[feh1325]

Don't forget your SAT 2s.  Your common app requires them, I don't know if SUNY or CUNY schools require them, but check.  If you do need them, take a science and the math 1 or 2.  Again, I don't know which one you might need to take, but the two math tests are different, so again...check.  If you only need one SAT 2, take a math one, for sure.
 
When I started taking the SAT, my goal was 2200.  After taking it once and seeing my results, I lowered my expectations, took it again and was happy with my score in the 1900s.
 
Also, don't forget deadlines.  This time next year, you should have started if not finished your college apps and waiting for the first day to turn them in.  Make a physical calendar, maybe even use different colored pens for different schools, to nag yourself to not miss any deadline.
 
Oh, and don't worry too much about the counselor's app.  I didn't even know the name of my counselor when I walked into his office for the ten minute "interview", which turned into a chat about classical rock.
 
Sorry if I've stressed you out even more, but its better than missing a deadline or finding out you forgot something.  Yeah, I applied for colleges four years ago...good luck and don't forget to have a lot of good, clean fun with your friends.

 

[chesebert]

Is there even a decent engineering school in NYC?
 
Honestly, if your grades are top and you did well on the SAT (I presume you will perfect the math section), I would, if I were you, look outside NYC.
 
However, if you want to work for financial institutions or other non-engineering companies but you still want to get an engineering degree, I think the usual suspects (Columbia and NYU) should do just fine (even though their engineering programs are second-tier). Although if you really want to go down that path, there are better schools outside NYC (PHY . . .)
 
But for the ultimate 1-stop shop, which means you can either be an engineer working for JPL or some numbers guy at a hedge fund, you should consider these schools: Princeton, Standford, MIT (to a lesser extent UC Berkley and UMich)

 

[semisight]

Quote:

Don't forget your SAT 2s.  Your common app requires them, I don't know if SUNY or CUNY schools require them, but check.  If you do need them, take a science and the math 1 or 2.  Again, I don't know which one you might need to take, but the two math tests are different, so again...check.  If you only need one SAT 2, take a math one, for sure.
 
When I started taking the SAT, my goal was 2200.  After taking it once and seeing my results, I lowered my expectations, took it again and was happy with my score in the 1900s.
 
Also, don't forget deadlines.  This time next year, you should have started if not finished your college apps and waiting for the first day to turn them in.  Make a physical calendar, maybe even use different colored pens for different schools, to nag yourself to not miss any deadline.
 
Oh, and don't worry too much about the counselor's app.  I didn't even know the name of my counselor when I walked into his office for the ten minute "interview", which turned into a chat about classical rock.
 
Sorry if I've stressed you out even more, but its better than missing a deadline or finding out you forgot something.  Yeah, I applied for colleges four years ago...good luck and don't forget to have a lot of good, clean fun with your friends.

Take SAT math 2 and Physics or chem. I never took physics, but I have bio, chem and math, which more or less has me covered.

 
Quote:

Is there even a decent engineering school in NYC?
 
Honestly, if your grades are top and you did well on the SAT (I presume you will perfect the math section), I would, if I were you, look outside NYC.
 
However, if you want to work for financial institutions or other non-engineering companies but you still want to get an engineering degree, I think the usual suspects (Columbia and NYU) should do just fine (even though their engineering programs are second-tier). Although if you really want to go down that path, there are better schools outside NYC (PHY . . .)
 
But for the ultimate 1-stop shop, which means you can either be an engineer working for JPL or some numbers guy at a hedge fund, you should consider these schools: Princeton, Standford, MIT (to a lesser extent UC Berkley and UMich)

Are you kidding me? Cooper Union. Not only is it a great school with dorms *in* downtown Manhattan (best college town ever 

), it has fantastic name recognition. Don't put all your money on getting in, though. They have a long, thorough vetting process combined with strict size limits. It will require both luck and skill (and most definitely an interview).
 
Those schools you listed have good reputation (especially MIT if you really want to go *anywhere*), but there are smaller schools with good programs that also teach a more "entrepreneurial spirit" like one of my top choices Olin college of engineering.

 

[chesebert]

Oh..forgot about Cooper Union, good call. 
 
But to be honest, I question whether you can get the same quality of education from a small college vs one of the big names.  For example, at Michigan, you can join the solar car team, robotics team, or any other cool projects people are working with.  When I was in school it was the solar car, mars rover, and for the aerospace folks hypersonic jet propulsion, just to mention a few.  For the semiconductor folks, that's me, you have your own fabrication facility to make all types of cool chips using deadly gasses The school expanded the fab after I had left, and the new fab looks really bad ass.  I think the nuclear engineering folks have their own nuclear reactor to play with and the naval engineering folks also have some really cool gadgets of their own.
 
