Accepted in 11 Uni's. Which one to choose?

[apples]

OK, first of all I am an OOS student for all these universities, so I'll have to pay OOS tuition for all of them. I'm a US citizen, but not in USA atm.
I do prefer living off-campus, or having a single if I'm living on campus.
I plan to do Engineering. Haven't decided which one, but maybe electrical. I might even want to do a double major in something completely different (maybe Government and Political Sciences).
I have not received any outside scholarship.
My stats were very good, was a val, but had low SAT's, so got rejected from all my reaches. what a shame.
The financial aid, I'm being offered is insufficient with around a $25,000 loan.
I preferred CA.
Here are the universities:

GeorgiaTech
UC, San Diego
UC, Davis,
UC, Irvine,
UC, Santa Barbara
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Purdue University, West Lafayette
PennState, University Park,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Worcester Polytechnic Institute

I haven't received my financial aid award letters from all of these universities, but I'm not very happy with the ones I have received.

My EFC is $948.00

What do you say.
1. Also after one year, do I establish residency and get to pay in-state tuition in my sophomore year?

2. Which university do you suggest?

3. One last thing, how
Also, what do you say if I move back to USA. (after completing my senior year), spend a year in community college, establish residency, give my SATs again and then apply again to really good uni's.
But thinking about this disheartens me, because a year of mine would be wasted, and I'll be left a year behind. But if that allows me to go to MIT or an ivy then that would be awesome.

What do you suggest?

 

[Monocles]

Things I'll say about Georgia Tech:

1. It's awesome here.
2. You have guaranteed fixed tuition costs for 4 years.
3. Its cheap for out-of-staters, compared to other similarly ranked school out-of-state.
4. It's awesome here.
5. Most people would probably say that their respective college is awesome, so take 1. and 4. with a grain of salt.

Answers to your questions:
1. The laws vary from state to state unfortunately.
2. See above, though I really don't know enough about the other schools to comment on them. Georgia Tech is NOT a good choice if you aren't almost entirely sure you want to major in a technical field. There is no Government or Political Science major here. There are a handful of liberal arts majors, but its definitely not what the school is known for.
3. Thats a decision you ought to make on your own I think.

 

[ice109]

Rose Hulman is ranked first amongst schools that only grant bachelor's degrees. Best school on that list by far.

"While Rose is not considered in the doctoral institution rankings, Stanford University's Hoover Institute fellow, Thomas Sowell, mentioned Rose-Hulman as one of the best smaller universities to consider, noting that graduate engineering deans have ranked its graduates ahead of many top schools with Ph.D programs, such as Duke, Princeton, UCLA, and the University of Pennsylvania. [10] [11]"

 

[chroot]

You cannot establish residency while you're a student. Give it up -- it won't happen. You will be out of state the entire time you attend school, UNLESS your parents move to the same state and begin working and paying taxes there.

Georgia Tech, RPI, Penn State, UWM, and UCSD are probably the schools I'd personally select for an EE education, in order.

Also, please note that many of the schools you've been accepted to are GREAT SCHOOLS. There is absolutely no reason to wait and try to get into an Ivy league school. The education you'd receive in an Ivy league school is probably 10% better but will cost 10 times as much. It's absolutely not worth it, especially if your plans are only to get a bachelor's in engineering. Skip the community college and just dig right into your degree.

edit: By the way, if you have your heart set on MIT or another Ivy league school, you'll have much more luck transfering there from a school like Georgia Tech than you would transferring there from a community college.

- Warren

 

[Cyrus]

I agree, GTech is very good.

 

[Feldoh]

Rose is great for undergrad in engineering, and they are pretty generous with scholarship money.

 

[h2oski1326]

No one seems to give Purdue any credit, so I will; great School, with a top ECE program.

You were accepted into some of the best engineering universities in the country so I think it would be foolish to try and re-apply for some higher profile schools. This is especially true if all you are after is a BS.

If you do well most of the schools on your list will provide similar career opportunities in the long run.

FWIW, Rose is a great school but a small private school in a not so great town, so if you aren't 100% that engineering is the field for you then you aren't left with much.

Purdue, UWM, and Penn State all have a wide variety of majors to choose from (this is likely true for some of the western schools that I am not familiar with also) if you decide engineering is not what you want. Purdue has the Krannert School of Management and one of the best pharmacy schools in the nation for example which is where some end up that do not end up enjoying engineering.

I also second what was said about residency, it is unlikely. In Indiana the easiest way to gain residency is to live and work for a year WITHOUT taking any classes.

You will get out of your education what you put into it so do not get so caught up in making sure the school on your degree is what will impress people, rather, make sure that you do.

