Please chance my potential engineer for these schools, and suggest some more! [rising junior, MD resident, 4.0 UW, 35 ACT]

Chance Me / Match Me
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Please let us know how to categorize these schools for my rising Junior. At this point, we’re just trying to get a sense of whether we’re looking at the correct balance of schools.

Demographics

  • US Citizen
  • Maryland resident
  • Selective STEM magnet program
  • Kid is a recruitable athlete, but is trying to decide if he wants to pursue that. We’d love to get input on chances without using soccer for admissions.
  • Cost Constraints / Budget
    Budget is $35K - $40K a year. In state schools come in below that. NPC’s for the schools with the most aid/no loans come in below that. Otherwise, he will need merit.
  • Intended Major(s)
  • Engineering – ideally at some place where changing between engineering majors, or where you enter as engineering undecided.

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0 (as of end of sophomore year)
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.9 something. His school weights everything as +1.0 except PE and one art class.
  • College GPA: N/A
  • Class Rank: N/A school doesn’t rank.
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 35 ACT, plans to take SAT at least once.

List your HS coursework.

Junior/Senior year classes are planned.

  • English: AP Lang, AP Lit
  • Math: BC Calc (5), AP Stats (5), Multivariable Calc, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, Discrete Math
  • Science: AP Bio (5) AP Chem (5) AP Physics 1 (5) AP Physics 2 (5) AP Physics C E&M, Post AP science electives TBD
  • History and social studies: AP Gov (5) APUSH (5) AP World, probably another AP Social Science TBD, or maybe AP Art History instead
  • Language other than English: AP Spanish Lang (5), AP Spanish Lit (5), at least 1 post AP Spanish class
  • Visual or performing arts: 4 years of visual arts classes,
  • Other academic courses: AP CSA (5), Post AP computer science classes

College Coursework (Transfer Applicants)
(Include college courses taken while in high school if not included above.)

  • General education course work: None
  • Major preparation course work: None

Awards

Freshman and Sophomore PSAT at NMSF level, so that seems likely.

Extracurriculars
Soccer, robotics, visual arts, volunteering.

Summer job with a construction company.

Paid summer internship in a biomedical lab

Essays/LORs/Other
These should be strong

Schools (Note: All of these are for the engineering school)

Safety for both admissions and aid

VCU (Only a financial safety if he’s NMSF)

Safety for admissions, target for aid

George Mason

Drexel

Safety for aid, target for admissions

UMD-College Park

UMN

Temple

Target for both admissions and aid

University at Buffalo

Pitt

UVM

Target or for admissions, reach for aid (Not sure these are worth exploring, but he likes them on paper. We haven’t seen any of these in person, as we’ve been focused on schools that are likely to be affordable)

Colorado – Boulder

Colorado School of Mines

George Washington University

Harvey Mudd

Northeastern

NYU

RIT

Tufts

WPI

Reach for admissions, safety for aid (NPC’s indicate that if he gets in, it will be affordable)

Brown

Columbia

Cooper Union

John Hopkins

MIT

Princeton

Other reach

Banneker Key scholarship at UMD

We haven’t seen a lot of these schools, so maybe his thoughts will change. We’d love more suggestions, and also a sense of how many he should actually apply to. His priorities are:

Nonnegotiable: Wide variety of engineering majors, ability to change majors, affordable

Would be nice: Liberal state, urban, close to skiing or winter sports, more hands on curriculum, opportunities to take visual arts classes, maker culture on campus, co-op, opportunities to play soccer, close to home

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U Mass Amherst?
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Some thoughts:

Minnesota seems like a very good fit overall and they have a form of rolling admissions. I would classify it as a Likely given those credentials, and so I would hope he could get an early offer there that would then let him cut anything from the list he wouldn’t prefer to Minnesota. I note they have a competitive club soccer team, which is a nice option for competitive athletes who do not want the commitment level of a varsity team. In fact it is sufficiently competitive that it has both A and B teams:

WPI also strikes me as a very good fit for what “would be nice”, so hopefully that works out in terms of aid. RIT as well, and he could also consider RPI.

I’d personally strike the other “reach for aid” schools for affordability reasons (if the NPC isn’t looking good–GW does have merit but my sense is rarely would you get on your budget).

The Reach list then looks solid to me given the stated preferences. I think 6 is fine if he likes, but he could also cut 1-3 if they didn’t really speak to him as much as the others.

