<p>I'm looking to study engineering and physics in college and am currently trying to narrow down my list of schools to visit and apply to. So far I've narrowed my choices to:</p>
<p>University of Texas at Austin (automatic acceptance/safe school)
MIT (reach)
Cornell University (more reasonable reach)
Duke University (not the best program, but their interdisciplinary program is great)</p>
<p>Are there other engineering schools I ought to consider before I start filling out applications and scheduling visits? I don't want to go to any schools in California, before you start listing Stanford and CalTech.</p>
<p>Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Georgia Tech. Both schools have average SAT for Class of 2014 of 1360+ to give you an idea of competitivenes.</p>
<p>Thank you very much. I’ll be in the Hamptons for two weeks in July and have the time to visit up to 3 colleges in the NE area. I’ll do MIT and Cornell for sure, then maybe head down to visit Princeton.</p>
<p>Sort by Rank | Name
Rank College name Distance Score
1 California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA Enter your zip 4.9<br>
1 Harvard University Cambridge, MA Enter your zip 4.9<br>
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA Enter your zip 4.9<br>
1 Stanford University Stanford, CA Enter your zip 4.9<br>
5 Princeton University Princeton, NJ Enter your zip 4.8<br>
5 University of California–Berkeley Berkeley, CA Enter your zip 4.8<br>
7 Cornell University Ithaca, NY Enter your zip 4.6<br>
7 University of Chicago Chicago, IL Enter your zip 4.6<br>
9 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign Urbana, IL Enter your zip 4.5<br>
10 University of California–Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA Enter your zip 4.4<br>
11 Columbia University New York, NY Enter your zip 4.2<br>
11 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI Enter your zip 4.2<br>
11 Yale University New Haven, CT Enter your zip 4.2<br>
14 University of California–San Diego La Jolla, CA Enter your zip 4.1<br>
14 University of Maryland–College Park College Park, MD Enter your zip 4.1<br>
14 University of Texas–Austin Austin, TX Enter your zip 4.1<br>
17 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA Enter your zip 4.0<br>
17 University of Wisconsin–Madison Madison, WI Enter your zip 4.0<br>
19 Johns Hopkins University (Rowland) Baltimore, MD Enter your zip 3.9<br>
19 University of California–Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA Enter your zip 3.9<br>
19 University of Colorado–Boulder Boulder, CO Enter your zip 3.9<br>
19 University of Washington Seattle, WA Enter your zip 3.9<br>
23 Ohio State University Columbus, OH Enter your zip 3.7<br>
23 Pennsylvania State University–University Park University Park, PA Enter your zip 3.7<br>
23 SUNY–Stony Brook Stony Brook, NY Enter your zip 3.7</p>
<p>Based on your safe school, it appears you’re from Texas. In case you didn’t know, MIT, Cornell, and Princeton are nowhere near the Hamptons. Nowhere near each other, for that matter. They’re all about 6-8 hours drive from the Hamptons and from each other, depending on traffic.</p>
<p>Best Colleges Specialty Rankings: Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs
Ranked in 2009
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 4.9
2 Stanford University Stanford, CA 4.7
University of California–Berkeley Berkeley, CA 4.7
4 California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 4.6
5 Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 4.5
University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL 4.5
7 Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 4.3
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI 4.3
9 Cornell University Ithaca, NY 4.2
Purdue University–West Lafayette West Lafayette, IN 4.2
University of Texas–Austin Austin, TX 4.2
12 Princeton University Princeton, NJ 4.0
University of Wisconsin–Madison Madison, WI 4.0
14 Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD 3.9
Northwestern University Evanston, IL 3.9
Virginia Tech Blacksburg, VA 3.9
17 Pennsylvania State University–University Park University Park, PA 3.8
Texas A&M University–College Station College Station, TX 3.8
19 Rice University Houston, TX 3.7
University of California–Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 3.7
University of California–San Diego La Jolla, CA 3.7
University of Minnesota–Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN 3.7</p>
<p>Maybe, but there’s always traffic (trust me, I live here). Also depends on which Hampton–Amagansett is an hour east of Westhampton. I would say 4+ hours is more realistic. My point was that these schools are nowhere near each other, and not exactly an easy trip for any of them. To use the Hamptons as home base for trips to MIT, Cornell, and Princeton is quite inconvenient.</p>
<p>I agree, Hamptons as a base camp is NOT a good plan. You have this little thing called “New York City” to go through on your way to and from any of those schools.</p>
<p>Full disclosure: I graduated from Georgia Tech last month as a business major, so of course I am biased toward my alma mater. I never took any engineering class, so I don’t know how good the instruction is, but I know that we recently placed some students into top, top PhD programs, including BME at Harvard and AE at MIT. Moreover, I have close ChemE and AE friends who got co-ops with Exxon Mobil and NASA. Lastly, I know that Accenture seems to like our IE graduates enough to hire a bunch of them.</p>
<p>Having said that, though, in my opinion, if you live in Texas, I don’t see a point in going out-of-state or even picking a prestigious private university like MIT unless at least one of the following is true:</p>
<ol>
<li>You really, really, REALLY dislike UTexas at Austin.</li>
<li>The financial aid you get from the other schools and so forth is so good that going there is as cheap or cheaper than going to UTexas at Austin.</li>
</ol>
<p>Allow me to clarify. We’re spending a week on the road visiting colleges in the northeast, then settling in the Hamptons the following week. I only mentioned the Hamptons to indicate I’d be in the general area. Yes, I am a Texas native, and thanks to the 8% rule I get automatic admission to UT Austin, which I know has a phenomenal engineering program. I’m looking at Cornell, MIT, Princeton, and Duke, simply because I sort of want to get out of Texas :)</p>
<p>I did visit UT, and I loved the school. But I still want to see and gauge the big bad Ivies. As it is, UT alone has a higher population than most cities and has an urban setting, whereas I’m more comfortable in an isolated, suburban environment characterized by schools like Cornell and Princeton.</p>
<p>Top 8% acceptance only works for UT at large. Cockrell acceptance is not guaranteed. </p>
<p>I think you should also weigh in the cost of attendence of the other schools versus UT-Austin for engineering. As much as I love Duke, Duke engineering isn’t on par with UT-Austin. IMO, MIT is the only school on your list that’s worth the extra $$$ to attend.</p>
<p>Why? I didn’t go to MIT, and I agree with the statement.</p>
<p>As one who also lived in a state that offered an excellent public engineering program, the way I see it, you have to consider value. Sure, MIT is better than Georgia Tech and UTexas in many areas, but is the increase in quality worth the increase in cost? If MIT gives you such awesome financial aid that going there only costs $5,000 extra a year compared to the in-state option, then it’s probably worth it to go there. If it costs $25,000 a year extra, though, then maybe not.</p>