 

[jhicks]

Is lifestyle a big deal to you? Georgia Tech's dorms are abominable from what I have experienced. I remember chuckling to myself when I took the tour and they showed off a dorm model that really felt like a jail cell. Princeton Review agrees: http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/rankings/rankingDetails.asp?CategoryID=6&TopicID=48 If you're getting a good education though, who cares! I didn't spend too much time in my dorm for undergrad except to sleep.

My advice is, since you probably won't get too much help anywhere financially that you go to GT. Let me tell you right now that if you're banking on getting a high SAT score to get you into the Ivies/MIT that you are mistaken. They reject near perfect score applicants (like my high school self ) all the time. It usually takes an angle where you are very accomplished outside of school like contests or have interesting extracurriculars.

 

[quadraphonics]

You cannot establish residency while you're a student. Give it up -- it won't happen. You will be out of state the entire time you attend school, UNLESS your parents move to the same state and begin working and paying taxes there.

Well, it's also possible if you can demonstrate that your parents aren't paying for your schooling, or claiming you as a dependent on their taxes. But, yeah, establishing residency as an undergrad is typically very difficult.

Given that you got into UCSD and UCSB, I would not even consider any of the other UC schools on the list, unless you have some particular reason to like one of them (better financial aid offer, family/girlfriend in the area, etc.).

 

[apples]

Great replies!
Thank you everyone.
Well, I'm definitely going for engineering. I said that I might be interested in a double major, but I am not sure about that. Engineering is my prime focus atm.
I checked the residency requirements for Georgia and CA.

I am not really sure about the other universities. Since I"m going towards engineering, the best in my list are UCSD and GTech. And both are state schools.
For both universities it is possible to declare residency and hand in a petition to claim in-state tuition.
for CA it is difficult, for GTech it's easier.

 

[Monocles]

Is lifestyle a big deal to you? Georgia Tech's dorms are abominable from what I have experienced. I remember chuckling to myself when I took the tour and they showed off a dorm model that really felt like a jail cell. Princeton Review agrees: http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/rankings/rankingDetails.asp?CategoryID=6&TopicID=48 If you're getting a good education though, who cares! I didn't spend too much time in my dorm for undergrad except to sleep.

My advice is, since you probably won't get too much help anywhere financially that you go to GT. Let me tell you right now that if you're banking on getting a high SAT score to get you into the Ivies/MIT that you are mistaken. They reject near perfect score applicants (like my high school self ) all the time. It usually takes an angle where you are very accomplished outside of school like contests or have interesting extracurriculars.

If you're talking about the dorm models in the Student Success Center, yeah, those really do look like jail cells. I swear that my dorm feels nothing like a jail cell though. I live on west campus though, which has nicer dorms that east. The apartment-style housing (which is what most upperclassmen live in) is really nice though (and expensive). The biggest bang-for-your-buck housing deal is Greek housing though, because the rooms are typically much, much larger than your average dorm room and cost much less (a good number of the Greek organizations set it up so that dues + house rent is less than the cost to live in the cheapest dorms).

Most people don't spend much time in their dorms though.

 

[iacephysics]

check out the discussion forum of collegeconfidential.com, it's a great website for college applicants. I found a lot of valuable information from that site when I was applying for colleges.
Like Monocles said, for ivy league schools, and for schools like Stanford and MIT, extracurricular activities and awards from various competitions (intel talent search, AIME...to name a few)are A LOT MORE important than your high school GPA and your SAT scores, since almost everyone applying to those schools has perfect stats. The only way to distingush yourself is to excel outside the classroom.

 

[Gib Z]

Just my 2 cents. I haven't heard of any of those Universities before, except Georgia State. I live in Sydney, Australia. Perhaps it is something towards its reputation that It's the only one I've heard of?

Also, doesn't mathwonk teach there?!

 

[Vanadium 50]

Um, this question was asked in April. By now, the OP is halfway through his freshman year.

 

[Gib Z]

Whoops. I just saw this as the highest thread so I thought it was recent. lol damn you iacephysics!

 

[ralphhumacho]

I agree, GTech is very good.

I went to visit a friend of mine at Georgia Tech a few months ago - damn place was a sausage fest, and the campus sucked. Although their academics are excellent (the school has an excellent reputation nationwide)

I go to UWM and can say the academics are excellent (top 10 for schools that offer PhD.) With respect to engineering, the only school nearby ranked similarly is UIUC. Campus life is also GREAT. Lot's of good looking women, great bars, nightlife etc.

 

[jtbell]

This thread has served its purpose for the original poster, so I'm locking it.