<p>This is Jimmy’s mom.<br>
Jimmy is a HS junior planning on majoring in Engineering- right now, a toss up between mechanical and electrical. We’d appreciate your help in coming up with a list of potential colleges.</p>
<p>about Jimmy-
rural Eastern NC
rank: 3rd out of 170
GPA: 3.89 uw (nothing below a 94, so this might translate to a 4.0 uw at some schools)
most rigorous class schedule offered at his HS
honors and AP’s
soph PSAT: cr-58, m-66, w-69
expected increase in all areas, esp cr
good EC’s
needs/qualifies for Fin Aid</p>
<p>what he would like in a college-
big in research
preferably located in a small city/rural area or at least the feeling of a separated campus if it’s in a larger city
small to medium sized - or a residential honors program to make the large campus feel smaller</p>
<p>less important factors-
a place where it snows
green spaces on campus instead of just building right next to building</p>
<p>current list-
Cornell- been his #1 choice for a long time, and we know it’s a shot in the dark
Virginia Tech
Bucknell- grandfather and uncle went here
Duke</p>
<p>Do these fit his campus descriptions?
Wash U of SL
U Mich- Ann Arbor
Colorado- Boulder</p>
<p>We went to visit NC State this past weekend for their Open House. It’s our best state school for engineering. The Honor’s Village is the saving grace as far as the physical appearance of the campus compared to his wishlist.</p>
<p>Any comments on our list so far? We’d like to have a much longer list before we start weeding out places.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech has tons of greenery if that’s his thing, but it is located in downtown Atlanta.</p>
<p>Also, what are his SAT scores? No one cares about the PSAT for admissions.</p>
<p>University of California–Davis is located in a smaller area some 20 miles from the city (Sacramento), but it isn’t as high a caliber school as I think he might be looking for (Cornell, Michigan, Illinois, etc.).</p>
<p>If PSATs are at all reflective of future SATs then I don’t think that he’d have a particularly good shot at Carnegie Mellon. CMU is also very pricey and is not particularly good for financial aid.<br>
I second Va Tech. It’s larger than he might like but has a nice, green campus and is not that tough to get into for such a well-respected program. I visited there with my son this summer and I was surprised to hear the following fact- they are really looking to enroll out-of-state students and may actually be generous with financial aid/scholarships in order to achieve their out-of-state targets.
Another school that seems to match your preferences and is realistic is U of Delaware. Again it may be larger than he would like, but it’s small for a state U and has a beautiful, self-contained campus in the middle of a small city.
You might also want to look at WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute). In this case, not a research powerhouse but very good research activity for a school that’s so small (I think maybe less than 3000 undergrads). It is also in a larger city than you might like but again the campus is very nice and self-contained, the atmosphere seems friendly and and financial aid is relatively generous, particularly for those who distinguish themselves in HS. Chances of being admitted are good to very good.</p>
<p>If he’s a junior then he just took the PSAT’s for the second time which means those are his scores from his sophomore year. I can’t speak for others, but between 10th grade and 12th grade I scored about 250 points higher over all 3 sections, which if he did the same would put him competitive for most schools.</p>
<p>Jimmy, I would strike WashU from that list. They game their USNews ranking big time, and even then they’re barely on the map for engineering.</p>
<p>Edit: Definitely consider GaTech. They have the cheapest OOS tuition for any top public university but are fairly stingy giving you aid, but then again so would most other publics in this time of shrinking state budgets. However, it is very common to do a co-op and offset some of that debt.</p>
<p>I’ll vouch for WPI, RPI, and RIT. All are very solid tech schools. I’d say RPI is a high match, WPI a regular match, and RIT a safety. </p>
<p>I go to WPI and my sister goes to RIT. They’re both very good for engineering and technology. WPI will probably offer smaller class sizes, while RIT will have a greater selection. </p>
<p>If you’re worried about neighborhoods, know that RPI is in a very bad part of the city (or so I’ve heard), and WPI is in a somewhat bad neighborhood, but not that bad.</p>
<p>Davis is an excellent school and I scoff at your downsizing of it. Anyway, if the kid wants to travel all the way out to CA he’d be better off in SLO for ME, which is also small town.</p>
<p>USC has ridiculously good financial aid and being in the engineering school you feel like you are in a pretty small environment. the campus is in downtown LA but it is almost completely isolated, you could easily go an entire semester and never have to leave campus.</p>
<p>I would disagree with the guy that said Georgia Tech has a lot of greenery. It has some but nothing special. I mean it’s right in the city, now much would you really expect?</p>
<p>Perhaps he forgot to preface it with “… for being in midtown Atlanta”. I agree with you though that GT doesn’t have as much greenery as a college out in the 'burbs, but I have to stress that the entire campus feels like a college and does not feel like you’re in the middle of a city (except for the skyscrapers a few miles away of course). GT has done a nice job with what it has to work with.</p>
<p>GaTech absolutely feels separated from Atlanta. it is a little oasis in the middle of a city. no one can say anything bad about the beautiful campus.</p>
<p>the only reason that i dont want to go there is because i think it lacks diversity.</p>