<p>I was approached my RPI by means of email. They are giving me priority application. I was not in any prior conversation with them. so i belive that as they approched me, this is a safety college for me. They are giving me high chances of admission and a pretty good chance of getting a scholorship. They said its for a few students only.</p>
<p>How good is RPI?
please tell me its rankings and quality of education. I couldnt find anything coherent on the net as everywhere its rankings are different.
Please help :-D
Thankyou for your considerations.</p>
<p>RPI is a very good school especially for STEM. It is ranked 41 on USNews, they and many other schools (Ex. Fordham) give out priority applications to a lot of people to attract more applicants.</p>
<p>so are you saying that the priority form is just a ruse to get students in? Moreover how is the university in comparison to-:</p>
<p>GA Tech, University of Florida, UIUC, Purdue, clemson, UPenn, columbia etc</p>
<p>(my preferred right now is GA Tech as i may have a good chance for getting in , but if RPI gives me good financial aid then there might be a conflict)</p>
<p>Its about on par with UF, Purdue, and Clemson; GTech, UIUC, Penn, and Columbia are more prestigious but I think RPI’s engineering is probably better than Columbia.</p>
<p>I just got the email today as well but rather not apply to a binding early decision but I would be interested in their physician/ science program application.</p>
<p>Some schools send out blanket ‘priority applications’ to all rising HS seniors with standardized test scores that meet certain thresholds, seeking to boost applications and make themselves more selective. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this makes you someone special in their eyes. It’s not an offer of admission, they’re just inviting you to apply and making it easy for you to do so. If their little marketing campaign is successful, they’ll end up rejecting most of the people who send in the ‘priority application’.</p>
<p>They can buy lists of standardized test-takers scoring within specified parameters from the College Board and the ACT.</p>
<p>For undergrad engineering, USNews ranks the mentioned schools this way: #5 Georgia Tech, #5 Illinois, #10 Purdue, #20 Columbia, #23 RPI, #30 Penn, #34 Florida, #58 Clemson. Purdue is an engineering powerhouse and is very well recruited. If the USNews rankings are to believed, RPI is the 8th-best engineering school in the Northeast after MIT, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Penn State, and Columbia.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t consider RPI a safety school - and especially after receiving that email, which holds little value. It has a very strong engineering program and offers a challenging courseload like the other schools you listed. </p>
<p>Yes, there are better options than RPI, but it still is a strong school.</p>
<p>If it’s the same as last year, it was called “Candidate’s Choice” and as other’s have said, it’s definately not a hint at acceptance or scholarship/financial aid. My DS did use this application and in time regretted it because what time was supposedly saved in writing essays, was used to gather the teacher recs and supplemental info that had already been submitted to the Common App.</p>