Just a few notes, as I’ve been a CE for 30+ years – and also a pianist! However, I currently work on the government side after 4 years in the private sector. I also work on Public Works type projects – streets, traffic, stormwater, sanitary sewer, site development for various departments, along with preliminary site development for Economic Development. I also manage our GIS.
Call on @MaineLonghorn if you are looking for the structural side of CE. She is also a pianist and she and her H started their own firm.
I agree with the others that where you go is not that important. I’d stress to make sure it is ABET accredited. I would also put in a plug for my alma mater Virginia Tech, though they are stingy with merit aid.
If you want to open your own firm, you will have to be a PE, and that will take at least 4 years of working experience under a PE. Also, owning your own firm is going to require a lot of salesmanship qualities. People (at least in the beginning) don’t just come calling. You have to sell yourself. This is what I hated the most about working on the private side. The group I was with was very young (mostly in our 20s) and our billing rates were higher than average. Try to convince someone to hire you with little experience but more expensive is not easy, especially for an introvert. Now I am just given projects to do and complete as a project team of 1, and if we use a consultant, I’m sitting on the other side of the table evaluating them. I much prefer it this way!
best of luck to you!
I’m going to double up on what @ClassicMom98 suggested and also hype Virginia Tech a bit. Not only are they a great engineering school, but they also have a degree in Construction Engineering and Management Construction Engineering and Management | Virginia Tech - this is an ABET accredited program that includes both Civil Engineering (an engineering degree) and Building Construction (a BS degree that doesn’t prepare you for the PE exam). Plus, you apply to the engineering school as an undecided engineering major, and elect something at the end of your first year. So if this didn’t appeal, you could do straight up Civil Engineering.
FWIW, my younger son was looking at VT for the Building Construction program (Building Construction | Virginia Tech) Although it is technically within the college of engineering, it is not an engineering degree. It’s much more like what other schools call Construction Science or Construction Management. We spent some significant time looking at the program, went to a number of info sessions and spent a day with the construction professors and head of the department (who would also be a main contributor for the engineering degree program referenced above). The facilities are amazing (they just built a new building, partially funded by HITT, and have some beautiful equipment and lots of resources), the professors are super engaged, and the Building Construction students have a 100% job placement rate before graduation. The program is well known to recruiters.
So if I’m you, I throw in an application to VT engineering. You can do either the Civil or Construction Engineering Management path. If for some reason that didn’t feel like it was working for you, you could also fall back to the Building Science program (it’s harder to go the other way, as those first year engineering classes are hard to miss).
At the least, for what you want to do, I think it’s worth a look.
It’s on my list for the exact reasons you listed!
Note that there is secondary admission to major, although the automatic admission threshold of 3.0 college GPA is not that difficult compared to some other schools that have secondary admission to major.
I think it’s premature to talk about names until OP comes back with a budget.
Because based on OPs talk up top of scholarships and living home to save money, there clearly is one (regardless of noting full pay) that they need to discuss with mom and dad b4 building a list.
OP - one thing you noted concern with is a lack of engineering ECs. I’d say that’s a zero worry - you did impactful things with your time - so you’re good there. btw - not on your list and don’t know if it would work - but Penn State, as a big name, doesn’t look at ECs. But your ECs are fantastic for all, nonetheless.
Not that I necessarily have a budget, I’d just rather not spend extra money. No reason not to go for a scholarship at schools like RPI. Also, SBU is like a 30 minute drive, which is why I brought up commuting.
OK - but someone else mentioned a sibling in college.
When you say you don’t have a budget but I’d rather not spend extra money - I don’t know what the extra is.
My point is - there’s a lot of merit money and varying costs out there.
A scholarship per se - doesn’t mean much. You want to look at the total cost.
So yes, RPI is high but when you get $40K off, it’s lower. You will get substantial aid there but of course, it’s not guaranteed.
But you could go to UMD and get a scholarship but it would still be more - than say U of Florida full pay. So scholarships are great but the overall cost is more important. That’s where a Purdue has always shined - it’s low cost (relative to others) full pay so it’s likely cheaper than many who provide scholarships whereas you are unlikely to get one at Purdue.
You also say you prefer cities and lively areas with access to music. I don’t know each area but I would think RPI, Va Tech, Purdue, Lehigh, Cornell may not be that what you seek. I could be wrong - but I’d research. They’re certainly not city oriented, even RPI and Lehigh which are close.
One not on your list but throwing it out there because @Bill_Marsh has actually mentioned the music scene many times - and it will be much lower in cost than most of your list - would be UMASS. UMD, I don’t think there’s a music scene - sure in DC but you have to get there which is possible but not necessarily easy (on a regular basis). So I’d research - not just UMD - but any schools for that type thing since it’s important to you.
So ultimately, you want to look at the cost of attendance and possible aid or sometimes, like a Bama, an assured aid (You get $30.5K off based on your #s) - hence I brought them up (and their average higher salary than Va Tech which will cost you more than double in tuition/living) but there are many like that with assured aid or very likely to get aid. That’s just one example.
In the end, if you’re not going to choose a $100K school, then those can come off. But if you will consider them, that’s different.
But have you gone over all the cost things with mom/dad?
