<p>BTW, look in to NM Mining and Tech. It’s an OOS public, but with relatively low OOS tuition and impressive alumni results.</p>
<p>NM Tech and the even lower cost SD Mines probably wouldn’t pass the OP’s tiger parents’ prestige test.</p>
<p>come on, it’s not just asian parents who think prestige is more important than cost or what the students actually make of their educational opps while they’re there. </p>
<p>how about all those parents who find out on April 1 that their brilliant senior has gotten into Princeton (or any other prestigious school) only to find out that there’s no way they can afford it or, a year down the line, the parents who learn that maybe they should have listened to Johnny at xmas and now have to admit in May that Princeton is probably the worst place for their child and they have a quivering, anxiety-ridden 19yo on their hands. oops! </p>
<p>All parents have an obligation to know their children and what is best for them and not get caught up in the Hollywood roll call of celebrity colleges. A child’s responsibility is not to bring prestige to the parents but to prepare themselves for life. </p>
<p>Hey all! Thanks for the help! </p>
<p>This thread has really helped me cut down on my college list. While I may be throwing away application money, I’m still going to take a shot at “crazy” schools.</p>
<p>While </p>
<p>College List by least preferable to most preferable.
A&M ( Safety )
SMU Safety #2 - In case I really hate A&M )
UT austin ( High Match/Low reach - Such a great school.)
CMU ( H&SS, InfoSys, Tepper )
USC ( Low reach I think? )
Cornell CAS ( mega reach )
Northwestern Early Decision ( super mega reach )</p>
<p>The problem I have with super techy schools ( Like RPI,Tech, Mines ) is that I’m honestly not a 100% sure if I want to do engineering. Most people change their majors during college - same thing may happen to me. I wanted a school with wide strengths instead of a concentrated school like RPI. CMU is an exception because of Tepper…
But honestly, even if I ignore the “prestige” issue, I’d probably pick A&M over both for its strength in engineering and business. Probably more affordable than both. I think both are great schools, it’s just too soon to pick a school that’s focused mostly on engineering.</p>
<p>BYU is a good school but I’m not Mormon and I’m not really interested in attending a religiously affiliated school.</p>
<p>Solid list or need more safeties?
I looked into tulane and Fordham but I ended up deciding that UT is honestly a bit better than both. Top engineering and business school is hard to beat I suppose. I like Lehigh though. Seems to be very strong in engineering and business. Not necessarily better than UT, but seems like a solid school overall and is likely to be added onto my list… </p>
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<p>your parents don’t seem concerned about paying for college, so may I ask:</p>
<p>1) do they own their own business?</p>
<p>2) is that their take-home income?</p>
<p>3) do they have a lot of money saved?</p>
<p>4) do you have a college fund? </p>
<p>For the OP - yes, don’t go to a tech school if you aren’t even sure about engineering. Go to a school that is a university with colleges within it. Most of the Ivies have that kind of experience, and many of the larger universities do too. Also, you have a HUGE geographic spread - what is the chance that you will actually visit any of these schools who admit you? And finally, you might want to reach out to as many schools as possible before you apply - if they like your stats, you could apply for free in some cases.</p>
<p>For loppol - why do you think RPI is second rate? Did you or your child go there and find it lacking?</p>
<p>I agree it is expensive, but depending on the families EFC, it doesn’t really matter - if you get great test scores, they throw <em>grant</em> money at you, not loans like many state and other schools do. My son will get around $20,000 in grants per year if he goes to RPI based on his test scores. As a state school example, if he goes to UMCP, they have loans only. (note that many state schools pour money into athletics so give out loans to general students, saving scholarships for athletes)</p>
<p>One of the people I most respect in the world is a ChemE from RPI. Very smart and loved the school. Made a lot of money working for a top pharma company.</p>
<p>I would say that it is an important decision to decide if one goes to a tech school “State” Institute of Technology, a Polytech, etc., because the crowd will be geeky, but that doesn’t make RPI different from any other tech school in my opinion.</p>
<p>Why not Bucknell? It has pretty much everything you are looking for. It is the largest “Liberal Arts College.” However it does have a very strong engineering program as well. It is very similar to Lehigh, but in flat cow country instead of Lehigh’s hill. ALOT of people who apply to Lehigh apply to Bucknell and vice versa. </p>
<p>Also the average GPA is only a 3.5 for admitted students, but nevertheless is more selective than Lehigh. </p>
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<p>That’s the right attitude. Go for it!</p>
<p>I actually think that you might get into Northwestern ED. </p>
<p>You stated you are not in the top 10% of your high school graduating class. Can you still be admitted to UTA?</p>
<p>@rjkofnovi
Although I’m not in the top 10 % , my counselor told me herself that she would be very surprised if I get rejected from UT with my ACT score and with my “unique extracurriculars” ( according to her ). She said getting into McCombs and Cockrell would be really difficult for me ( though not impossible ), but she’s confident that I’ll get into the A&S school ( which has the comp. Sci major )</p>
