OP – I concur with @tsbna44’s suggestion of University of Alabama – Huntsville, for all the reasons that he states. Also, Huntsville is a neat city (I visited there a few years ago when my own son attended a FIRST Robotics competition at UAH), and the second largest in Alabama.
You might check out the Purdue Data Digest, here: https://www.purdue.edu/datadigest/; and especially the links to “Applications, Admits, and Matriculations” and “New First-Time Beginner Profile”. You can plug in your stats to some of the interactive links on these sites, and perhaps get an idea where you might fall relative to recently admitted OOS applicants to Purdue.
Below are my guesses as to what your chances for admission might be into the college of engineering (unless specified otherwise), (ETA: assuming that you meet the required minimum class requirements, such as units of a foreign language). I am leaving off UCSD and UC Davis as the UCs are a different beast and we don’t know your UC GPAs.
First, these are very different. Antennas largely fall to EEs. Trajectories…AE. As you learn more, you’ll choose the path.
This is certainly true for Cal Poly and would make AE very unlikely.
The good news is that there are a lot of great options that you will get into. I’m a big fan of Iowa State. UA Huntsville has a very good AE program. Ditto Utah State and MO S&T. You’ll have plenty of options.
At the end of the day, your success will be determined by your drive. A 3.9 Iowa State grad will get looks that a 2.0 MIT grad won’t. Work hard and be relentlessly curious.
Also going to reiterate again about the foreign language. UIUC (and I believe this includes the engineering school) requires either 3 years of high school language or you have to make up this deficiency while there before you can graduate. I’m unclear as to whether not having the 3rd language will be a problem for admissions itself there, but it certainly may be elsewhere, so the suggestion to do 3rd year Chinese instead of photography (or possibly even instead of one of the STEMs - you have plenty already) is a good one.
Also - if you don’t do 3rd year language and don’t want to do it at college you should scratch UIUC, and check other reaches to see what they need.
Thanks for letting me know. They need to correct their info in IPEDS, because that’s what’s in College Navigator (source)! But Oregon State’s admission webpage does indeed indicate that it’s test optional (source).
Actually, in looking at College Navigator’s page it marks an X by test blind but then has a little blurb that says, “The submission of SAT/ACT scores are not required for admission. However, there are rare cases in which the institution will consider SAT/ACT scores during a comprehensive review of an applicant’s admissions criteria.” But that is still very different from what the admissions page is conveying.
Yeah, unfortunately I think IPEDS isn’t always accurate. When we have visited and talked to admissions (and honors college admissions), it seemed that they were pretty clear about how test scores are considered as part of a student’s holistic portfolio. You can also see on the honors college admissions page that eligibility to apply can be either due to your GPA or SAT score.
Edited to add: Here’s a screenshot from the CDS showing that standardized test scores are “Considered” (from Oregon State CDS index page)
It was different from the admissions presentation at UW Seattle. UW’s presenter said very explicitly that even though they accept scores, the scores aren’t visible to application readers except in very rare borderline cases.
FWIW, my son got into UIUC and Ohio State for Engineering but probably isn’t gonna attend either due to the current federal funding/anti-DEI mess discriminating against persons with physical disabilities. He considered Purdue and decided not to go because of poor disability services. He would also have had no problem getting into Purdue.
There is no “dream school,” there’s just the school that’s right for you. Any ABET accredited engineering school can work!
Thank you everyone for the feedback. It sounds like my academics are too weak for the majority of schools I chose for my list. Would it be wise to cut it down to
OSU (I am a resident of Oregon)
Iowa State
Santa Clara
University of Maryland
CU Boulder
U. of Wisconsin
UIUC
Purdue
VTech
Is this a better revised list? I honestly thought my work on a real spacecraft in orbit would account for some of the deficiencies I have in my stem classes, as I use them in my work everyday.
Also, a clarification, freshman physics (honors), sophomore chemistry (honors), and freshman precalculus (honors).
You can apply wherever you want - as long as you have an assured and affordable safety - or two.
Arizona is top notch in physics/astronomy and great at Aero. I’d go there over Iowa State in a heart beat - that’s me. You are overlooking UAH - but that’s ok. Huntsville is called Rocket City for a reason.
Why Santa Clara?
If you like that list, then great - go for it.
If you want to include others - it’s no issue - like all the UCs are one.
But the Cal Tech and MITs - those would be easy cuts.
Just make sure you have two assured, affordable homes - that’s the big thing.
Yeah, university of Arizona looks great! I’ve also read there are great connections between U of A and Caltech!
Regarding SCU, they don’t have an aero major, but they have a mechanical-aero masters program which can provide some great connections to nearby agencies like NASA Ames and JPL.
UAH would be great, but my parents prefer I don’t go that far from Oregon. Affordability for the most part is not a concern, however. Of the UCs, are there any that would even be worth a shot at applying. I understand they are very selective, but I’ve had friends this year who had similar profiles and managed to get into places like Irvine and Santa Barbara.
I don’t know if this matters much, but my gpa is actually a 3.71 currently unweighted, however, after this semester’s grades, I really don’t know where it’ll end up, so I assumed the very worst-case scenario. I just don’t want to get my hopes up high.
Anyway, thank you all again for the insightful information.
Again, the foreign language question. Can you do a third year in senior year, or are you happy to do the extra course/s needed to get to the required proficiency in college?
I can do a third year of foreign language, but my school has a strange policy where unless you take a second language consecutive years in a row, you need to begin at the basic level or whichever level you can test into if it is a non-consecutive opportunity of taking it. Therefore, with Chinese, I would need to retake Chinese I in senior year.
