OP: In regards to Purdue, you might look at 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.
For VT make sure you apply by their EA deadline, NOT Regular Decision. VT is wierd and only admits on a “space available” basis during RD. This means that for highly sought-after majors at VT (like engineering), there are often no spots left after the EA round, and what seems like a “likely” is suddenly “very unlikely”, even for high stats applicants. VT publishes its admissions data by major on its website, if you’re curious.
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UIUC gave my sister enough aid, so I will leave it on the list for now. I have friends who lucked out with merit aid at Pitt and UMD, so I’m still going to apply, although I’m taking off UT Austin.
@Creekside231 I will apply EA everywhere that I can for the best chances of admission or aid.
I have also decided to take Caltech off the list. To be honest, overworking myself in HS has led to some burnout, and I don’t want that trend to continue in college (hence no MIT or Caltech).
For Science Olympiad, I do a lot of build events, and I’ve enjoyed making trebuchets, catapults, battery-powered cars, robots etc. I also do rocketry, and I hear aerospace isn’t too different from MechE, so that is an option. I would definitely be interested in joining clubs like SAE, Baja, Student Launch, etc.
Unrelated, and this isn’t a priority, but I also want a school with a strong running club or an XC/track team that I could potentially walk onto in a couple of years (got a couple major injuries in HS, so I’m not fast enough to be recruitable, unfortunately).
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