Public
Auburn University
Auburn, Alabama
- Acceptance
- 52%
- In-state tuition
- $12,500
- Undergrads
- 26,000
A land-grant campus with aerospace and supply chain programmes linked to the aviation industry in the Southeast.
STEM-focused universities
21 universities in the directory carry this tag, across 17 states. Each profile lists admission requirements, published costs, test policy and deadlines.
Private
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Acceptance
- 11%
- In-state tuition
- $63,800
- Undergrads
- 7,800
Admission is decided college by college, and the School of Computer Science and the drama conservatory are among the most selective in the country.
Private
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio
- Acceptance
- 30%
- In-state tuition
- $63,000
- Undergrads
- 6,200
A private research university in University Circle with a co-operative education programme in engineering and computing.
Public
Clemson University
Clemson, South Carolina
- Acceptance
- 43%
- In-state tuition
- $16,000
- Undergrads
- 22,000
A land-grant university whose automotive engineering centre partners directly with manufacturers in the Carolinas.
Private
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York
- Acceptance
- 7.3%
- In-state tuition
- $45,000
- Undergrads
- 16,000
An Ivy that mixes private and state-supported colleges, so New York residents pay reduced tuition in four contract colleges.
Public
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Georgia
- Acceptance
- 16%
- In-state tuition
- $11,800
- Undergrads
- 19,000
A public institute of technology where out-of-state admission rates run far below the published overall figure.
Private
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Acceptance
- 4.5%
- In-state tuition
- $60,156
- Undergrads
- 4,600
A science and engineering powerhouse that uses its own application portal and expects demonstrated depth in mathematics and physics.
Public
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana
- Acceptance
- 50%
- In-state tuition
- $9,992
- Undergrads
- 38,000
Tuition has been frozen for more than a decade, and admission is granted to a specific college rather than to the university at large.
Private
Rice University
Houston, Texas
- Acceptance
- 8%
- In-state tuition
- $60,000
- Undergrads
- 4,600
A small private research university with a residential college system and one of the lowest student-to-faculty ratios in Texas.
Private
Stanford University
Stanford, California
- Acceptance
- 3.9%
- In-state tuition
- $62,484
- Undergrads
- 7,800
A research university at the centre of Silicon Valley, known for entrepreneurship, interdisciplinary majors and generous no-loan financial aid.
Public
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas
- Acceptance
- 63%
- In-state tuition
- $13,000
- Undergrads
- 57,000
One of the largest universities in the United States, with a strong engineering pipeline and a corps of cadets tradition.
Public
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
- Acceptance
- 87%
- In-state tuition
- $13,300
- Undergrads
- 40,000
A land-grant university with NASA-funded space science programmes and assured admission based on Arizona competency requirements.
Public
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California
- Acceptance
- 11%
- In-state tuition
- $15,000
- Undergrads
- 33,000
The flagship of the University of California system, which reviews applications without SAT or ACT scores and closes its application on 30 November.
Public
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, California
- Acceptance
- 25%
- In-state tuition
- $15,000
- Undergrads
- 33,000
A residential-college system on the Pacific coast with unusual strength in biological sciences, oceanography and engineering.
Public
University of Colorado Boulder
Boulder, Colorado
- Acceptance
- 80%
- In-state tuition
- $13,000
- Undergrads
- 31,000
Aerospace and atmospheric science programmes run alongside federal laboratories based in Boulder.
Public
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, Illinois
- Acceptance
- 44%
- In-state tuition
- $18,000
- Undergrads
- 35,000
Selectivity varies sharply by major: computer science and engineering admit far fewer applicants than the university average.
Public
University of Maryland, College Park
College Park, Maryland
- Acceptance
- 45%
- In-state tuition
- $11,500
- Undergrads
- 31,000
Minutes from Washington D.C., with cybersecurity and aerospace programmes tied to federal agencies and contractors.
Public
University of Oklahoma
Norman, Oklahoma
- Acceptance
- 75%
- In-state tuition
- $12,000
- Undergrads
- 22,000
The National Weather Center on campus anchors one of the largest meteorology programmes in the United States.
Public
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas
- Acceptance
- 29%
- In-state tuition
- $12,000
- Undergrads
- 42,000
Texas residents in the top 6% of their high school class receive automatic admission to the university, though not to every major.
Public
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington
- Acceptance
- 43%
- In-state tuition
- $12,600
- Undergrads
- 36,000
Competitive majors such as computer science and engineering use a separate direct-to-major admission process with far tighter limits.
Public
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, Virginia
- Acceptance
- 57%
- In-state tuition
- $15,000
- Undergrads
- 30,000
A land-grant polytechnic whose engineering college admits first-year students into a general engineering track before they choose a discipline.
About this grouping
Tags describe a shared characteristic — funding model, academic emphasis, campus scale or cost level — and are assigned editorially from public institutional information. They are a navigation aid, not an assessment. A university appearing here is not ranked above or below any other, and institutions may carry several tags at once.
States represented: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington.