<p>I'm currently looking at places to apply for next year. I have two main criterion that I'm looking for in a college, division 1 sports and greater than 7500 students. My home state is Oklahoma and I plan on majoring in mechanical engineering. I have generic extracurriculars, NHS, photography club, choir, etc. And two leadership positions NHS secretary and choir president. My test scores are 35 ACT and 2190 SAT. </p>
<p>So far I've toured OU, OSU, Texas Tech, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, Kansas, and Kansas State.</p>
<p>I like that most of them are in a college town and are big in sports. Vanderbilt's the outlier and I honestly didn't like it. I think I want a large school, where I'm near the top of the entering students, without giving up the quality of education. So are there any other schools I should look at?</p>
<p>Unweighted I’m not sure. Weighted I have a 5.1/6 and am ranked 4th out of 957.</p>
<p>We can afford at most $35,000 per year, but I know my parents would probably feel a lot better if that number was round $25,000 or even lower. So schools that offer merit scholarships would be nice as we usually don’t qualify for much financial aid on NPCs.</p>
<p>Look, your first concern is cost. Oklahoma should want to keep talent like yours in state, so work that angle to keep your costs low. Also, you’ve got a great ACT score; put it to work for you. Check your list for merit scholarships. You might check Kentucky, too. Alabama has a full tuition scholarship for your ACT and a 3.5/4.0 and an additional $2500/year for engineers; that would bring your costs to 13K. I’m not sure how your 5.1/6.0 translates into a 4.0 scale, but I’ve also heard that Alabama doesn’t care much about that translation. Check it out. Arizona State would offer a similar deal, I believe. Then there’s Ohio State, but it would cost a little more.</p>