To me and I am not you, but if I want to go away to college for four years and can afford it, then I would never consider - but I can commute to save money. Because while many commute because that’s all they can afford, living at home and going to college isn’t giving you the complete college experience, much of which comes from living in the dorms, joining clubs, late night pizza runs, etc. Given your list, I assume you want that.
As I first noted - I had zero issue with your list - I like how you classified it until you later brought up $$ - so any time a full pay person does that, it gives me pause because while you might be full pay, you might have a budget in mind - or your folks may realize, why would we spend $400K when we could spend $100-200K?
Don’t won’t to drudge you down in money - but I do read and analyze your comments and I do think you really need to have that conversation with your folks up front so you are not applying to schools that ultimately you’ll have no intention or parents won’t be willing to allow you to attend.
Actually, it happens to be the opposite way. I don’t want to spend a lot of money, but my parents want to spend the money to send me to a “good college”. I do agree that many of the schools I’ve visited don’t have great music scenes, but it isn’t a deal breaker for me. Also, UMD happened to have pretty good music facilities AFAIK, and the DC area has no shortage of concerts.
Gotcha - the good college thing - well, I think, as others noted above, anywhere you decide to go will be good. They are all good - seriously. It’s the ABET cert that matters, so much that even Stanford got certified. You’ve done a good job researching and then I think - your original list is great.
You may want to organize all the required essays, etc. because it’s a long list - and you may want to prioritize in case you get application burnout - to ensure you get in the apps you truly want. So if you know Stanford is a must and Vandy isn’t, as an example, and you have to balance the deadlines, but you may ensure that Stanford gets done first - that type of thing just because of possible essay fatigue, that happens often.
It’s an aggressive list - but it’s well designed and thought out with the various programs.
So I’m sure you’ll do very well. You’ve already done well building the list.
Best of luck.
Thank you a lot for all the feedback.
Note that 71% of frosh and 52% of all undergraduates live in college owned, operated, or affiliated housing, so it may not be optimal as a commuter in your first year (although that does mean that probably around 29% of frosh commute, and it has a reputation of some resident students leaving most weekends).
Yeah, I’d probably want to live on-campus for at least the first year just to get to know people, and to have that “experience”.
I’ll jump in to say that Ithaca is a great college town and does in fact have a lively music scene, so I’d keep Cornell on the list. 
That’s what I’ve heard as well, their music program looks nice for non-majors as well. Also, my school sends like a dozen kids there every year, so I think I have a decent shot.
While your list has many heavyweights, I don’t think there’s any school where you don’t have a shot.
You have an exceptional overall record from course selection to grades, test score, and more. Hopefully your LORs and essay will match.
But while you won’t get in everywhere I’m guessing, you are certainly worthy of applying anywhere. And I like how you eliminated MIT because it wasn’t right for you - so you dug deeper. That’s a great quality about your list as well.
RPI has a great music scene, both within the school, downtown Troy & WRPI. Good ROI too.
Have you toured the EMPAC at RPI? It’s one of the best concert venues I’ve ever seen.
My son was a concert level classical musician and could have attended a top conservatory. He decided he didn’t music to be his career, but looked at opportunities to continue to study. Case was on his list for that reason. One of the top players in his discipline was at CIM, and he’d done multiple master classes with him. Engineering is pretty all encompassing though, so he elected not to do that.
I loved @ClassicMom98 's reply - great advice.
I started playing piano when I was five. I took it very seriously, practicing five hours a day towards the end of high school. But I knew I wasn’t good enough to be a soloist, and I am NOT a teacher, so I decided to go into structural engineering (following in my dad’s footsteps - he was one of my professors).
I expected to continue to take piano lessons in college, but quickly discovered that it’s really hard when you’re an engineering student. I know some people have done it, though, so it’s possible!
I would concentrate solely on civil or structural classes as much as possible - there is SO much to learn! It would be much more helpful to take classes in masonry and wood design instead of business. I regret not taking seismic design - I lived in Texas in a region with NO earthquake design requirements, but then moved to Maine where there are!
As others have said, ABET accreditation is everything. To be honest, a lot of structural engineers don’t look highly on people with degrees from places like MIT - correctly or not, they’re thought to be too theoretical and lacking in common sense. I worked with one engineer, an MIT grad, who was let go because although he was very good at pointing out problems, he wasn’t good at solving them.
I met my husband in grad school at UT-Austin and our first jobs were at the same company in Maine. We worked a total of almost 13 years before starting our own firm in 1999. You really want to be sure you’ve had a lot of experience in many different areas before you launch out on your own. You also need to develop a good network of contacts. When we started, other engineers kindly sent us their overflow work. Other than the tough years during the recession, we’ve done well. It’s been so awesome to be able to work from home all of those years. We’ve never had any difficulty getting work. It can occasionally be hard to collect, but we’ve had only a couple of cases where people didn’t pay us. We used a collection agency in one case, because it was a landlord who knew exactly what she was doing and had fleeced other people in the past.
If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask. Oh, by the way, I’m still playing piano - my husband’s teacher left him a 1917 Steinway A3 (6’-4 1/2") - hmm, maybe that’s why I married him? 