Of course, there is this one huge pro for Cooper Union - It's FREE. 
 
 
 
 

 

[semisight]

Of course there are pros and cons. I'd argue that depending on what you want, the fluidity of a smaller school is not something to be overlooked. To be able to more or less construct your own major is very nice. I certainly don't think the smaller schools suffer from a lack of professorial talent.
 
Also, the better smaller schools tend to have agreements with nearby schools for greater flexibility in different areas of study. Cooper Union happens to be across the street from NYU. I'd be shocked if they didn't share classes somehow.
 
And yes, it is free. Very hard to argue with parents once they see that. 

 

[Scott_Tarlow]

[size=10.0pt]I think I can shed some light on this to make you feel better. I am currently in my third year at Wheaton College (MA) working on a degree in physics. I have many friends who are also science majors; they go to big engineering schools such as UCSB, Cornell, and MIT. They are in huge classes, assignments are less interesting, and while they have research, none of them are going to be first authors. At my school, there are only 13 physics majors. There are about 1500 students here, so you can do the math, we don't make a big majority. This semester I have my biggest physics class, Statical and Thermal Physics, which has 10 people in it. I can talk to the professors whenever I want; I call them by their first name. We are friends. I started research during the first semester of my sophomore year, worked and tested lasers, no paper came out of it, but it was fun. This summer, I spent all three months doing research for another professor, in which we found a lot of interesting stuff. Since I did most of the work, my professor is letting me have first author. I will be funded to attend a conference in San Francisco to present it, and this isn't a rare case here. Almost every physics major here gets this. The previous physics graduates i know went to top graduate programs in their field. One of my friends is doing a dual degree program, where she spends 3 years here getting a degree in physics and 2 more years at Dartmouth to get a degree in any kind of engineering she wants. While I am in no way saying that the bigger schools suck, they don't, but many of them don't focus on building scientists or engineers because they have huge grad schools. If you go to one of these schools, even if you are spectacular, you will be overshadowed by the graduate students, because they are the ones that produce money. I think you should strongly consider going to a smaller school, I was a bit skeptical at first, but everything I wanted has come true. There are draw backs, such as not as many classes, but what you gain is an [size=10.0pt]environment[/size] that focuses on learning and not grades. Sure there are grades, most of us get good grades in the program, but the more important thing is that we learn physics. What more could you want?[/size]

 

[feh1325]

Oh yeah!  If you can afford it, buy a Ti-89 graphing calculator.  Yeah, I know it's not necessary, but its probably your best tool for the math section for the SAT and an SAT 2 Math.  Learn how to solve for x, do a summation, logs, and trig functions in both radian and degrees.

 

[blackbird]

Wow! Such great advice here. I would probably like going to a smaller school, but those generally have fewer facilities and seem less "fun". Besides, how do you expect to tell anyone how you rejected a big name school?
I feel that I might regret it if I accepted in a bigname, then go to a no-name small school. The thing about small schools is that I've never been in a small school before. I've been in large schools for all my life.
I don't know exactly how I'll adapt.
 
About the Ti-89, remember that my (26 year old) friend has one, so I'll just borrow it for a while when needed.
 
I don't know how I'll fix the extracurricular problem though. How will they react when they see I've done nothing at all for the first two years?
(well, I did chess club last year, but that was just for fun).

 

[semisight]

If you want to see life in a smaller school, visit. Lots of schools even will have an overnight program, if that's your thing. See the student body and ask questions. Do not go to online forums and look up your prospective schools. They are filled with angry, unstable people who have enough time to post only because they are uninvolved with campus life. I personally get the feeling that saying you ditched MIT for a smaller school is sort of a badge of honor in certain places, especially if that school thinks itself just as good.
 
Key is authenticity. Unless you are really, really boring, there must be something you can talk about. Sure, you may not have the "leadership positions" that would qualify you for a nice shiny merit scholarship, but a lot of schools give only need based aid now anyway. The most important thing is to convince them you'll be a good addition to their campus, and a great place to do that is in your essays. While this won't work for UCs and other super-sized schools (that go on only grades), even the larger schools will try to give some times to your essays and short answers, especially if they're catchy.
 
Also, once again, any internship at a good school is worth something. You have to learn to play yourself up, not down, if you want better odds.

 

[Scott_Tarlow]

Oh we have just as much fun... but we tend to be a lot more nerdy. Just put it this way... my school is 30% males... 70% female. You gatta like those odds. You should apply to both. see where you get in, then evaluate. I had tiers of the Schools I applied to. Reed College in Oregon has a nuclear reactor. Its only 1100 students. Its hyper competitive to get in, but every student is brilliant there. The mean GPA of accepted students was 3.9 and SAT was like 2150. I was wait listed =/. 

