<p>I'm a sophomore now at a Tier 1 school with a small engineering program. Last spring I changed majors, and now I would like a larger and more prominent engineering program. My coursework is out of sequence now; I won't finish Chemistry 1 and Linear Algebra until late June. Otherwise, I will have Calc. I - III, 3 semesters of Physics (1 year of labs), Differential Equations, Probability and Statistics, Principles of Electrical Engineering, Mechanics of Solids, a year of Intro. to Engineering classes, a handful of GE classes including 2 years of English classes, and Spanish at the 200 level. My GPA is 3.88. I'm a CA resident but don't want any of the UC's or Cal State schools at this time. I am OOS now and prefer the change of pace and lifestyle from CA. My engineering priorities are Environmental, Civil, and Mechanical Engieering. Not having the Bio. finished is a deficiency for some schools for Environmental. I intend to go on to graduate school after I'm finished with my undergraduate work.</p>
<p>I have applied to Georgia Tech., the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and the University of Michigan. GT won't consider my application until the transcript is received for Chem. and Linear Algebra, I think UM is going to have a problem with the Intro. to Engineering classes I told (they want slightly different classes than what I took), and I might be okay with UMTC, except the website said a semester of Chem., and the transfer advisor said a year. I would also like to apply to a few private schools but suspect my chances are remote with the high retention rates of the incumbent students.</p>
<p>GT is in Atlanta, I’m not sure how much less ‘paced’ it is from a CA lifestyle. Might help to know what school you’re presently attending.</p>
<p>Otherwise, I think Tech is your best bet out of those options. I would consider UIUC as well, but I believe GT is less expensive. All depends where you really wanna live… bon3head would know better than I, but from what I’ve heard about Urbana, it’s not all that comparable to CA I would think.</p>
<p>Having a 3.88 is very good, you’d likely get into Tech no problem. Your stats are good enough, so really I think all you’d really need to think about is what kind of lifestyle you really want. I assumed that you might consider UIUC since you applied to Michigan, but there are others that know that school better. It’s worth checking out, though.</p>
<p>there’s a lot of schools that are big and nothing like Cali lifestyle (Penn State, Ohio State, UIUC, Wisc, Purdue, of course you already listed Michigan and Minny, hmmm…</p>
<p>oh if people here in iowa could here you say you want to come to the midwest from warm sunny Cal how they’re faces would look…if you didn’t know Iowa, Minn, and Wisc reside in the arctic circle : )</p>
<p>UIUC is great and definitely is a slower pace of life than CA, though it is populated with a lot of Chicago kids during the school year, which is a plenty stressful city in its own right, so they bring some of that pace down there. I managed to stay away from that though, so I suppose it has the opportunity to live life fast or slow just depending on how you want to do it.</p>
<p>It is a top notch school for engineering and highly regarded overall as well, so if you feel like it is something you may be interested in, just let me know and I can give information on it.</p>