<p>I've seen a lot of AA students in Silicon Valley, with 3.5-3.8 GPAs, not make it into top-tier schools, and being a URM simply isn't enough of a hook these days. There are just too many other AA students with a higher GPA and SAT scores who are in the top 10% of their class, but your young man sounds like a serious and committed student.</p>
<p>UPenn and MIT may be a serious reach, but nothing beats a failure like a try! </p>
<p>If your S would consider traveling west, I know that Harvey Mudd College in Southern California is seriously interested in increasing diversity on its campus (only 3 of 700 students were AA last year), as is Santa Clara U here in Silicon Valley. Stanford and UC Berkeley overshadow SCU in the S.F. bay area, but it's a decent "smaller" school. Your S being a strong out-of-state candidate may actually work in his favor at both HMC and SCU.</p>
<p>!!! GOOD LUCK !!!</p>