@candyandnuts , how about Lehigh University. Solid business school for serious student, closer to Phil or DC for intern opportunities. Slight lower D1 school too. One senior on our swimming team is going there.
Just wanted to reiterate what others have stated: Take ACT or SAT w/ Writing! It seems as though most schools require the writing element of whichever test you submit, and Iām not talking top-tier schools only, either. Our school (IL) will also be switching to the SAT, and itās unclear when this will occur.
Quite the impressive list of schools everyone is listing on this thread! Iām waiting to see if we are Powerball winners before even thinking about schools where we would be full pay!
I saw the lottery #s posted on Facebook, in case anyone has tickets.
The winning Powerball numbers for the $949.8 million jackpot are 32-16-19-57-34 and the Powerball is 13.
Darn!
Hi there - we are starting college visits over upcoming school breaks ā I welcome your thoughts as to places to visit - son is a strong student & has a high ACT score & pretty good ECs. He is a āMakerā & does also sorts of hardware & programming projects. He is interested in electrical engineering & CS but it is pretty important to find schools that have collaborative and supportive environments, classes of 50 or less, good access to professors and opportunities for students to pursue some projects/research they are interested in. He is smart but not a 24/7 & 7 days a week worker and I am concerned about time management & his ability to be as independent as necessary to succeed in a very top school, with large classes & extensive work outside of class without great ability to access professors easily. We visited USC and liked it, Stanford/MIT would be a ādreamā for him but besides so hard to get in, would he succeed if he did?, We plan to see Rice, UT Austin (but it is huge & not sure how new gun law will be implemented), Carnegie Mellon, RPI, WPI, GA Tech. We are in NY/CT area so have some preference for schools within driving distance but there do not seem to be a lot of strong options. So we are wondering where else to look - Case Western, RIT/Univ. of Rochester, Cornell (but some stay not that healthy of an environment). Thanks for any suggestions!
@ca1543 - Olin, Stevens, and Rose-Hulman might be other schools to consider.
A friend MIT faculty worried about students sleep deprivation. It was mid November and he said āI donāt think students ever slept since the beginning of the term.ā
Northeastern, Case Western, U Rochester, Pitt, are great choices for a strong student where he might get merit as well.
Be realistic, about price and school. The goal should not be to get junior into the highest ranked (by whose standards anyway?) school that he can get admitted to at any cost.
Look at each program, research opportunities and personal fit. The goal should be to get junior into a school where he can be happy and successful and reach his personal and professional goals. And be affordable for you.
@CA1543 if you are going to travel to Texas for UT Austin you should really consider stopping by College Station to look at Texas A&M. Very very solid engineering department and while it is a great program he is less likely maybe to feel the push of daily grinding competition as in some schools like MIT, etc. I know it has a rep as a more conservative campus (a turnoff to my own daughter as well!) but honestly even when I attended in the early 90ās there were tons of groups to be found on campus and I never found myself surrounded by a conservative agenda.
As a native Texan, I simply cannot imagine living IN Houston to attend Rice. We (native Texans) jokingly refer to Houston as the āarmpit of Texas!ā It is nasty humid warm, not the greatest as far as safety and just ugh. I would never want to live there. But Rice is an amazing school so Iām sure that can be overlooked if that is the program he has his heart set on.
We toured UT Austin last week and even though I am an Aggie and thus from a similar sized school, the campus felt very very non-campusy. Practically located right under a major freeway with buildings difficult to distinguish from some of the rest of the city. It felt very sprawlish to me. D on the other hand, really loved the buildings and the campus. Maybe it is a generational thing.
@CA1543 I second both Case and Rose-Hulman. Maybe VaTech?
@carachel2 Other than UT Austin and A&M, are there any other great in-state schools for science/engineering one should consider?
Thanks to all who have responded so far!! Greatly appreciate it - good go see Tx College Station too - - we have spent time in Houston - I hear you @carachel2!! Will look at Case & Rose-Hulman. (Not thinking too much about VA Tech). Maybe Univ. of Md. Coll Park? I think UPenn is not a good fit, Any places that have huge ācoreā requirements also are not on the top of our list unless APs can satisfy a number of them. It is a bit tricky to weigh the various factors, but your thoughts are very much appreciated!
I donāt know about Texas, but you should take a look at U Alabama for engineering.
Anyone else who wonāt qualify for much/any FA but with a budget $25-30K, and a desire for top 100-130ish school? I.e., chasing significant merit? Plans are for grad school, so we have been looking for UG with a good Bio program that is known to be a good PhD feeder school.
We had been looking at research Unis, but have started looking at LACs after some initial research. I mostly see Top 50 lists and the like. Any suggestions would be welcome!
