<p>U Houston: safety
UT-Austin: out of reach (engineering AND not top 7% = forget it - would be high match otherwise)
Cornell, Rice: reach
UCLA, UCB: reach
Georgia Tech: high match
UIUC: match
UMinn: safety</p>
<p>One question though: have you run the Net price calculators on these websites? Can your parents afford all these public out of state schools? There’s no difference applying to a private school from instate or out of state (actually it may give you an advantage if you apply to a state where few Texas students apply, in the Midwest or MidAtlantic for example). However public OOS costs are extremely high and they don’t meet need so even if they accepted you, it wouldn’t be their problem whether you could afford it or not. Try to apply to a few private tech schools like RPI, RIT…</p>