<p>Northwestern, Wake Forest, and Duke are excellent schools, but they’re no easier to get into than Vanderbilt and Notre Dame. In fact, Duke may be the most selective of all of them. </p>
<p>So he still needs a safety.</p>
<p>What about Penn State? Despite unfortunate recent events, it has extremely loyal, sports-oriented alumni. And unlike most state universities, it does not have more selective admissions criteria for out-of-staters than in-staters. It’s also a rolling admissions school, meaning that he would get an answer from them early, and if he’s admitted, he has one in the bag.</p>
<p>It’s farther away than 7 hours (unless he flies), but how about Pitt? Engineering as well as the other majors you list, sports, a great school in a great town with an enthusiastic student body. With his stats, your son would probably receive a large merit scholarship.</p>
<p>And speaking of stats, I predict he’s in at both Vanderbilt and Notre Dame. Of course he needs a safety he loves, and it’s smart for you to help him with this. Best of luck.</p>
<p>I could not disagree more with music222 that choosing a school so that the OP’s son can follow its teams forever is a “very poor reason.” A whole lot of very intelligent, successful people have included the school sports scene on their list of “wants.”</p>
<p>I was going to mention Pitt also. It is an awesome town and we had an amazing tour there </p>
<p>My son wants a rah rah division 1 sports environment also. He really likes u. Of Cincinnati. Teams are often in the top 20 and the school isn’t as huge as Osu. Not very selective for your stats but engineering students have their own higher averages.</p>
<p>momstl – since your son is a strong student, I wonder if you could try the “apply to lots of reaches/matches” strategy (like a dozen schools) instead of applying to fewer but having some safeties. It might be a tall order getting a student who is set on two schools to apply to lots of others from a time/enthusiasm perspective, though.</p>
<p>Another suggestion I have for you is for him to reach out to the admissions counselors for your region for the schools he is interested in (but don’t stalk!) Also, interview if that’s an option. I think showing interest always helps. With Vanderbilt, try and find the videos of Doug Christiansen(son?), the Director of Admissions on YouTube. They are helpful for any school, not just Vanderbilt. He is a good speaker on the topic of admissions.</p>
<p>A bit more than 7 hours, but lots of direct flights: U of Miami. Big sport school with strong academics and a good engineering program. At 9K UGs, it actually feels smaller than it is. Kids are happy. I mean really, really happy being at school and learning. </p>
<p>I know this isn’t exactly what you asked, but perhaps your son may come to love the safety he already has. I assume it is Mizzou. Over at the HS Class of '15 thread, olderwisermom’s son went to Missouri honors program. IIRC, he was rejected from his dream school and wasn’t interested in Mizzou, but absolutely fell in love with it beforehand and was so excited about it. I searched the old thread and came up with a little of the history:</p>
<p>Count me as one who does not see your son’s Sports Criteria as “bad”. I think speaks to more than his desire to follow a sports culture. Your S wants a school with a unified culture based on a shared passion. My D insists that any school she attends must be wooded and “pretty”. </p>
<p>I think finding a smaller school with a large sports culture is the challenge, as many are state flagships and large. You may need to expand the geography. </p>
<p>momstl–I still follow my college teams all these years later. I have fond, fond memories of various games, etc. in college!!</p>
<p>Has he looked at Truman? I love that school. It isn’t as big of a rah, rah school but would be a good academic match and the sporting events are well attended from what we can tell.</p>
<p>momstl - My S13 has similar stats and his #1 choice is Notre Dame and Vanderbilt is very high on his list. His safety, which he will be happy to attend if it comes to that, is NIU (Northern Illinois University) and his follow-up safety, had it been necessary, was SEMO (Southeast Missouri State). He liked those particular state schools because they are actively recruiting honors students, the honors programs seem to be treated as very important, they have a range of majors leaning toward the math/science fields, and they are smaller schools with D1 sports (he doesn’t play, he’s a fan). </p>
<p>I like them because both have quite a bit of merit money based on scores. I’d apply soon, though, for the best chance at it.</p>
<p>My experience, YMMV, is that once the admission to NIU was received, S13 suddenly found the school much more interesting than before. Also, so far it’s making the waiting easier on the “nobody-can-truly-call-this-a-match” schools.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone ever said he is choosing solely based on the sports scene. Lucky for him, there are a lot of excellent universities that also happen to have a sports scene. (Once you throw “not too large” into the mix, they become a little harder to find. In my son’s case, it had to be in a city, which narrowed things considerably.)</p>
<p>Have you considered Miami University in Ohio? Not a great football program (except for that Cradle of Coaches thing), but their basketball isn’t bad and their hockey team is good - made it to the NCAA finals in 2009 I think. His stats would get him merit money there too.</p>
<p>Depending on where you are in Missouri, TCU in Fort Worth, Texas, may or may not be within the acceptable distance. However, TCU would be an academic safety, it isn’t too large (7,853 undergrads, 1,289 grads), its student body is more conservative than most, as those at Notre Dame and Vanderbilt are, it has a strong sports atmosphere, especially with regard to football, and it offers some good merit scholarships.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it qualifies as a safety, but another well-regarded school within your son’s distance parameters is U. of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. I believe their sports are competitive historically, although I’m not sure about recent teams.</p>
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