<p>If you mean IllinoisUC then I don’t think your chances are good. That is a very hard school to get into as a non-resident of ILL, and unfortunately, your GPA isn’t strong enough even if you were a Ill resident. </p>
<p>Probably not much easier to get into UT since your SAT is not high enough. I don’t know how many nonTexas residents they take.</p>
<p>Since you’ve been told that having a death in the family doesn’t make much of a difference to Adcoms in terms of understanding your drop in GPA and lowish SAT, I think you need to resign yourself to looking for schools that will accept your GPA & SAT. You can always transfer as a junior to a “dream school” - your hs grades won’t count then.</p>
<p>Other schools with good engineering departments which will be easier to get into are Ohio State, NC State, Clemson. Most of the large state universities will have engineering - you should look into them for your safeties. As a previous poster said, you can always transfer if you do well</p>
<p>UAH campus sits next to Cummings Research Park (CRP), so many of the engineering students get internships at top high-tech companies. Cummings Research Park ( [Cummings</a> Research Park - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cummings_Research_Park]Cummings”>Cummings Research Park - Wikipedia) ) is the second largest research park in the USA…It’s in Madison County and has many, many high-tech companies. Because of CRP, Madison County has the highest density of PhDs in the nation.</p>
<p>UAH is also pretty inexpensive for OOS and international students.</p>
<p>Michigan, Illinois, Georgia Tech and Texas are all reaches or big reaches. Purdue may be a match. You may want to consider Michigan Tech for engineering.</p>
<p>I just took a tour of the Holcombe Department Of Electrical & Computer Engineering department in Riggs Hall at Clemson. A couple of useful information that they told me</p>
<p>-The building has just been recently renovated (every single room) so the equipment is brand new (looked nice, not state of the art but very well done)
-All of the electrical/computer engineering classes can be taken online over the summer so you don’t fall behind when deciding to co-op
-There is an honors program track in ECE concluding with a honors senior research capstone project (two semesters).
-All seniors do a capstone project - 2 semesters for EE majors and 1 semester for computer engineering majors (working on extending it to 2 years)</p>
<p>Its just that all my best friends are applying to the universities I mentioned and I don’t want to be left out . I want to with them to college as well !. Austin still remains on top of my List . </p>
<p>How can I let the ADCom’s know that a death in my family is a genuine reason for me to get bad (really bad) grades in grade 11 because the rest of my school records has A’s and B’s.</p>
<p>Thanks for the help people (Clemson is quite interesting . I may apply there )</p>
<p>When recommending colleges, are you considering whether the applicant has to apply specifically to the engineering college (which may have higher stats expectations)?</p>
<p>I realize that you want to apply to the same schools as your friends. Of course you want to go to the same schools. That’s understandable.</p>
<p>However, even if you apply to the same schools as your friends, you need to apply to a few safeties - such as Clemson (more of a match), Auburn, UA, UAH, etc. You don’t want to risk not having any acceptances in the Spring, and therefore no place to go. </p>
<p>Don’t forget, you can always transfer to one of the top schools after you’ve demonstrated strong grades for the first 2 years. And…your friends aren’t going to all end up at the same school either. They will be scattered amongst your list.</p>
<p>As for the Adcom and the death in the family. Since admissions doesn’t place a lot on this, you may need to have a teacher or two (from the junior year) write something to the schools mentioning how they recognize how the death negatively affected your grades. If they write the letters in a “general format,” it could be used for various schools.</p>
<p>mom2collegekids, I got into Clemson with a B average and 2010 on the SAT. Her SAT may be on the low side but her grades appear to be much better than mine.</p>
<p>Southwestern University would be good for you. It’s a wonderful liberal arts college in texas. All my friends who go there like it a lot. UT austin is probably out of your reach. If you’re a die heart christian baylor might accept you if you write about god in your essay. Texas A&M if you like to drink and don’t mind being in a fairly conservative college town.</p>
<p>All of you - Is there a website where I can check what is the average GPA of each school ? . For example 75% have GPA X.XX and SAT score XXXX ? </p>
<p>pierre0913 - Where all would you apply if u were me ? . (6 universities )
major - Mechanical/EE ?</p>
<p>For example…UT Austin’s info from last year (I have the book from last year - so info may be a little bit different now…but not much)</p>
<p>The SAT midrange for Math + Critical Reading (Writing stats not included): 1110-1370
That means that the freshmen who were in the 25-75percentile for UT freshmen, scored within that range for Math + CR.</p>
<p>However, does anyone know if the student applies directly to the engineering program when applying to the UT (meaning that if the student’s stats aren’t high enough for engineering, he won’t be accepted?)</p>
<p>Core academics , good faculty , good reputation , Best/great career placements ,good facilities , good parties (optional if all the rest are there) .</p>
<p>UT - Austin and Michigan are my top choices followed closely UIUC and Georgia tech (but all seem to be impossible )</p>
<p>I really don’t think you’ll get into Michigan or Georgia Tech but you can try one of those schools if you want (Georgia Tech would probably be the right pick there)</p>
<p>I would try Texas, Illinois, and Purdue.</p>
<p>I think you have a good shot at getting into Rose-Hulman Institute Of Technology, one of the top engineering schools in the country that nobody knows about, on par with Georgia Tech and Illinois. I would definitely take a look at that school.</p>
<p>If you want to get to be guaranteed a job after graduation, look at Northeastern University and their cooperative education program. Northeastern is an up and coming school and has a fantastic co-op program (if you don’t know what that is, we can explain it to you!) and engineering program. Rochester Institute Of Technology is another school with a great co-op program.</p>
<p>If you want to go to a school with great alumni networks and connections, look at Florida, Texas, Clemson, Penn State. Rose-Hulman is also fantastic at job/grad school placement.</p>