Suggestions for engineering colleges

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Hello:
My daughter is in senior year of very competitive HS in San Jose bayarea. She has always pushed herself, took mostly APs in her entire sophomore, junior, and now in senior as well.
Due to that her course load has been very rigorous.
Her current GPA stands at: 3.78 UW, 4.25 W, with SAT at: 2260 [710(Reading), 750(Math), 800(writing)].
She did decent in her subject tests as well:
Chem: 760,US hist: 730,Literature:710,Math: 760
She worked both sophomore, junior summers in start-ups, gained incredible experience.
She got DECA international finalist, plays piano, junior tennis, but not much to elevate her.</p>

<p>Here are my couple of questions:
I think my daughter is in top 30% of high school, considering ONLY UW GPA, does colleges look at student rigor, which is not visible through UW GPAs?</p>

<p>Which colleges is best match for her profile, for engineering. We are open to both private, out of state as well.</p>

2

<p>Here are the US News engineering rankings from 2012: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/1213609-usnwr-2012-best-undergraduate-engineering-programs.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/engineering-majors/1213609-usnwr-2012-best-undergraduate-engineering-programs.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Obviously take it with a grain of salt as with all rankings but it’ll help you get an idea of what schools are highly regarded in terms of engineering</p>

3

<p>What you haven’t told us is whether your daughter needs (and qualify for) need-based aid, or whether you’re counting on merit aid . . . and those are critical questions when it comes to picking colleges.</p>

<p>I understand it’s intrusive . . . but you need to tell us whether money’s an issue.</p>

4

<p>To answer your first question, yes, colleges do look at the rigor of classes selected. In many cases rigor is more important than the grades. You can look up the Common Data Set for a school, section C7, to see what it uses for admission.</p>

<p>As far as what to recommend, her stats are going to make her competitive at most places. If you can afford to send her anywhere it opens a lot of options. Certainly she should look in-state (UCB, UCLA, etc). If you need merit aid look at U Alabama. As long as a college’s program is ABET accredited your daughter should be fine.</p>