help figuring out what colleges are considered Reach or Safety

Your son sounds similar to my daughter who is just finishing up this process.
If he wants the naval academy, he should start that process now. The preliminary application is available. Also have him take care of the candidate fitness exam over the summer, and watch your representative and senators websites about nominations. Find the service academy forums on the web, there is a wealth of information there.
If he is interested in serving in the navy, begin the nrotc accplication as well. Ideally, he should have it completed for the first board in October/November.
After those are done, identify engineering schools, preferably with EA, because the academy tends to award most appointments after January. It would be problematic to be accepted ED and then receive an appointment. On your list, g’tech and MIT are ea. You may want to add Villanova (EA) since it has a great nrotc program. RPI has nrotc, and he should have a good shot there, unfortunately they are ED.

Your list is not that off. My daughter was accepted to the academy, MIT (Ea), Gtech (deferred, accepted rd), Villanova (ea) and a couple of others. Her requirements were basically an engineering school near or in a city with nrotc.

Good luck with the year ahead, and pack your patience, the navy does things on its own timeline.

I can’t agree more with @Dolemite about how helpful it is to have an admissions early in hand to a good school that your S would like. It really takes the pressure off and lets you narrow your list if your S gets in, and if he doesn’t, it’s a good wake up call that you need to add more likelies. If the early app college rejected your S and you thought his acceptance was strongly likely based on his stats, at that point your S can ask his GC to review his application and recommendations to make sure there’s nothing there that’s a turn-off, and if there is that can be corrected before he submits his other apps.

There are plenty of good options listed already.

Here’s another candidate:

University of New Mexico

  • They offer Nuclear Engineering
  • They offer very good automatic merit aid and some outstanding competitive merit aid
  • They have an honors college
  • New Mexico is gorgeous

https://scholarship.unm.edu/scholarships/non-resident.html

Unless there are no cost constraints, along with running the NPC at the various schools please make sure to tell your son sooner rather than later what the budget is. You will avoid heartache and unnecessary apps if you have that talk up front.

I agree that LACs are a good for some as was the case with my son. He has strong stats, rank 1/450, great ACT and GPA. Safety and match schools are different for each student but for safety maybe look at schools with at least 50% acceptance or better. Many state schools fit this. He applied to a decent variety so he had a few choices of match and safety to choose from.

Here are the schools with ABET accredited nuclear engineering bachelor’s degree programs:

Georgia Institute of Technology >
Idaho State University >
Massachusetts Institute of Technology >
Missouri University of Science and Technology (Formerly Missouri University of Science and Technology) >
North Carolina State University at Raleigh >
Oregon State University >
Pennsylvania State University >
Purdue University at West Lafayette >
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute >
South Carolina State University >
Texas A&M University >
United States Military Academy >
University of California, Berkeley >
University of Florida >
University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign >
University of Massachusetts Lowell (Formerly University of Massachusetts Lowell) >
University of Michigan >
University of New Mexico >
University of Tennessee at Knoxville >
University of Wisconsin - Madison >
Virginia Commonwealth University >

Many do not look that hard to get admitted to, but you need to check costs.

MIT, Cornell, and the Naval Academy are all going to be a long shot regardless of how good his stats are. He’s obviously looking at the military, so I would venture Texas A&M as the ultimate safety school. It’s a top engineering school and their Corp of Cadets is considered to be the best ROTC program in the country. Virginia Tech is also a good choice for engineering, and it has a corp of cadets as well. Of course, NC State is a good safety option if all else fails.

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Even with good grades and test scores, as long as human beings on the admission committee are reading the application, there is a chance of rejection. Check the institutions listed in the threads on automatic admission for specific stats (Admissions Forum) and automatic scholarships for stats (Financial Aid Forum) to find at least one place where his stats guarantee admission, that your family can afford, that offers something very close to the currently targeted major, and where he could be happy as a student. That would be his true safety.

