You sound like you have a lot of situational awareness about your applicant, which a large part of the battle in creating an optimal and not-too-long list.
I would encourage, though, any “love to go there” schools be applied to. Treat those applications very thoughtfully (ie. really focus on crafting the essays and activities list for these reaches). Mudd is worth trying for given your son’s “engineering interest but music/language pursuits” profile.
NC-State is a great STEM/engineering university in the research-triangle area. Clemson engineering is good (friendly / happy campus and good student resources).
Some thoughts on your listed schools and others mentioned in the thread…
UIUC is strong in engineering, CS and the physical sciences, and it ranks higher than all the schools on your list. It is in a red state, albeit in a less progessive part of Illinois (more on that later). The down side is that Urbana/Champaign is in the middle of nowhere, and several hours from a major metro area.
We were pleasently surprised while visiting Pitt. Though it is a large public university, the campus felt very manageable with the engineering buildings just a couple blocks from the main dorm. It is in the Oakland neighborhood with many bars, restaurants and stores nearby. It also abuts CMU, and the schools have a cross registration agreement so Pitt students can take classes at The Nerd Farm. Pitt also has an honors program for all majors, to which students can apply any year during their tenure at the school.
UofM is in a purple/red state and has a great reputation for engineering (and just about everything else). Ann Arbor is very crunchy and a progressive leaning student would feel at home there. You may want to add it to your list.
CWRU is a sleeper. It is a solid school that encourages/facilitates double majors and minors (our son is a MechE major, and Case is letting him fill all his humanities requirements in their B school so he will have a business minor without taking extra classes). The campus is nice, and much of Cleveland’s cultural venues - art museums, symphonies, botanical gardens, museum of natural history, etc. - are near campus. I think of Case as a wannabe CMU that is more student friendly. If you are interested in bio-med, Case is very strong (top 20) and the school does a lot of work with University Hospital and The Cleveland Clinic. We compared CWRU engineering grad school outcomes to CMU, and for students who did not continue on at their undergrad institution, Case students fared as well or even better than their CMU counterparts with acceptances at GA Tech, Cornell, MIT, University of Tokyo, and other top programs. The down side is that the dorms are awful, but they are building new ones that will be complete before you would arrive on campus. Case is also very generous with merit aid for strong students.
Why the blue state requirement? I can understand avoiding a couple states that are known for being backward, but would you really not attend a school because the state doesn’t have a Democrat governor and/or legislature? Even in solid red states like TX, college towns and campuses lean solidly progressive. Austin is like Madison, WI, but without the snow. Moreover, even in red leaning states the major cities lean progressive. Unless you plan to attend a school in rural Mississippi or Idaho, chances are you will be surrounded by other progressives.
Illinois is reliably a blue state. I do agree that some areas of downstate (where UIUC is) tends to be more conservative, but university area/county is blue.
Agreed. Except for the college campus, Urbana/Champaign has more old school blue collar union Dems who might be more socially moderate (at least they did when I was there), while Chicago has more progressives who lean far left on both economic and social issues.
A reminder that this is not the politics forum. I’ll allow a user to say they their opinion is state X is red/blue/purple, but I’m not allowing debate on gradations of color over time
Additionally, on these types of threads, the focus should be in the OP. In this case, the OP has shared parameters. It’s fine to ask why they’ve made those exclusions (although they are not obligated to tell you, since this is a confidential site after all). So absent any further clarification, UT-Austin, while a wonderful school, would be an example of an inappropriate suggestion.
Public Service Announcement- when someone posts looking for schools close to skiing, we don’t suggest “Hey, Tampa Florida is nice!”. When someone posts looking for a bustling, urban campus we don’t tell them “You should really check out U Conn, there’s a cute coffee place nearby that will make you feel like you’re in downtown Boston”.
It’s only red state/blue state asks that seem to get the “hey this isn’t what you want but you should consider it anyway”.
The kid could be Trans, or Cis, or Bi, or Q or a rock solid atheist or none of the above and just doesn’t want the added risk factor that in the next 5 years some state legislature is going to pass some bill which in some way objectifies or erases their identity- or they just don’t want to deal with the politics of it all. Or maybe it has nothing to do with gender or religion at all, which of course is their prerogative.
Have we run out of Blue States so quickly that we’re telling this kid “don’t bother with your wish list, I know better”? I don’t think so.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has a very strong engineering program and is in Illinois, which is blue, but UIUC’s area in specific I’m not sure.
