Thursday8

To be a little more specific, it should be:

High quality. But not just engineering/math like some sort of pre-professional school.It should be well-rounded.

Small to 10,000ish

On west or east coasts. Preferably on the west coast, but I'd make an exception for a really great match back east.

Well respected.

A school that I could apply to as undecided, or where I could at least switch majors without taking a long time to finish.

Here are some of my stats just so you get an idea of me:

-Unweighted GPA 4.0

-Weighted GPA 4.2

AP/Honor courses: None until this fall (AP Calc BC and Honors Bio), but I am concurrently enrolled at a local community college where I have taken German 1-4, English 201A, and Precalculus.

Class Rank: I do independent studies with a small private school. 1/10 (?)

SAT 1 Superscored 720CR 730M 800W Comp: 2250

SAT 2: 700 Math II 760 Literature

EC's: Principal 2nd and Concertmaster of the local youth symphony in the past. This year I think I will be co-concertmaster. I also volunteer with the youth symphony by coaching younger kids in the symphony.
Publicity Director at a Scholastic Honor Society that does volunteer work at my community college
^I don't really have a lot of opportunities for EC's because I am not really part of a school.
I do some sports, but I'm not on a team. I'm also interested in photography and art, but I do that on my own as well.

HONORS/AWARDS: Cal Poly All-State Festival Symphony Concertmaster
National Merit Commended
Applied for and received private art showing

Additional Info:

Race: White

Family's Situation: Not from hard background

Arts Supplement: YES. Will be sending recordings

Oivoiv

Tufts, Lehigh, Bucknell, Lafayette, Swarthmore, Villanova, Trinity (Connecticut).

ucbalumnus

Well, Stanford meets your size criterion, and offers many subjects and majors. But it is highly selective.

Harvey Mudd is a small school with engineering; the consortium it is in can offer additional courses in other subjects. It is also highly selective.

Less selective would be Santa Clara and Portland.

vballmom

You'd be a slam dunk for Cal Poly. Were you on campus for the festival? What did you think? It's a little larger than your target but a great college campus & town. It can be well-rounded depending on your selection of GED courses.

Thursday8

@vballmom Yeah, I did get to experience the campus. In fact, I live in the area. It's a nice area and the school's a solid school. I just have a couple of concerns: the proximity to home and the idea of having to declare right away kind of concerns me. Any thoughts?

@Oivoiv do you mean Trinity COLLEGE? or is it another one?

@Ucbalumnus is that the University of Portland?

Shrinkrap

Santa Clara.

ucbalumnus

Yes, University of Portland.

Cal Poly SLO is good, but it is larger than your size limit, which limits the selection quite a bit.

mom2collegekids

What state are you in?

How much will your parents pay per year (if you're not sure, ask them).

What are your financial safety schools (schools that you know will accept you and that you know FOR SURE that you have all costs covered.)??

ucbalumnus

OP says that he lives in the area of Cal Poly, so he is presumably in California.

blueiguana

These two are both excellent things to look for if they are important to you. Engineering is rigorous and has many classes that build on one another. If you don't declare in the first year it can be difficult to finish in four years. There is nothing wrong with well rounded and not declaring right away, you may just have to take some extra classes in the summer, or an extra semester to graduate. You may have to decide which is more important to you.

If you are undecided it is generally more time effective to start in engineering and switch out if you find it's not for you, then to start in the college of liberal arts and sciences and make the switch into engineering. The first choice you have a better shot at finishing on time, the second will depend on the classes you took your first year, AP credit you came in with, and still may require a summer session or extra semester. It's not uncommon for many students in engineering who start in engineering to take an extra semester anyway due to co-op, extra classes, a rough semester or two where they dropped a class, etc.

Best of luck!

BeanTownGirl

Take a look in particular at the first year engineering programs at these schools. Bucknell for example has a good intro engineering program that introduces students to the different disciplines in engineering and helps them decide on a major. ENGR 100: Exploring Engineering || Breadth || Bucknell University

Some other schools have mini-courses in each discipline allowing you to get a taste of that major.

whydoicare

Case Western seems like a good match, although it's on the Lake Erie coast.

Creekland

If you're considering Eastern schools, look at the University of Rochester. It seems to be a nice match for what you've said you are looking for.

texaspg

Clemson but it is not on a coast.
Rice not on coast
Georgia Tech (not sure of size)
RPI

pierre0913

Take a look at Clemson! It's a pretty well-rounded school with different strong majors (engineering, science, business, nursing, architecture, education etc.. all great majors here). All students are required to take 2 social science classes, 1 literature class, 1 humanities class, and 2 other classes of your choosing so you will get opportunities to take classes outside of your major. Size is over 10,000 students but unlike other public universities - there are only 19.000 undergraduates (as opposed to 30,000-40,000). You can definitely apply undecided. It's on the east coast in South Carolina. Clemson is a pretty well respected school (where Clemson ranks among other schools: Academic Rankings : Clemson University)

Let me know if you have any questions about Clemson!!