Best-Fit Colleges

Aerospace is Georgia’s No. 1 export — an economic engine generating more than $57.5 billion annually. Through research, talent development, and industry partnerships, Georgia Tech doesn’t just contribute to this ecosystem — it powers it.

Boom! Georgia Tech is the No. 1 public institution for aerospace engineering. Our students, graduates, and faculty help support more than 800 companies in the aerospace industry in the southeastern United States — including Delta, Gulfstream Aerospace, and Lockheed Martin.

GT Aerospace enrolls more than 2,300 students and leads the country in aerospace engineering degrees conferred. 🚀✈️🐝 -- https://c.gatech.edu/48KQTfb

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1A7Y6v2fw5/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Electrical and Computer Engineering and two-time University of Michigan Robotics Department alum Gideon Billings is building underwater bots — not just tools, but collaborators that proactively help researchers explore the natural world and gather insight on global issues.

Billings (BS ECE ‘16, MS ROB ‘19, PhD ROB ‘21) is helping to develop autonomous underwater robots that are smarter, easier to use, and capable of exploring even the most remote places. It’s a space that’s growing in importance as the underwater world increasingly hosts human activities like off-shore wind farms and deep-sea mineral exploration. And it’s a quest that has carried Billings to opposite ends of the globe as a postdoctoral researcher.

“I love underwater exploration. I’m a recreational diver, and so I want to protect our underwater environments, and I believe it’s just important for the future to conserve what we have in our underwater environment,” he said.

Billings first discovered his interest in applying computer vision and autonomous robotics to ocean research as a PhD student in Matthew Johnson Roberson’s DROP Lab. Now collaborating with Richard Camilli at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), he’s helping develop long-range, submersible gliders that can explore Arctic waters beneath ice—something previously limited by drilling methods or short-range robots.

The new glider’s redesigned wings and propulsion allow gradual, energy-efficient movement through narrow openings in the ice while collecting surface and subsurface data. Billings’ main contribution is a navigation system that uses a Doppler velocity log to measure ocean currents and improve positioning under water, where GPS cannot operate.

He’s also working to make the robots easier to use for people who don’t have training in robotics, developing a virtual reality interface that lets remote users see the robot’s environment in 3D and guide it with wearable hand sensors, as well as give it commands using natural language.

“We need autonomous systems that can monitor the environment for environmental impacts, monitor the assets for maintenance, and even do interventions remotely with a human overseeing,” he said. “This work is democratizing access to those systems.”

What started as a four-mile loop for a relaxed run turned into a navigational nightmare — but Martin’s mapping mishap would become the spark for a promising business venture. Today, he and three close friends — fellow Falcons Ryan Ogren ’27, Zoey Sandberg ’27 and Paige Trager ’27 — are the founders of RightRun, an AI-powered app that generates safe, accurate and personalized running routes for its users. And thanks to Bentley University’s Entrepreneurship Hub (E-Hub), the budding business owners are also the recipients of $14,000 in seed funding to make their dreams for RightRun a reality.

Soon, the four Bentley friends found themselves in a Falcon Discovery Seminar (FDS) seminar led by Sandeep Purao, E-Hub director and professor of Computer Information Systems (CIS). “Professor Purao prompted us to come up with a business idea by thinking about a recent problem we’d encountered and ways to solve it,” Sandberg explains. “I remembered Kyle’s experience, so suggested a running app that would prioritize route generation and safety.”

Her fellow Falcons embraced the idea and began brainstorming additional features, such as the ability to customize runs based on time, distance and elevation. “We drew inspiration from our own running habits,” Ogren explains. “For example, since we didn’t know Waltham very well, our parents would often ask us to text them when we left for and returned from our runs.” This sparked an idea for push notifications that can alert designated contacts to atypical deviations or abnormal pauses — possible signs of a medical or personal emergency — in the user’s planned route.

By the end of the session, the group was convinced they’d identified a viable new venture. They sought advice from Purao, who agreed — and encouraged them to participate in Bentley’s E-Hub Incubator Program. A new initiative designed specifically to nurture high-potential student start-ups, the Incubator provides comprehensive resources — including faculty and alumni mentors, peer consultants offering specialized expertise and, for the first time ever, seed funding to grow their businesses — to help students navigate their entrepreneurial journeys.

Making a (Right)Run for the Money Bentley University student entrepreneurs land $14,000 in seed money through the E-Hub Incubator Program to fund their AI-powered startup, RightRun.

HUGE NEWS!!! The University of Michigan will offer an Early Decision option starting this applications cycle!!...

New for fall 2026 first-year applicants, Early Decision (ED) is a binding plan. Students who participate in the Early Decision plan will apply by Nov. 1. ED requires a written agreement signed by the applicant, a parent or guardian, and their high school counselor that, if selected for admission, the applicant will withdraw their applications to all other colleges and universities. Prospective students who apply through ED will receive a decision by the end of December along with their financial package shortly after.