I think that one could make a compelling case for just about any state school – in any state in the country. This is reassuring on a global level – we have quality schools that are easy to access and comparatively affordable within driving distance of most students in the US.
I had breakfast this morning with a friend whose son is a first-year at the University of Utah. He was not as strong/well-rounded a student as my son (less advanced in math, indifferent to humanities classes, finished with maybe a 3.6 GPA and mid 1300s SAT scores). He was looking for a school with access to the outdoors, strong pre-med opportunities, and less of a drinking/party culture. My friend had a couple of observations worth noting:
These are navigable trade-offs. In a school where he’s not immediately in over his head academically, he’s more likely to get grades that will make him competitive in med school applications. I think a lot of kids (regardless of college size) feel a little lonely in the beginning. And the WUE discount means they have more money for med school down the road. They are feeling great about their choice.
My son is still figuring it out. He’s been learning how to machine things in the robotics club and took apart his laptop the other day to fix a stodgy keyboard (baby steps! his dad was so proud…) We sat down the other night with the list of schools who are coming to his high school and talked through which ones he should try to meet with. He’d originally signed up for a bunch of state school visits. But here’s the thing – his school limits how many of these he can participate in. I convinced him that Oregon State and CU Boulder aren’t going to notice if he showed up at a campus visit. He can apply and that is unlikely to affect his chances. Lafayette and CWR, on the other hand, track interest. So he’s going to those visits instead.
My hope is that when the dust settles, he will be able to choose from among a liberal arts experience like Lafayette, a big state school like CU Boulder/Pitt, and a medium-sized opportunity like U of Rochester. Any of these will have trade-offs (travel/weather/access to research/inadequate housing, etc.) But weighing those trade-offs is the interesting part of this journey, right?
One more note, for those who care: my friend who works in a very senior engineering role at Apple said their best undergrad optics interns were coming from Arizona and University of Rochester.
Yeah, “flagship” state universities like Utah end up serving a wide variety of kids very well. They are designed so different kids can end up with significantly different experiences, academically, socially, activities-wise, and so on. It can take a while for a given kid to figure all that out, but most kids get there soon enough. And that of course is the point of them, and as long as they are affordable, and of course you can get admitted, they set a really pretty high floor.
And In fact, I found it really interesting to watch my S24 go through the process, which for him did not end until he did post-offer visits and finally decided what sort of school was his favorite. I think it was in part a process of self-discovery for him, and that meant I was also getting to know him better by being along for the ride. Very cool.
So no need to rush this to a finish prematurely.
Also, dropping this here for anyone who is curious.
Top Feeders to Ph.D. Programs (hoping this doesn’t break some kind of cardinal rule about outside links.)
I appreciate that they have both absolute #s and #s adjusted for size. Most of the schools S25 is considering (minus the LACs w/out engineering) are on the list. Some surprisingly high…
That is one of my favorite sources for academicky school ideas. Even if you are not interested in grad programs, in fact.
FYI some advice for your friend: the absolute best way to make friends at Utah is to have a car. D18 came back to get hers at fall break in freshman year. Given how much time everyone spends on the ski slopes in the winter, having access to a car, especially one with 4WD, immediately makes you a popular friend to lots of people (since it is less common amongst freshmen).
Yes, they took him out there w/ a car. All over it. Access to skiing was a primary consideration for him.
Not everyone can afford a car at college. And yet- they still manage to join clubs, volunteer for worthy causes, take swing dance lessons and chat with people afterwards. Being out there is step one- the friendships will follow.
The kids I know who went to Utah were on a budget…they had a blast, but were mindful of their spending on both big things (car insurance, etc.) and small things (eating out too frequently).
University of Rochester sounded awesome to me during our search. My son interviewed when the AO was here in town. He applied but ended up accepted ED at Lafayette so we never heard results.
My older son is at CU Boulder, but not in engineering. He transferred in as a sophomore without ever visiting - lol. Class of 2020 Covid kid.
Lafayette seems to like geographic diversity and most of their applicants are from NJ, PA, NY, etc., so if you are from CA that might be a plus there.
Sorry to throw a wrench into the works, but I wouldn’t take the LACs off the table. Have him throw in a few apps. I remember your college road trip reviews and he really liked some of these. Don’t discount the impact that small size and personal attention can have to make a good fit for an introvert; I realize that would mean he might need to decide no on engineering. A lot can change between now and May 1.