Distance and cost are not really concerns, however schools either in CA or in the eastern US would be better. Prefer a school over 4-5k students, any suburban/rural/small town is fine but not urban.
A tool I like a lot for exploring a breadth of schools is called College Navigator. I put some of the criteria you mentioned into a search and got back a list of schools, and you can futz with the various selectors and checkboxes to expand/narrow the search.
One school that stood out to me that feels very scout-y (congrats on Eagle, btw!) is the Colorado School of Mines. I know it doesn’t hit your geography shortlist, but if you’ve been skipping over Colorado, it might be a new one worth checking out.
No physics in high school? Physics for engineering majors in college will be harder without having seen some of the concepts in high school physics beforehand.
Based on Freshman admission by discipline | University of California , your 3.64 UC-recalculated GPA is below the 25th percentile GPA for all UCs’ engineering admits, and below the 25th percentile GPA for all UCs’ engineering enrollees except at UC Merced. So all UCs except perhaps UC Merced should be considered reaches.
When I read the Eagle Scout part- my first thought went straight to Colorado School of Mines
Worth looking into at the very least.
I do not know much about West coast/California schools- so nothing else helpful on that aspect.
But many schools for Engineering really like seeing physics on your high school class list so definitely research that and try to get that worked in for your senior year if possible!
I don’t know if you are interested in continuing rowing, but if you are, you may want to look at the schools in New England / NY / PA / OH that have strong engineering programs and also good rowing opportunities. I’m thinking particularly WPI (my son just graduated last weekend - MechE and CivE double major who also rowed. He started rowing in HS, in Northern VA, and also an Eagle so likely a similar background as you), RPI, Lehigh, Case Western. I would guess with your statistics you’d get into all of them, but they are at the bottom end of the size you are looking for, so if you are wanting big school vibes, these are not that. But they might make good schools for you as a likely.
These aren’t the big name schools typically at the regattas (those tend to be the smaller liberal arts schools in New England competing with these) but they have solid programs that allow you to take all the engineering classes and labs and still participate.
Good plan. As a potential engineering major, I agree with others that you need to take physics in high school. Taking honors physics senior year should be fine.
The various universities of California will not consider test scores, and are expensive out of state. With an okay GPA and superb SAT and ACT scores, why are you preferring schools that will not look at your SAT and ACT scores? There should be lots of universities in the eastern part of the US that would be very good choices.
Also, what is your budget?
There are a lot of very good universities where you can study engineering. Quite a few of them would be way less expensive compared to the various universities of California as an out of state student.
If there any significant year by year variation in your grades? The universities of California will not look at your freshman year (at least in most cases), but your freshman year should be less important for most universities.
I think that you should be looking very closely at your in-state public universities. My understanding is that there are quite a few of them. Unfortunately living way to the north / northeast of you the only one that I am familiar with is your flagship (UMD CP) which to me looks like a rather high reach given your GPA. I expect that multiple of your other in-state public schools will be good options.
Up in my end of the US, something like U.Mass Lowell, UNH, or U.Maine might be possibilities. UVM might also be possible but is expensive out of state unless you qualify for very good merit aid. At least in our experience the NPC did predict merit aid and was spot-on-accurate, although one daughter was applying with a higher GPA and a lower SAT score and I do not know which would be more important for merit aid there. At least UVM out of state costs less than the universities of California.
Also, I do not understand why you are taking so many IB classes next year unless you have a huge uptrend in your grades. If you do have a huge uptrend, then this is likely to have a significant positive impact on university admissions.
The OP has only two in-state state universities that offer mechanical engineering: UMCP and UMBC. In addition, Frostburg State and UMES offer some kind of general engineering. Morgan State offers four kinds of engineering, but not mechanical.
Agree that as a non-resident, it will be tough and competitive to gain admission.
Long Beach and SDSU will also be difficult based on your current GPA.
Don’t forget that most of the UCs are on the quarter system. Sometimes, some of those engineering courses only have one test for the full quarter. (10 weeks to prove yourself.)
California high school students are groomed for those quarter systems.
But we in California, will happily take your $90,000 per year. Our state needs the money.
@Gumbymom probably has more info but unfortunately this probably takes you out the running for CPSLO, which doesn’t look at test scores, doesn’t look at essays, and has very limited insight into ECs constrained by the format of the CSU application, so GPA is pivotal. UCs at least give you a chance with the PIQs.
With your great test scores, I do think you should be expanding your search to other states where they matter! I think you might want to consider adding some midwestern schools into the mix as well.
CPSLO also admits strictly by major, and engineering majors are very competitive.
@Dylan027, if you can be specific about what features attracted you to the UCs and Cal Poly, posters here can probably make other suggestions of schools with similar features. For example, if you are attracted to Cal Poly because of “learn by doing,” WPI (as suggested by @OctoberKate above) would be a great idea, although it might be a little small and urban for the preferences you listed in your first post.
I’d consider San Diego State University to be a match. It is in a residential part of San Diego, so won’t feel too urban, has strong engineering, and has higher out of state acceptance. There is a great interview about it on the YOUR COLLEGE BOUND KID podcast.
@Dylan027: SDSU’s Campus average admitted CSU GPA was 4.08 for 2025 Freshman and specifically for the College of Engineering, the CSU GPA enrolled GPA was 3.92. SDSU will not be a Match school but still a Reach based on your listed GPA.
@ucbalumnus linked the SLO Student profile for the College of Engineering which includes the admitted SLO GPA range. SLO does not list their exact admit rates by major but offers target projections for enrollment. Based on this information the projected Mechanical Engineering admit rate is around 11% and General Engineering is 8%.
Are you in the IB DP? If not, can you do AP Calc instead of IB Math SL? It would be a better prep for engineering. I have 2 kids with the IBDP and both are in mech eng. One took Math HL and was well prepared for college calculus. The other one surprised us by going for engineering! haha. She did a path like yours with pre-calc and statistics and then 2 years of Math SL. She definitely had to work harder in calculus in college than my oldest did.
Youngest went with AP and definitely learned more calculus than the other 2 did in high school.
I agree with adding physics too. Going into engineering with minimal calculus and no physics will make it harder.