<p>While transferring to Mccombs and Cockrell is quite tough, I think starting in A&S would be a valuable experience to do some soul searching. If I really find myself interested in engineering or business I’ll probably be motivated enough to get a high enough gpa to transfer. If I don’t get a high enough gpa that just means I wasn’t motivated enough and I don’t deserve to go to those schools!</p>
<p>I think you have a decent shot at NU ED. A lot comes down to essays and expressed interest so research, research the school (maybe try to contact alums), refine, refine, express how NU is perfect for you (because of being able to do Kellogg certificate and/or MMSS & CS & maybe other lib arts interest or being able to do the Kellogg/Business/Entrepreneurship certificates while being in Engineering, like IE or how you love that NU Engineering stresses a humanistic liberal arts education with their themes), knock their socks off and visit if you can.</p>
<p>Cornell RD may be tougher to get in to.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan </p>
<p>How would they view me if I apply to Weinberg as either an undecided or Econ major to kind of “soul search” and experience the wide range of classes at NU? I would like to experiment with some fundamental engineering courses before I fully become committed to Engineering. It would be amazing to take the Korean Language Courses at NU and get involved with the amazing Asian American Studies minor at NU ( Even if I major in IE). People can often underestimate the identity crisis that Asian Americans often go through - hopefully the minor and community will help me clear up that issue and help me use my warped identity as an advantage. What I really love about NU is the quarter system - I am able to take a wide range of classes without constantly worrying about graduating on time. Even if I do engineering I shouldn’t have issues fitting in a substantial amounts of lib arts courses. It makes double majoring extremely easy. </p>
<p>The problem with writing an essay about a certain major is that I definitely feel like my interests will definitely change during college. I felt that I would like IE or Econ because of my “unofficial non-profit” - I really enjoyed creating an efficient plan to allocate and collect the cards and the volunteers and I was shocked at the impact it had. It was crazy how moved people became just from a single card and a little interaction from young, welcoming strangers. The UNICEF club and The Power of One program taught me how “spare” money and time could make a huge difference; each dollar donated gave a child a test for Malaria. You know, if we just got all of the stuff that we waste every day and sent it someplace where it would be useful, the impact would be phenomenal. Before I leave I need to appoint a new leader for both programs; hopefully I can create a similar system at Evanston using the churches and schools from Chicago. But who knows? Maybe ill suddenly be interested in journalism or polysci.</p>
<p>The study abroad program at Northwestern is kick-ass.</p>
<p>I WOULD apply to McCormick, but my SAT II doesn’t have any science and I seem I would probably better be off applying for WCAS. How would they feel if I told them I was interested in their special IE/Econ 4-year track but I wanted to start off at WCAS and transfer to McCormick after experimenting with Engineering? ( To get involved in the program you need to be in McCormick. ) </p>
<p>Holy crap. Why did I type all of that. Sorry for the big tangent. It started with a small question and transformed into this unintelligible mess LOL. </p>
<p>Even ED is a real reach for NW and then you become a reach for GT and Cornell regular decision. Definitely apply to all but Purdue and NE but expect UT. Other than that USC and Emory are reasonable reaches.</p>
<p>@wayneandgarth </p>
<p>Hmm… If NU really is that huge of a reach how does CMU ED sound?</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t think that NU ED is more of a reach than CMU ED to CS (or that it is a super reach when applying ED, especially since you have a pretty neat EC that moved people; getting documentation of that–like people writing on a webpage expressing thanks–would be pretty good). In fact, if what you just wrote could go in to an essay, I think you’d have a pretty good chance. NU ED does have a 30%+ admit rate, after all.</p>
<p>Write about your passions. The thing is, transferring from Tech to WCAS is easy (actually, so is transferring from WCAS to Tech), so you can change your mind when you get in. However, don’t say that you intend to transfer. You could apply to WCAS if you like. Definitely talk about your passions and EC and try to tie them in to aspects of NU and why it’s a perfect meld. Once you’re in, no one will care what you said on your application essays or if you change majors or schools. People understand that interests change, and frankly, no one will actually bring up your app essays.</p>
<p>BTW, I heavily advise you to look at the Class of 2018 results thread for NU ED to see what the characteristics were for people who got in (or didn’t). Do that for all schools you are thinking of applying to. I think that’s much more useful than relying on the opinion of people who may have no clue. That said, I think you have a pretty decent shot at NU ED.</p>
<p>“Even ED is a real reach for NW and then you become a reach for GT and Cornell regular decision. Definitely apply to all but Purdue and NE but expect UT. Other than that USC and Emory are reasonable reaches.”</p>
<p>No one calls Northwestern NW. “Chances” threads are silly in the first place, but even sillier when you’re getting advice from someone who doesn’t even know a basic aspect of a school. So, caveat emptor and all.</p>
<p>so what do we then call Northeastern, @Pizzagirl? 
</p>
<p>Beats me, as Northeastern isn’t on my radar screen.</p>