<p>I plan to major in civil engineering and I'm looking at schools in the south and on the east coast. Here are some things that I'm looking for:</p>
<p>On a serious note:
- Public School with more than 20,000 people
- warm weather (want to get away from the cold winters)
- high job recruiting rates
- a strong engineering program</p>
<p>On a less serious note:
- beautiful/pretty girls
- a campus with great landscaping, with nice buildings
- clean, modern facilities/bathrooms </p>
<p>UW GPA: 3.37
W GPA: 3.43</p>
<p>Freshman Year GPA: 3.0/2.6
Sophomore Year GPA: 3.625/3.66
Junior Year GPA: 3.66/4.0</p>
<p>Since you're in Illinois, U Illinois - Urbana Champaign engineering is one of the best programs in the world (esp. civil engineering)...plus in-state tuition would make it an unbeatable combination for you, IMO.</p>
<p>GPA, class rank and ACT too low for UIUC engineering or Georgia Tech, but it's worth a try as reaches. </p>
<p>I'll give you a list where you have a decent shot:</p>
<ol>
<li>Penn State</li>
<li>Texas A&M</li>
<li>Virginia Tech</li>
<li>Louisiana State </li>
<li>if you don't mind the midwest, maybe Purdue is worth a shot.</li>
</ol>
<p>I don't think you're going to find many of the east coast publics near large cities, since most of them are land-grant colleges and in the middle of nowhere.</p>
<p>You could always try UDel and UMD, since I think both of them have respectable programs, though not necessarily as popular as some of the others mentioned in this thread. Any reason you're going for a public over a private? Often publics can be very similar in costs for out of state students.</p>
<p>Penn State University Park sounds like exactly what you described that you are looking for in a school, but I think a 3.37 will make it very hard to get in to Penn State. I think you should definitely give it a visit and try to get that gpa up as much as possible. Also, make sure to apply early.</p>
<p>Beautiful/Pretty girls is mutually exclusive with strong engineering schools. Just so you know. Anyway, the schools mentioned above seem like really good choices.</p>
<p>You'd love Virginia Tech if you could raise your test scores and GPA. Big school, good weather (it gets cold during the winter but spring, fall and summer are warm/hot), excellent career placement for engineers, very strong engineering program, I sure like the girls here, the Hokie Stone that all the buidlings are made out of is really cool to look at and it's not dirty. They take your best combined ACT score so focus on that and you might have a shot. Pop onto the Virginia Tech sub-board if you have any specific questions about the school.</p>
<p>edit:
[quote]
Beautiful/Pretty girls is mutually exclusive with strong engineering schools.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, the trick is to also have strong communications and animal science programs, 'cause that's where they're all at.</p>
<p>I don't really know of any that fit that criteria unless you're a CA resident. There theres San Jose State (not sure of prestige) and a few CSUs. Maybe Texas Tech, University of Oklahoma or University of Arizona, but I don't know anything about how good they are. I just looked up Southwestern colleges where your ACT was in the middle 50% that were large and had engineering.</p>