<p>I'm going to be entering my senior year of high school, but I'm still having trouble finding good colleges to apply to. I would appreciate any advice you guys can give.</p>
<p>I have strong enough stats to be considered at any college, although I'm no auto-admit. As a rough idea, I have a 4.0 UW GPA taking a rigorous course load (for my school, anyways). Scored a 2190 on my SAT I first time (760 math, 750 verbal, 680 writing) and I'll retake it in October. For SAT IIs I scored an 800 on math IIc, 780 on U.S. history, 680 on Spanish. I'll be taking some more SAT IIs soon, specifically chemistry and physics. If you want anything more specific, you can look at my stats profile.</p>
<p>My ideal college would be small to medium sized. Anywhere with 10,000 people or more is too big. I don't care about urban/rural, but I want student life to focus on campus. If everyone leaks out into the city, that's no good. As a corollary to that, I would like to stay at a place where most people stay on campus for all four years. I've got a geographic bias and would prefer places on either the west coast or east cost. The tricky requirement that makes it difficult for me to just input this into a search engine is that the university needs to have both an engineering program and strong humanities programs. The college board search doesn't do a very good job of classifying majors.</p>
<p>When I was first hunting, I liked the LACs, especially Amherst. But unfortunately, none of them seem to have engineering programs and so I have been forced to discount them. Right now Stanford is my ideal choice, but Princeton and Dartmouth look good as well. Yale would be acceptable too. However, the list is obviously biased by prestige.</p>
<p>Therefore, members of College Confidential, I would greatly appreciate any colleges that you could bring up which fulfill those requirements. I don't want to miss anywhere good just because I never heard of it before. Thanks.</p>
<p>It would be nice if I could get in there, but it's far from a sure thing. My biggest worry is that I'll get rejected from all of these top places that are like this and get stuck going to my safeties, which are the UCs. I'd get an education, but not exactly how I wanted. =/</p>
<p>Which UCs are you looking at? I don't think you could call every UC a "safety." There are a few that fit the bill for, it seems. Santa Cruz is pretty small, a bit over 10,000, but small nonetheless. Believe me, the education at a UC is going to be no different from the education at, say, Princeton. It's not as though Princeton somehow knows more about a given subject. =p (The differences lie in the experiences, the resources, etc.)</p>
<p>Swarthmore looks nice for you, considering the fact that you like LAC's. How about Brown? LAC-ish Ivy...Dartmouth also has an engineering program (5 years long though).</p>
<p>Lafayette and Lehigh (as mentioned above) would be good matches IMO.</p>
<p>If you're willing to go a bit more geeky, look at CalTech also as a reach. MIT?</p>
<p>There isn't going to be much on the west coast that fits those criteria. Out east, I would say: Bucknell for sure (along with Lehigh, Lafayette & Union), U of Rochester, maybe Tufts & Johns Hopkins (not sure about how campus-centric they are), and of course some of the Ivy schools (Dartmouth & Princeton in particular).</p>
<p>Look at Northwestern, Rice, Johns Hopkins, U Rochester, and Lehigh. What about USC? That sounds like a natural choice for you due to the location, and a safe one.</p>
<p>Some LAC's offer students to get both a degree in their school and then you can get an engineering degree at another institution.</p>
<p>I would at first recommend, Columbia and their 3/2 program, but you don't want a "city-centered" campus, so I would recommend you look into the Claremont Colleges.</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd is the engineering school of the consortium, and one of the strongest engineering LAC's in the nation. But it's humanities programs are not that strong. On the other hand, the other colleges I believe offer joint programs with Harvey Mudd so you can get both a humanities degree and an engineering degree. I only know for sure that Claremont McKenna does this.</p>
<p>With McKenna, you could also get your engineering degree at either Stanford, Columbia, or RPI. At Pomona, you can get your engineering degree at either CalTech or WUSTL. They are all set up as a 3/2 program (3 years for humanities and 2 years for engineering degree).</p>
<p>All the colleges are located in the suburbs of LA, and most students (like 98%) stay on campus all 4 years. And most students don't go out into the city too often. </p>
<p>So take a look at the schools I mentioned. There are many other schools that fit your criteria so good luck with your search!</p>
<p>I second Harvey Mudd of the Claremont consortium. I am very impressed with both the school and the way these colleges work together. There's a small school feel with the resources of a much larger university.</p>
<p>Berkeley is an obvious choice. Cornell is another. Michigan. Carnegie Mellon. Northwestern. Rice. UCLA. Duke. </p>
<p>I'd also look into the University of Virginia, which is strong in both and should be a bit easier to get into than the Ivies, even out of state.</p>
<p>I did this same search for my son. He did not limit himself to east-coast/west-coast but rather just tried to avoid the totally frigid northeast and northern midwest area. His list includes: Rice, Carnegie-Mellon (the coldest school he considered), USC, Bucknell, Lehigh, Lafayette, Villanova, Johns Hopkins, and possibly Santa Clara and Boston College. Schools which would have made the list except for location include: Cornell, Northwestern, WashU, Dartmouth. Schools which would have made the list except that he doesn't have the stats to get in: Stanford, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Duke, Harvey Mudd, Swarthmore. There are plenty of big universities that fit, but he can just go to a UC for that experience.</p>
<p>BTW: My friend's son just ended his freshman year at Carnegie Mellon. He had the same criteria as you and his top three choices were MIT, CMU, USC. He was rejected at MIT and chose CMU over USC. I think he didn't put Stanford on the list because he grew up right next door.</p>