I am a current junior in high school planning to go on to study engineering. I have an unweighted GPA of 3.95/4 and I estimate I am in the top 10% of my class out of 530 kids. My freshman and sophomore years, I took honors math, science, and french, getting all A’s except freshman year french. I am taking 3 AP classes this year (Calc BC, Physics 1, and French) and I plan to take 4 more next year. My SAT score is 1490. I also play soccer for my school, I have lots of volunteer hours, and I tutor kids at my school as part of NHS. Ideally, I would like to stay in NJ or PA. Money is not a big issue for me, but a school with merit aid would be nice. What schools do you think I should apply to next year?
Solid GPA and SAT score, with a good number of APs. If you want to stay in NJ/PA, here are the schools I suggest: UPenn, Princeton, Drexel, Bucknell, and Lehigh. There are also plenty of other schools outside of these states that you may want to consider.
UPenn and Princeton will both be reaches. They are for everyone.
The northeast isn’t particularly generous with merit aid… I would add University of Delaware. You could get merit there,
These are all expensive private universities…like in the $60,000 a year range. Penn and Princeton don’t give a dime of merit aid @thriving
Merit aid at Lehigh and Bucknell is very very competitive.
This student is a PA resident. I would also suggest applying to University of Pittsburgh.
Bump
RPI isn’t that far away. Great engineering school.
Lafayette should be on the radar, and they do offer merit.
Basically, you need to look at the Midwest and south for better shots at merit aid. Tough to get and find in the Northeast. Just the way it is, unfortunately.
Pitt for merit aid. Penn State honors college too, especially if youre in PA
Thanks for all the replies!