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University of New Mexico is not close to home, but fits these other criteria. Your student would do very well scholarship wise, and these are auto scholarships.

I’ll let @WayOutWestMom detail the reasons this is a good choice. I think it will be a sure thing for admissions and affordability.

Have you considered University of Massachusetts? You might hit budget with merit aid.

University of Maine is another to look at.

You might want to look at Villanova, Lehigh, and Lafayette. Run the NPCs to see if they come in as affordable.

Please remember, the NPCs are currently set for students who will be starting college fall 2027, and that is not your student. And sometimes aid formulas and policies do change. So…use as an estimate only.

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A 35 ACT should be good enough but try the SAT once and call it done.

Merit scholarship amounts can change year-to-year. Schools that were generous this year might not be next year.

If he’s a NMSF or better, there are schools that offer significant scholarships and perks for top students.

Safeties and targets are good but if he has a great safety and would be happy there, is it necessary to apply to a lot more schools? If a school isn’t an upgrade over the safety why apply?

Some of the schools on his list aren’t exactly known for engineering.

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Is there a reason he wants to take the SAT? That ACT score is great.

Just fyi, WPI has some merit scholarships but they have had some financial concerns in the not too recent past.

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Be sure to apply early to all rolling admissions schools and take advantage of non-binding EA programs when available.

Overall list makes sense to me. For the very reachy schools it is critical to have meaningful and well written supplemental essays. If the student needs to cut down that part of the list a bit to make each supplemental essay excel, it would be a wise tradeoff.

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Dartmouth College as a “reach” option for engineering, especially BME since your son likes skiing and winter sports, enjoys the outdoors. He obviously has the competitive grades, coursework, and test scores. The National Merit Semifinalist/Finalist would definitely provide a boost (the less competitive the school, the bigger the boost). The official PSAT scores are never requested on the college application but the NMS award recognition would get disclosed under awards. Most students don’t need to apply to more than 10 schools. There are six schools currently on your safety list. Is he willing to attend any of those schools in he needs to enroll at a safety. Even the target and the reach list: perhaps four colleges/univs per category - 12 maximum. He is interested in majoring in engineering right now but unsure what type of engineering. Does he have any other potential interest other than engineering; change he could end of heading in different academic direction once he’s in college? He has some experience with robotics, visual arts, and working in a biomedical lab. Some engineering subfields include aerospace/aeronautics, agricultural, biological/biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, industrial, materials science, mechanical, petroleum. It’s too soon for any meaningful chancing of any schools. Perhaps gaining an additional engineering experience through another internship can benefit. For many of the reach schools, being interested in “undecided” engineering could lead to a rejection if the applicant isn’t academically focused; especially in cases when in a particular cycle, they need to admit in specific engineering disciplines (e.g. ones with the highest potential of majoring in aero/astro). They simply cannot afford to admit the wrong students and ones lacking focus are disadvantaged in the admissions process, especially for “reach” schools (<10% admit rates).

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I was trying not to throw WPI into the mix because I didn’t know if you could get it into your budget, but once I got to what he is looking for in a school, it was the perfect fit. I’d keep it on and see where they come in for price. It is also a school where he could easily play soccer as everyone does off campus projects so it is built into the athletic experience.

Ask his guidance counselor to nominate him for the RPI Medal if it rises to a top choice. I believe it is currently $160,000. (40k/yr). It’s basically equivalent to their top merit, but you find out that it’s an option before you even apply as it is awarded junior year.

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Good idea about the RPI scholarship. They have WPI on their list which is why I thought it important to mention the financial concerns in the not too distant past.

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These are unlikely to award a lot of merit, but of the two, Mines is more likely to come close to your budget.

Mines is probably a better choice for him since it is D2 sports, a majority of the school is in engineering so that means most of the athletes are engineers. The soccer team is very good, but most of the members have some kind of club/travel experience in hs. Still, if he gets recruited, they do award athletic scholarships.

Mines has more scholarship available, especially by major (alums tend to sponsor scholarships in their own fields). My nephew (in state student) has received more scholarships each year and the only thing my brother pays for is club hockey (my nephew loves his club hockey team).

For his twin, Denver University may be a good option. They do award merit, and sports is strong in the sports they offer -no football, but top lacrosse in both men’s and women’s, and men’s hockey (nat’l champs). Some of the smaller departments (maybe communications?) may give good opportunities for him to cover sports. Mines and DU are connected by light rail.