My son is in a similar situation. We are in state for Ga Tech. Even with unweighted 4.0 and 1540 and very high rigor with 4s and 5s on APs it is not a shoe in. His safety schools may be NC State, Va Tech, and Clemson - all excellent engineering schools. MIT, Stanford, Cornell, Columbia I think are reaches for basically everyone who hasn’t done something spectacular. Purdue is very good as is Illinois.

If he’s interested in nuclear engineering, he can major in a different type of engineering (e.g., mechanical) and get hands-on nuclear training in the Navy.

Applying ED somewhere and getting an appointment at a military academy is not a problem at all. Appointments carry no commitment. I personally know a kid who turned down an appointment at the USAFA and accepted an ROTC scholarship to Baylor. A friend of mine flat out just didn’t show up for in-processing day, but that was a while back.

Chapel Hill is a great school but has no engineering program at all

But applying ED, which is binding, does become problematic…

The scenario stated in the above post fine, but the ED binding contract did not play a role. Presently my daughter is trying to decide between usna (February appointment) and nrotc Mit (EA). Since neither are binding, she can choose.

It becomes problematic in a case such as this…if accepted ED to a school in December, you must withdraw all other applications. If you really want an academy, you’re out of luck because you are in a binding contract to attend the ED school.

Students who are interested in an academy are a different breed. They are typically not willing to risk not going to an academy in hopes of ED elsewhere. If the academy is truly a focus I suggest not applying ED elsewhere. (Yes, you could probably get out of it, but honor is a big thing at the academies). Only the original poster can decide how important an appointment is.

Is the 1550 SAT just CR and Math? Sorry if I missed this. I’m not sure how the current SATs are scored? It sounds a very high score which would mean your son has a good shot at Cornell or MIT. If he gets into one of those dream schools, let him go there. You can take out low interest loans to pay for it if you have to. Don’t worry too much about the money. You can make small payments over a long time to pay it off. These schools are worth it for your son. Just work the payments into your budget. Once you reach full retirement age you can take Social Security without penalty while you continue to work and pay off the remaining debt if there is any. The important thing is to get your son a great education. Go to the most selective school you can get into. SAT scores are the best way to judge reach, match, or safety. There are no guarantees at the elite schools like Cornell and MIT. Good luck!

semifinalist so far

From the ABET accredited list, UMass Lowell is less selective but it has its own nuclear research reactor and is known for those programs. They do offer merit for out of state applicants. There is no special application for the nuclear programs.
https://www.uml.edu/News/press-releases/2016/USNWRrankings091316.aspx
https://www.uml.edu/Engineering/Chemical/Programs/Nuclear/
https://www.uml.edu/Research/Energy/research/nuclear-energy.aspx

The only LAC that I know of that has a nuclear reactor is Reed. They do not offer engineering except through partnership programs
https://reactor.reed.edu/about.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l33AR1PmZsg

@mcfamilyof4 For service academies (USAFA, USMA, USNA & USCGA) apply to the summer leadership programs. Each program is one week in length. Only available to students during summer between junior & senior years of high school. Competitive admissions as many do not get an invitation, but rejection does not mean that one will not be admitted to the academies–unless due to disqualifying health issue. While not necessary for service academy admission, it can help in very substantial ways while allowing the prospective student to get a brief sample of the service academies. (Merchant Marine does not, to the best of my knowledge, offer a summer leadership program.)

There is a good bit of misinformation about these programs on this website posted by a parent whose son never attended any of the seminars, but is at a service academy. My son was accepted to all four & attended three (West Point, Annapolis & Colorado Springs). The benefits & the experiences are incredible.

@mcfamilyof4: Also, you are correct that Georgia Tech is a reach as many with your son’s numbers were rejected this cycle. Important to note that Georgia Tech considers state residency as an admissions factor (even though the University of Georgia does not).

With respect to the list of schools in post #25 shared by @ucbalumnus, plan to apply to at least 12 of the 21 listed schools.

@Publisher yes he is attending the NASS. really looking forward to that!