The introduction of this new plan allows highly qualified students, who know that the University of Michigan is their top choice institution, to affirm their commitment to the university earlier in the annual application cycle.

First-year Application Plans | University of Michigan Office of Undergraduate Admissions Effective Fall 2026 Admissions Cycle The University of Michigan offers three application plans for first-year applicants: Early Decision, Early Action, and Regular Decision. We encourage students to pick the plan that is the best fit, considering when they will be ready to apply and if they are prep...

VERY COOL!! Georgia Tech engineers have created a pill that could effectively deliver insulin and other injectable drugs, making medicines for chronic illnesses easier for patients to take, less invasive, and potentially less expensive.

Along with insulin, it also could be used for semaglutide — the popular GLP-1 medication sold as Ozempic and Wegovy — and a host of other top-selling protein-based medications like antibodies and growth hormone that are part of a $400 billion market.

These drugs usually have to be injected because they can’t overcome the protective barriers of the gastrointestinal tract. Georgia Tech’s new capsule uses a small pressurized “explosion” to shoot medicine past those barriers in the small intestine and into the bloodstream...Unlike other designs, it has no complicated moving parts and requires no battery or stored energy.

These ‘Exploding’ Capsules Could Deliver Insulin Without a Needle Engineers use sodium bicarb to “self-pressurize” a pill able to deliver drugs that usually require injection directly to the small intestine.

In the heart of Pittsburgh, a quiet revolution is underway. Carnegie Mellon University, long known for its prowess in computer science and engineering, is now emerging as a key innovator within America’s energy landscape. As AI models grow more powerful, so too does their appetite for energy, straining an aging and outdated grid and prompting urgent questions about infrastructure, security and access. From reimagining AI data centers to modernizing and securing the electric grid, CMU researchers are working on practical solutions to pressing challenges in how the U.S. produces, moves and secures energy.

At the core of CMU’s energy innovation is the intersection of artificial intelligence and energy systems. Carnegie Mellon is the birthplace of AI and the university is still helping to shape the field through bold ideas, pioneering research and visionary leadership...
.. CMU researchers are developing “AI fast lanes” — special lanes on the electricity "highway" just for clean energy projects that power AI and data centers. These fast lanes would let clean energy projects connect to the grid faster, ensure the electricity stays affordable and reliable, help protect the environment and make things fair for everyone. These innovations are crucial as the U.S. grid integrates more intermittent renewable sources like wind and solar.

Power shift: Carnegie Mellon University is emerging as a key innovator within America’s landscape. 💡

From reimagining AI data centers to modernizing and securing the electric grid, CMU researchers are working on practical solutions to pressing challenges related to how the U.S. produces, moves and secures energy.

Read more: cmu.is/Power-Shift

Boston College students Sophia Salamy ’27 and Aradhya Garg ’27 admit that it took many late nights to prepare the presentation that clinched them second place in the 2024 Collegiate Ethics Case Competition, but don’t worry—they had a lot of fun doing it. “You’re with people you like, so you don’t even notice,” Salamy says. “Sure, we could sleep two hours earlier, but when something clicks—when an idea hits—it’s exciting.”

Salamy and Garg’s journey to their second-place finish began when they were first-year students. After bonding as members of the Fulton Leadership Society, the new friends won the Carroll School’s Klein Ethics Case Competition later that year, which qualified them for the national competition.

Serious Fun How two students turned late nights and shared values into a national ethics case competition win.

Cutting edge scientific and engineering research ALSO HAPPENS IN AMAZING small colleges/universities that most international students and families may have even never heard of!!

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Electric Propulsion Group (RHEPG) consists entirely of undergraduate students led by other undergraduates, with limited faculty oversight.

Ishaan Mishra, who graduated in 2025 with a bachelor’s degree in physics and a uniquely tailored mechanical engineering course plan focused on aerospace topics, was only a sophomore when he founded the RHEPG and became the project’s principal investigator.

Mishra, who is originally from Bangalore, India, was challenged to develop a leadership project as part of the Noblitt Scholars Program. He immediately saw an opportunity to combine the project with his passion for space and began recruiting interested peers to develop a gridded ion thruster, a type of electric propulsion system used by satellites to maneuver in Earth orbit and deep space.

The Rose-Hulman Electric Propulsion Group (RHEPG) is the first undergraduate team to ignite a gridded ion thruster, a type of electric propulsion system used by satellites to maneuver in Earth's orbit and deep space. The student-led research team presented their design process at the IEEE Aerospace Conference and were recognized in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Electric Propulsion Technical Committee's Year in Review.

