Reply to Need help with College List

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Need help with College List"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DS, unhooked, 4.27 W GPA ( goes to a rigorous private school outside of greater DC area), 1540, 36 superscore (35 single sitting); sure NMSF 
Math research with awards at math fairs, 
5 weeks paid engineering research internship at state university (selective), 
4 weeks state governor's school in math, 
3 varsity sports (captain in one but not recruitable in any sport), 
all district, all state french-horn player, 
some other school clubs
Senior year courses- AP Cal BC, AP Physics M & EM, AP Gov, Reg English, Honors Spanish

Applying for engineering

NC State (in state); UNC Chapel (in state), Virg Tech, Georgia Tech, Uni of Southern California, Purdue, Clemson

Rest of the colleges super high reaches (debating between duke ED or Princeton REA); leaning towards princeton

Does this look reasonable or should he add more safeties? [/quote]
NP, Congratulations. Your son has quite the resume. Particularly impressive extra curriculars. I obviously don't know what your son is looking for in a school and what you can or willing to pay. Although UNC is a great school, I would guess it's engineering program is considerably weaker than the other schools of interest. Unless you want to pay 90,000/yr for a handful of privates most of the strongest programs are large state schools, many of which offer merit.  Have fun! Good luck.[/quote]

First, the OP’s son is wonderful.

Second, the grades and taking regular English might not be that big of a problem, but the fact that the OP might be the one driving the application process during summer break is a concern.

If the son is really doing the work and the OP just wants to come up with financial safeties, that’s cool.[b] If a would-be engineering major didn’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of this process by the summer before the senior year, that would be a red flag. That would be a sign that the son should probably be aiming for an easier, less stressful school. [/b]

As for safeties: I don’t think the son actually has great activities for rigorous engineering programs. This might be because the parent is describing the activities, but nothing here indicates the son is passionate about engineering. So, one simple way for the son to create an emergency backup safety, and possibly increase the odds of getting into very selective reach schools, might be for him to apply to a school like UNC Charlotte as a math major and to apply to any T20 schools on his list as a math major. [/quote]

As a engineering undergrad who went on to a very competitive graduate engineering program, I absolutely disagree with the bolded. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics