Safeties needed!

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hello there...</p>

<p>I am a rising senior in a private school here in Connecticut. I will be applying as an International student ( since I'm an Indian passport holder, born and brought up in the middle east and moved to the US 2 years ago ). I plan to major in Mechanical Engineering ( with the hopes of switching to Business, where offered, if I dont like Engineering )</p>

<p>My junior year GPA was 3.8 unweighted approx and my courseload included AP Physics B, AP Comp. Science A , Calculus Honors, English III Honors, Spanish II and US History. I hope to take the following courses as a senior:
AP Calculus AB,AP Literature,Chemistry Honors,Spanish III Honors,International Relations ( Semester course ) and Guitar lessons.</p>

<p>My extracurriculars include Flying aircraft ( both single-engined as well as a sailplanes/gliders ) and playing the indian drums ( tablas ) ..I recieved a $1900 grant from my school to get my glider license. I started the tablas 6-7 months ago so I'm not great as yet but I love the tablas and hope to pursue it for the next few years while I have the time. </p>

<p>I also love learning languages: I am fluent in English, Urdu, Hindi & Sindhi ; I can read and write Arabic and can understand Gujurati.. Have a basic knowledge in Spanish..</p>

<p>My SAT: 1080
My ACT: 29 ( which I hope to get up to a 30 + this September.. I plan to submit only my ACT to all the schools im applying to )
SAT II Math IIC : 650
SATII Physics : 650</p>

<p>Here's my college list:</p>

<p>Reaches: </p>

<p>Harvard ( I figured i'd give it a shot... No harm trying.. )
UPenn
Brown
Columbia</p>

<p>Matches:</p>

<p>BU
Northeastern
Lehigh University</p>

<p>Safeties:</p>

<p>Umass Amherst
UConn
Penn State</p>

<p>My problem is that I dont really like my Safeties too much and I've just put them there as backup. I would not really want to go there ( unless I'm forced to.. Their location in the middle of nowhere bothers me.. I like city campuses ) . Can you guys please recommend safeties in northeast US? I prefer medium to large sized universities and do not like the small liberal arts kind of colleges with a student population of less than 2000.</p>

<p>Also, have I divided my list into reach,match and safety fine or am I being too optimistic with my list?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

2

<p>Drexel, Villanova, U of Delaware, UMBC</p>

3

<p>Isn't Villanova a small school?</p>

<p>Shall check both Villanova and Drexel out. I want to stick to the northeast so Univ of Delaware and UMBC are too far off. </p>

<p>Thanks ...</p>

4

<p>Michigan, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Wash StL</p>

5

<p>
[quote]
[Michigan, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Wash StL

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I want to stick to the Northeast ( Boundaries: Pennsylvania in the west and New Jersey to the south )</p>

6

<p>Near New York City: Manhattan College, Stevens Institue. In NY state" Suny at Buffalo, Rochester Institute. Philly: Drexel, Temple. Pittsburgh" University of Pittsburgh. Don't know if Suffolk in Boston has engineeering.</p>

7

<p>oh and SUNY Stony Brook</p>

8

<p>Rutgers and TCNJ.</p>

9

<p>Cool. Thanks for the recommendations.. Shall try and check them out..</p>

<p>Another question, does my list look balanced or do I have too many unrealistic reaches?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

10

<p>If you get your match and safety apps out first, and then leisurely do your reach apps, you'll be fine. Your reaches are lottery tickets, so think of them as such. I think your matches are true reaches for you.</p>

11

<p>Unless you plan on getting your test scores higher, I wouldn't waste your time on your reaches. Spend a lot of time on your matches, really fine-tune the apps...</p>

12

<p>
[quote]
I think your matches are true reaches for you.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I checked out Northeastern and BU's class of 2010 profile and I am well within the standardized testing range as well the GPA... Why do you consider them to be reaches?</p>

<p>
[quote]
Unless you plan on getting your test scores higher, I wouldn't waste your time on your reaches

[/quote]
</p>

<p>What do you recommend I aim for on my ACT's to better my chances for my reaches ( since I will not be submitting my SATI scores ) </p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

13

<p>ACTs, 32 at least. SATs... 1400 for CR/V, 2100 for CR/V/W. At least.</p>

14

<p>I see.. Will try and aim for a better ACT score. Will not be submitting my SATI scores for any of the above universities since they accept the ACT score in place of the SATI.</p>

15

<p>Your ACT scores are about in the midrange; it's really your major that can hurt you. Lehigh has a very good engineering school. To be a male and wanting to major in engineering at Lehigh puts you in the pot with some pretty impressive academic stats. Your geographics and country of origin are not going to help you as both NE and Lehigh get tons of Connecticut applicants. You have to assess your numbers with the programs you want. Engineering is really going to put scrutiny on where you are in math and your math scores. Many times in schools where a liberal arts program is well within your reach, the engineering and business schools are a whole different story because of the limited number of seats and so many kids applying to them.</p>

16

<p>I see.. I'll be applying as an international student so i'm probably not going to fall under the Connecticut pool since I am here in the US on a F-1 student visa.. But I see your point..... </p>

<p>So I guess in general, the advice would be to improve my ACT scores and focus on improving my apps via my essays,etc?
Would you guys recommend applying to Harvard Early Action?</p>

17

<p>Jai, get more specific info on Lehigh and Northeastern, focusing on the programs you want. It's always helpful to improve test scores and your apps in general, but for right now, you know what you have, and work with that until you get the improvements. The ACTs are a bit unpredictable with eastern colleges simply because they do not get as many of them as they do SATs. International students are often put in the same pool and then compared with each other along with the rest of the school population. </p>

<p>I am not shooting down your choices, but am being conservative. If you can find a few safeties you like, your list is fine. But even among the safeties, you need to check the specific programs. My friend's son was rejected from Purdue with stats that put him in the upper 25% of applicants. And Purdue was accepting about 80% of its applicants that year. But the program he wanted was highly selective, and very small. Those stats were buried when looking at the overall numbers, but were very important. Had he done his homework, he would not have been shocked at the rejection, and would have classified that school as a reach, despite the overall numbers.</p>

18

<p>Tried searching for more indepth stats on the engineering programs at Lehigh/Northeastern but to no avail...I could only find the overall stats. Maybe I'm missing something.. Will try and search again. </p>

<p>This fall is going to be so crazy in terms of workload.. doh! I've not even started my essay yet ( dunno where to start.. ). Oh well!</p>

19

<p>You may need to call the departments. My friend wanted a breakdown on the acceptance rates for a music department. It does not help you to know that the university accept rate is 60% for kids of a certain stat, when the music majors main thing is the audition. If you are a mezzo soprano, the overall department rates are not going to help you either. You need to get some idea as to how many mezzo sopranos applied last year and how many were accepted. That gives you some info to start spreading your risks. She called the department , and the secretary gave her the info. If you can visit the school, you may want to sit and talk to dept heads, and get a feel for the selectivity; you don't need precise #s.</p>

20

<p>Michigan is not that much further than Penn State - and has a great engineering program (OK I'm biased!). Plus they are big on diversity. If you haven't checked them out you really should.</p>