Creating a good college list for Engineering

stevedad
Mon, 03 Sep 2007 10:52:43 +0000

“I think I want to go somewhere in the suburbs or with easy access to a city and I don’t think I want to go to a huge state school like michigan or penn state. For size I would be looking for about 5,000-15,000 undergrads.”

That size constricts you a bit and even rules out a big bunch of the schools on your original list (just from personal knowledge, Purdue, Caltech and MIT all would be excluded on size alone). How certain are you of that range?

Someone mentioned Olin, which is arguably the most selective engineering school in the country, but falls far short of your size criterion at 300 students.

I’ll second the Mudd recommendation. Size initially appears small at 700ish, but when the populations of the contiguous (and cross-enrolling) members of the claremont consortium are added in, you get very close to the 5000 lower limit that you threw out. Also in the suburbs and easily accessible from one of LA’s secondary (i.e., uncrowded) airports. Like others on your list, it would be a bit of a reach even with another couple hundred points on your SAT retake though.

Finally, don’t forget the SAT II subject tests. Chart out which subjects are required for your most likely schools.