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With regard to the RPI medal, the OP needs to check to see if their high school participates in this program. If they don’t, they can become a participating school in as little as a few weeks. Someone from the guidance department would need to reach out to RPI and complete the process. So, there’s time for that to be done this year. Given that they are a STEM magnet in the Northeast, it’s likely that they are already a participating school.

The OP also needs to be aware that the Rensselaer Medal is awarded in the spring of junior year, i.e. before junior year is completed. Again, given that this high school is a STEM magnet, there is likely a lot of competition for the award in light of the fact that it is worth about $40,000 per year for 4 years. I have encouraged another school to taken into consideration whether the recipient is likely to attend RPI when deciding who to award it to.

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I think WPI and UVM and RIT are likely admits (based on my own kids’ applications for engineering with a much lower GPA, no ACT/SAT scores and lower rigor (not even AP calc))…
I think they get max merit at WPI, RIT (if apply EAs) (not sure what that is this year) based on scores/grades…UVM doesn’t have a ton of OOS aid though (but I would imagine this would be honors or at least STEM scholar (or whatever the new thing is called). My kid did have unusually interesting ECs, but not major awards or anything..

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It is misreported on CC all the time that you need to be nominated for the Rensselaer medal spring of junior year. That is not the case. High schools can still nominate Fall of senior year. That’s when my D’s HS does their nominations still.

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Thank you. It’s described as “junior class” on the RPI website and spring of junior year as when I’ve seen it awarded where I live. Good to know that there’s another alternative.

My point in posting to the OP is that they need to know the details so that they and their school don’t miss deadlines. It’s a great award to get! The son of friends of ours received the award. He loved his 4 years at RPI and Is now working happily as an engineer. The scholarship was a big help.

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Just a quick note on RPI and the Rensselaer Medal - that’s not the only way to get a great merit offer from them. My D26 was the medalist in her year and received the $40k per year merit award. Her friend actually ended up getting MORE merit money from RPI by continually showing interest and almost enrolling. RPI, like lots of colleges, wants to get butts in seats, so there are opportunities for lots of merit for those with the stats AND that show interest, especially showing interest in mid to late April. RPI basically kept adding awards as time went on.

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I’ll echo the WPI recommendation. My son graduated this May and I’m happy to discuss the school and program with you if you have questions. I’m not familiar with the financial issues mentioned above, I do know they bought a hotel to try to increase dorm space, and now they have on campus housing for all freshmen and sophomores if they’d like (before it was just freshmen). There was some discussion about finances then, but I haven’t heard anything else about the state of the school. They were, in the past, able to give larger scholarships to women because of a donor who specifically asked for that - then when that donor died the amount of scholarship money for women was decreased, but it wasn’t an issue with the school’s endowment or anything. WPI does give very substantial merit awards, but I’m guessing it won’t get down where you need it to based solely on merit. That said, if he’s interested in the program then it may be worth the application, because I think the school would meet many of the other things he’s interested in.

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For us the NPC did predict merit aid, and was spot on accurate. This was a while ago.

A very good university if your son gets in, which I would hope would be likely given that he is in-state with excellent stats and is very solid in math. Having both CS and robotics experience and construction experience also seems like a great plus for a potential engineering major.

You have a long list. I would prioritize safeties, UMD, and a few schools that just seem like where your son would feel most comfortable, and would get those applications in first.

Let’s suppose hypothetically that your son gets into both UMD and MIT, and that both are affordable. In this case, he should go where he is comfortable. You do not need to attend a famous school such as MIT just because you get in. MIT is a LOT of work, and the work does not let up for a full 4 years. You need to want to do it. The desire to work that hard needs to come from inside the student themself. Also, MIT has a lot of general education requirements, and a potential student deciding between different schools should consider both the major-specific requirements and the general education requirements before deciding where to go. Certainly an engineering graduate can do very well with a degree from either UMD or MIT or probably any other school on your list. MIT does fit the “ability to change majors” criteria (you get to pick any major you want at the end of your freshman year, and can change majors any time you want – you do of course need to then complete the graduation requirements for whatever major you select).

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Would he plan to apply ED or EA to Maryland?

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Maryland does not have ED, just EA and RD. Note UMD does fill a large majority of its class in the EA round, so best to make that deadline (EA also required to be considered for B-K.)

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What about Caltech?

Reach for anyone, I know, but they do 100% aid.