<p>I know i am asking for a lot; i mean (at least in my opinion) what school can compare to Cornell? The reason i ask this unconventional question is that Cornell is a very competitive school, and i would like to add more safety/match schools to my list. Another reason i want to consider other colleges is because i live in Montana. New York is just about as far away from my home i could get and with a young niece, nephew, and close knit family i could see the distance becoming a psychological burden. Relating back to the question above, i am looking for a college with the following, listed in order of importance:</p>
<p>NORTHWEST/WESTERN REGION (will also like other recommendations if it seems like a good match.)</p>
<p>Intended major: Mechanical Engineering
Possible minors or areas of expertise: aero-Eng, applied math, music
ROTC: (Army, Air Force)</p>
<p>preferences but not necessarily deciding factors:
Academic prestige, especially in intended major
Rural setting
20k or less undergrad students
Football possibilities for an athlete being recruited by lower D-1 conferences (Ivy League, Big Sky, Patriot League)</p>
<p>It would be GREATLY GREATLY GREATLY appreciated if i could get any recommendations, i have several in mind but little information to persuade myself past any more commitment then an idea. Thanks in advance</p>
<p>this is a really hard question. I am not sure there is a school that meets all of your criteria in the NW or west coast other than Stanford and that is harder to get into than Cornell. And Stanford of course is not rural but feels like that if you stay on campus. You may have to trade off one or two things like rural, NW or D1 sports to come close.</p>
<p>Have you thought about the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs? It sits in a rural spot as it is separated from Colorado Springs. CU Boulder has a good engineering program and would meet your safety requirements. They have D-1 sports but Boulder is not rural but is a college town. On a much smaller scale and without the sports is Colorado School of Mines. Great undergrad engineering school in ruralish location and close to the fun stuff in the mountains. </p>
<p>Not in the northwest but closer than Cornell, what about Purdue? Great Aero Eng program and has D1 sports. Or UCLA or UCSD–both are west coast and solid in engineering. UCLA has D-1 sports but those are not rural nor is UW. </p>
<p>Have you looked at Cal Poly SLO? Great engineering school, nice college town, fun group of students but not so much on the sports side though. Santa Clara University has a good reputation as an undergrad engineering school as well but I don’t know about sports.</p>
<p>Alas, there is only one Cornell University! (yes, yes I know about the one in Iowa!)</p>
<p>I would suggest you post this in the Parents Forum, College Search or College Admissions section of the CC site. Then you’ll get input from a wider range of people.</p>
<p>It’s hard to meet all your criteria, but here are some ideas: Baylor, Bucknell (not west, but rural and Patriot League/great engineering), Marquette, U Michigan, Notre Dame, SMU, Texas A&M, U Texas, U Wisconsin. Making the football team would be a problem at most of these, as it would be at Berkeley or Northwestern.</p>
<p>TKsmom especially thanks for the info! I have briefly looked at all of the Colorado Universities preceding this post. The Academy intrigues me a lot, though i know you can’t compare it to really any non-academy. I’ve talked to representatives and they seemed very impressed with my EC’s (eagle scout, fireman, All-State football, other leadership ec’s, work experience ect.) and pretty good grades. Do you have any other information regaurding these Colorado schools? Also looking at U of Washington, U of Portland, U of Minnesota, and now looking into Cal-poly. By the way, i have considered Purdue a lot to, especially their graduate program in acoustics. But if i went east i think i would only go there for Cornell or Penn State</p>
<p>redshoes- thanks for the input, i’ve looked into a lot of these. Berkeley is not to much of an aspiration for me, U of Michigan and U of Texas were lookers though. I heard both of these institutions (especially texas) make it very hard for out of staters to come in. do you know if this is true?</p>
<p>Michigan takes many OOS students. It’s a top choice for many here in the Northeast since it is a great school and has EA (recently changed from rolling) and many kids lock it in as a very desirable option early in the process. SMU is popular here as well and might be a match/safety for you.</p>
<p>I have heard that the TX state schools are tough for OOS but have no hard data. If you are interested in these universities, I would bet that the number of OOS students is available on their websites.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info, i’ll look into them both. Some of my top pick universities in the west/ish are U of Minnesota, U of Washington, Air Force Acedemy, Montana State and i also want to look into Michigan a little more. I know several of these are not rural, are not small colleges, and may be hard to play football for but the acedemics are my main concern. U of Minnesota to me seems a lot like U of Washington, but a little better for my intrests. Suprisingly it is just about as far as seattle is from my home town too. Any info on U of M? or any of the others i listed?</p>
<p>I am a Cal Poly alum. That is a great school too. Love the “Learn by Doing” motto. You really do graduate with skills that employers are seeking. And San Luis Obispo is a fun college town, has fun yet very smart students and is close to the beach! I loved my time there and got a great education. the student body there is of the caliber of the student body at UCLA and even Berkeley, but its a very outgoing type of crowd. </p>
<p>Colorado State in Ft. Collins has a solid undergrad engineering program. They just re-did the dorms so I hear it is nice. I hear the labs are outstanding and are state of the art. We lived there when we first moved to Colorado. Ft. Collins is a great town–its 100K people but has a much smaller feel. And it is home of New Belgium Brewing company–makers of Fat Tire. there is also a big Budweiser plant there too. They have D1 football.</p>
<p>Colorado School of Mines has a great reputation for undergrad engineering, math, etc. Its in Golden which is right in the western foothills and very close to the mountains. Its a fun group of kids that are enthusiastic about engineering and science. They tend to active and outdoorsy too. We are doing the full tour on the 20th so I will know more then. Lovely location. They have a nice virtual tour on their website. Median GPA of accepted students is 3.7 I think.</p>
<p>CU Boulder is the state flagship. Also good reputation in the engineering school. Big campus, lots of OOS kids there. Active group of kids. D1 sports. Gorgeous campus. Boulder is often called the Berkely of Colorado so it is a bit more hippyish than the other schools mentioned. Many love that about it.</p>
<p>Cornell was co-founded by a Michigan professor and 6 of Cornell’s 13 presidents were hired from the University of Michigan. The two schools share much in common. However, Michigan is not rural (it is suburban), has more than 20,000 undergrads (26,000 to be exact) and its football program is definitely not a lower Division 1 program, although it is not doing as well as usual.</p>
<p>Having attend both schools, I can vouch for their being similar in many ways, but there are stll significant differences between the two. No two universities can be truly similar.</p>