And speaking of merit, I feel sorry for my D. Our spreadsheet is pretty large, so I foresee LOTS of apps in her future. We are in IL. Location is not yet on the criteria list, but Iām guessing as this gets ārealā she will want to stay within a short flight away.
@2muchquan ā¦maybe perhaps similar. Will not qualify for any/much FA. D wants to major in biology, biological sciences and perhaps bioengineering. Weāve sat her down for the budget talk. She has guaranteed in-state admission to the big two here in Texas and they are financially fine although UT is >$$$ than A&M. UT offers very little merit aid also. We are not focused on a top top program, but of course we want it to be solid.
She desperately wants to go OOS, so she totally is on board with the fact she needs to chase some merit. She has seen the spreadsheets (H is an engineer so itās a pretty great spreadsheet lol!). She is currently looking at U Pitt because of their great bio reputation. She will need to crank her ACT by at least 3-4 points to possibly qualify for half-tuition or full-tuition and that would pull into the same budget range as our in-state schools at full pay. It looks like she will miss NMF by about 5-8 points which is a bummer. Iāve told her itās all up to her in that area and even then it may be a crap shoot because she is a great kid with a high class standing but not a ton of amazing ECs.
I sat her down and made her look at University of Alabama and she is slowly starting to consider. They are having a special reception in our area and she was invited. Their merit aid is fantastic; the recruitment for engineering and sciences is strong and the campus and dorms look great to her 16 y/o aesthetic lol. She will tour UA for sure. She would qualify for a full-tuition ride there with an ACT raise of just 2 points. Have you really seriously looked at UA?
We have lots of talks here about how the name doesnāt really matter, it is the work you put into a program and internships and grad school that matter more. We have had the debt talk and she wants to avoid anything more than 10-15K (laid that out on a payback spreadsheet also!).
@CA1543 you may want to add GaTech to your list as well insofar as academic fit. Not sure if the size would be an issue though.
Also, agree with @carachel2 about the feel of the UT Austin campus. Other than the HUGE stadium, many of its campus buildings are indistinguishable from Austin city bldgs. Cool campus overall and didnāt have the sprawl feel that many other campuses weāve toured had.
ETA-just saw GaTech is already on the list 
@carachel2 I have been saying āRoll Tideā for months 
to my kid. I think itās a fine choice. I even carved an Alabama āAā pumpkin for Halloween. Itās not sticking yet. She hasnāt done the research yet. I am going to let her decide on that one. A contributing factor in her decision is that she is adopted from China. I canāt walk in her shoes on that one.
Pitt is towards the top of our list too. Whatās your opinion of UT Dallas? Good money there!
Iām also looking at LACs as well but DS doesnāt have good scores yet (only did practice tests but not high) so itās difficult to know which school. We prefer East or Midwestern schools. Texas in-state schools will be financial safety (in-state tuition full pay) but we do not live in Texas so I do not have much info.
At this point our list is pretty random and sketchy. We will not do school visit until summer. Too many exams and tests to take 
We may visit Oberlin, Case Western, College of Wooster (AO visited our school and their research program looked interesting) Kenyon may be too rural for us, Carnegie Mellon (very reach?)
Swarthmore and Haverford may be too much reach as well. We may visit Johns Hopkins, RPI, WPI.
How is Union College, NY? (again AO visit was interesting)
How is U Mass Amherst (location favored family reasons) engineering?
@2muchquan, may I suggest looking at the book āColleges that Change Livesā by Loren Pope for an overview of LACs that give merit aid. It has mainly tier 2 LACs across the country that give merit money and provide very good educations.
D15 wanted to go to a small LAC, and nothing else. We also didnāt have the money to send her to any LAC if we had to pay full price. We fit firmly into the doughnut hole, too āaffluentā for needs-based aid and too regular āmiddle classā to pay $45-60K in tuition, fees, and housing. She chased merit money. Note: she is high stats, NMF, etc. Most LACs that she applied to (and we used the book) gave her merit aid (that I referred to as tuition discounting) at about half tuition. The highest ranked LACs primarily offer needs-based aid only, especially those great schools in the northeast and the Ivyās. She applied for competitive scholarships at a handful including the Davidson College Belk Scholarship and the Washington and Lee Johnson Scholarship (both full ride). She didnāt make it into the semi-finals for the Belk competition but did make the Johnson. She is now at W&L and is happy. FWIW, she is a liberal-minded teen and W&L is very conservative and āGreekā. Despite that, she has found her peeps and is getting an excellent education.
@mtrosemom Iāve snooped around the CTCL website, but maybe Iāll pick up the book. We are going to visit Davidson this spring, as well as some others in the area. More for helping her decide what type of school, but the Belk would be awesome :). Plus, itās warmer than the Midwest in the early spring. Ivys are not something we are considering unless next weekās Powerball works out. Even then, probably not.