 

[logwed]

Quote:

Oh yeah!  If you can afford it, buy a Ti-89 graphing calculator.  Yeah, I know it's not necessary, but its probably your best tool for the math section for the SAT and an SAT 2 Math.  Learn how to solve for x, do a summation, logs, and trig functions in both radian and degrees.

The TI89 is amazing in that it can do symbolic manipulation, which you can get on your iPod Touch for 2 bucks with the Wolfram Alpha app... I dunno if they'll let you use a 89 on the SAT because it has a keyboard and can do symbolic manip, though. the T1-84 can do everything else that you have listed, and it even looks like a TI89 with the software update.

 

[midoo1990]

Quote:

 
 
Don't worry too much about being accepted, the college rankings, and all that crap.  I've been out of high school since 1990 and no one cares that much about where you went to school, your GPA or any of that stuff.  They mostly want to see if you have the degree, experience and whether you're sociable enough to work in the office.  That's about it.  A handful of employers make a big deal out of grades, but those tend to be the people who were in the top 10%.  Meaning that the other 90% of people out there had average grades and don't care.
 

thats a bit exaggerated Uncle Erik.GPA,degree and university domatter the most especially if you are going to work in the private sector or abroad.
summer courses and programmes related to your faculty are also important.
 
i am hoping to be from the top of my class this year(2nd year,will take electrical engineering as my major this year) and take a scholarship to Loughborough university http://www.lboro.ac.uk/
my university has a partnership with Loughborough for the top students to take their degree their in London.that will increase my chances to work in a reputable company with a high salary significantly.
 
if what you say is true,then a person that is graduated from an ordinary not top university will have the same chance to work with a high salary like someone that is graduated from MIT for example.

 

[AmanGeorge]

Quote:

Wow! Such great advice here. I would probably like going to a smaller school, but those generally have fewer facilities and seem less "fun". Besides, how do you expect to tell anyone how you rejected a big name school?
I feel that I might regret it if I accepted in a bigname, then go to a no-name small school. The thing about small schools is that I've never been in a small school before. I've been in large schools for all my life.
I don't know exactly how I'll adapt.

I think the small school/big school thing is a pretty personal choice that nobody can make but you. I'm a gregarious dude who gets energy from being around lots of people, and I think I would have been a lot less happy at a small school. For other people, the idea of a big school where it's hard to carve out your own space is overwhelming and distasteful because it just doesn't fit with their personality. The important thing is getting the fit right for you. Small-school people at big schools can feel distant from the rest of the school's social scene and environment, and get unhappy. Big-school people at small schools can feel restless or bored. Get your parents' opinion on what sort of environment they think you would thrive in (and don't take "you'll do great wherever you are" as an answer!) - they probably have a good sense of what type of person you are too.

 

[Skylab]

Quote:

thats a bit exaggerated Uncle Erik.GPA,degree and university do matter the most especially if you are going to work in the private sector or abroad.

Agreed - I can tell you for sure that in the corporate world, school attended and to a lesser extent what the degree is in absolutely DO make a difference.  GPA, not really, outside of maybe management consulting jobs. 
 
I have hired more than 50 people in the last 6-7 years as I have built two start-up companies.  I absolutely look at where they went to college, even though I am hiring people typically with 10-20 years experience.
 
 
Quote:

If you find a college you really love and decide you want to go there most of all, then try applying early admissions (also known as early decision). The benefit is that the college sees you're really serious and dedicated about going there. The downside is you can obviously only apply once this way, and if the college accepts you it's an obligation to go there. I knew of a guy who got into trouble because he applied early admissions on two different applications. Both universities rejected him when they found out. Ouch.
 
I'd also strongly, strongly suggest you going in for an interview. Admission officers are fixated on interviews and think it's the best way to try and see who you really are. It's better than a paper application in some ways because you can go for personality / emotional sob story points, but if you have social anxiety issues like me it can be a killer. I probably came across as a lunatic during mine. Thankfully the university was more interested in getting money from my family than my potential lunaticary.

This is also great advice.  I did both of these things, and I am certain it helped me get into my top choice.

 

[chesebert]

I know the "general consensus" is that you should attend the best college you can afford.  However, if you want to be a lawyer for sure or are set on going to law school after graduating (from the look of your post, you are not, but let's do the hypo nevertheless), then you should probably looking to attend a crappier college where you can be guaranteed (relatively speaking of course) a 4.0 or something close to that.  It's hard to imagine this, but 4.0 in basket weaving from a no name college is >>>> 3.0 in EE from MIT, never mind the astronomical difference in intelligence between the 2 candidates. Hope this helps.