<p>Quick Overview:
Sex: Male
Ethnicity: Middle Eastern
School: Small Private in Texas</p>
<p>UW GPA (out of 4.3): 4.1
Rank: None given
ACT: Expecting 32-34
SAT II's: Expecting 750+ in Math II and Physics
AP's: Taking 10 tests in high school (5 Junior year)
Courseload: 5 AP Classes (only allowed to take 3 per year); rest are honors</p>
<p>Just based on those stats, what would be good match and safety schools for an engineering major academically? I would prefer to go somewhere near a mid-large size city with no religious affiliation. I can post EC's, but I don't want to turn this into a pseudo chance me thread.</p>
<p>Those stats automatically qualify you for the Presidential Scholarship at The University of Alabama (full tuition scholarship) plus $2500 as an engineering major. No essay needed. OOS is 50% and many students from not only Texas but globally.</p>
<p>A Texas high school not giving ranks? That prevents you from finding admission safeties among the Texas public universities which have automatic admission based on class rank (although in some cases, automatic admission to the university does not necessarily mean automatic admission to the engineering division).</p>
<p>Of course, cost is important in finding safeties; a safety must be affordable.</p>
<p>If cost of attendance is a concern, Alabama is a good option. But it if is not, the OP can do much better academically. Safeties would include Minnesota-Twin Cities, Purdue-West Lafayette and Texas A&M. Targets/matches would include Georgia Tech, UIUC and Wisconsin-Madison. If your school ranked you in the top 10%, UT-Austin would also have been a safety. But without ranking, I would go with match.</p>
<p>Most of those universities I listed will offer merit scholies for students with your credentials, assuming you are a US citizen. However, few will offer automatic scholarships as substantial as Alabama.</p>
<p>Have you asked your parents how much they’ll pay each year? If not, do so. You need to know exactly what your situation is. </p>
<p>Until you have actual scores, it would be hard to determine other schools that might give you decent merit. An ACT 35+ might get you some merit at the best schools that give merit, but an ACT 32-34 might get you nothing. For instance, it’s unlikely that you’d get much/anything from GT without a very high ACT.</p>
<p>I asked them and they said they’d be willing to pay for a T20 university or UT, no matter what the cost is. I’d like to be able to get some sort of scholarship at my safety and possibly match universities, so I can alleviate some of the stress if I don’t get into my reaches.</p>
<p>My number one requirement for a school is for it to have a top notch engineering program.</p>
<p>Trinity University in San Antonio has an ABET accredited program. #1 Regional University in the west (Higher average SAT scores than both A&M and UT) with a one billion dollar endowment (generous merit aid). Despite its affiliation it isn’t a religious school and requires no theology courses.</p>
<p>“My number one requirement for a school is for it to have a top notch engineering program.”</p>
<p>Define “top notch”? Top 5? Top 10? Top 20? Many posters here are recommending schools like Alabama and Trinity. While their Engineering programs are not bad, I would not qualify them as “top notch”.</p>
<p>Good or excellent urban engineering programs - Case Western, Lehigh, RPI, BU, Northeastern, Pitt, CMU (very selective), Syracuse, U.Rochester. Some of these are likely to offer merit aid if your stats are as high as you project.
Hard to say with knowing more about the 10 already on your list. And what kind of engineering?</p>
<p>“My number one requirement for a school is for it to have a top notch engineering program.”</p>
<p>If you can get into such a school and afford it, then great. However, there are very good eng’g programs at over 100 schools in the US. The state of Calif has around 25 very good engineering progams…all in one state.</p>
<p>They’ll have very nice facilites/labs and very good profs. They’ll have internship and co-op opportunites. </p>
<p>Companies pay their new engineers the same no matter where they go to undergrad. So, the new Berkeley grad will find out that his salary is the same as his Cal State Fullerton grad colleague.</p>
<p>The truth is that a small handful of eng’g schools cannot graduate enough eng’rs to meet the need of US companies.</p>
<p>However, the Berkeley student will likely see more companies recruiting at the campus career center, while the CSU Fullerton student will likely have to more actively search for companies to apply to (particularly for out-of-area companies, especially smaller ones).</p>
<p>mom2collegekids, while I agree that Engineers coming out of any accredited engineering program will have good employment prospects, I do not agree with your post #17. </p>
<p>For one, graduates at a top engineering program will be recruited by more companies and will be given more offers than graduates at an average engineering program. </p>
<p>Not only are graduates from a top program recruited by more aggressively by more companies, they are also recruited on a national level, while graduates coming out of inferior engineering programs will typically be hired locally. The expectation is that those graduates that are recruited nationally will move around and rise up the ladder quicker than graduates recruited locally. </p>
<p>For these reasons, not all engineers are paid the same coming out of college, even for doing the same job in the same company. Most companies have broadband salary ranges that enable them to pay employees in the same position significantly different salaries, and they will often offer in-demand candidates more tempting salaries and benefits because (1) they realize that they will have more options and (2) they have greater expectations from those candidates.</p>
<p>For these reasons, attending a university with an elite engineering program like UT-Austin, Rice or Texas A&M (all likely to be affordable for the OP who comes from Texas) makes a lot better sense than attending a not-so-strong engineering program. </p>
<p>That being said, financial concerns should be addressed. Attending college should never be financially draining. Depleting family savings or getting into a large debt for college makes no sense.</p>