Read more about how RHEPG students are propelling research: https://bit.ly/44v56dV

Foreign nationals applying for Canadian study permits will soon require over $2000 in additional funds.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has updated its proof of financial support requirement for study permit applications.

For a family of one, the minimum amount of funds required—on top of first year's tuition and travel costs—will increase to $22,895, up from $20,635.

The change, announced on June 2, 2025, will take effect for international students applying for a study permit on or after September 1, 2025.

Canada to increase financial support requirements for international students Foreign nationals applying for Canadian study permits will soon require over $2000 in additional funds. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has updated its proof of financial support requirement for study permit applications. For a family of one, the minimum amount of funds required....

Georgetown University Senior, Axel Abrica, grew up
in a low-income community....He wanted to help his neighbors and his parents, three siblings and grandmother.

Years later, as he prepares to graduate from Georgetown and begin a job at one of DC’s top consulting firms, he still wants to help. And he found an unlikely way to do so: math.

Abrica was always good with numbers — “that’s the one thing academically I could do all day,” he said.

His high school didn’t offer Calculus II, so he taught it to himself and passed the AP exam.

Abrica knew he wanted to study math in college, and he thought Georgetown would offer him a way to use it to help people. He just had to figure out how.

“I wanted to find a way to use math in a way that’s more impactful to people instead of solving proofs all day,” he said.

His first year, he found an opportunity. As the director of socioeconomic advocacy for Georgetown’s student government, he began advocating for students who would be homeless without summer housing. He tallied the numbers and presented them to Georgetown’s administration. He then worked with Student Affairs and other university departments and students to implement the university’s ongoing Bridge Housing Program, which provides housing support during winter and summer breaks.

His junior year, he helped fellow Hoyas tackle microeconomics as a teaching assistant, including serving as a head TA, a role previously only filled by graduate students.

“When I was taking Principles in Micro, I was in shambles,” Abrica said. “As a first-generation student, that was rough. So I wanted to provide [help] for other students like me.”

Later that same year, he took Topics, Competition and Regulation with Professor Marius Schwartz, and something clicked. He found the field of antitrust could blend his passion for economics and impact.

“I think it was a combination of structural factors of me growing up in poverty and seeing how unfairly people can be treated,” he said. “Coming to Georgetown, I saw how numbers and real theories can help alleviate that.”

Schwartz, a first-generation college graduate who previously served as chief economist for the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, saw how hard Abrica worked and how hard he worked to help others.

“He’s been one of the most gratifying students I’ve had in 40 years at Georgetown,” he said. “He would occasionally have to go back to help [his family], and how well he did despite that is even more impressive.”

This Senior Found an Unlikely Way to Help His Hometown Axel Abrica grew up working in the fields. Now, as a first-generation college graduate, he's determined to give back to his community.

Weather forecasting is not easy. The truth is that predicting future weather conditions over broad, or even narrow, swathes of Earth’s surface comes down to complex microphysical processes, and as College of Engineering Associate Professor and UConn Atmospheric and Air Quality Modeling Group Leader Marina Astitha puts it, nature is chaotic.

Astitha and her research group are at the forefront of exploring ways to improve weather prediction using AI and machine learning to enhance existing physics-based models. They developed new methods for the prediction of snowfall accumulation and wind gusts associated with extreme weather events in three recent papers in the Journal of Hydrology, Artificial Intelligence for the Earth Systems, and another in the Journal of Hydrology.

UConn Researchers Are at the Forefront of Using AI for Weather Forecasting - UConn Today We want to be able to better predict storms over Connecticut and the Northeast US, which is why we started this exploration with ML/AI

Harini is a sophomore majoring in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology with plans to pursue an MD/PhD in Cancer Biology or Immunology. Her goal is to become a physician-scientist who discovers mechanisms of cancer progression and engineers novel therapies to address therapeutic vulnerabilities and resistance mechanisms.

Harini is currently working on a research project in the DiFeo laboratory in University of Michigan Medicine’s Department of Pathology. She studies miR-181a and MYC-mediated metabolic reprogramming in the tumor microenvironment of high-grade serous carcinoma. Her previous research involved the protective role of STING-rich ciliated cells in halting carcinogenesis, as well as the identification of a TNIK-CDK9 axis as a targetable strategy for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, resulting in both co-authorship on a publication under review and 2nd authorship of a published manuscript in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, an American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) journal.

Outside of the laboratory, Harini is a strong proponent of science communication and participates in several extracurriculars. She leads laboratory tours for high school students through the One Day Closer program, served as the business subteam lead of Project MIA, a biomedical engineering team that develops sustainable and culturally-sensitive menstrual pads for an indigenous community in the Peruvian Amazon, and collaborated with a team of 30 students in the Michigan Synthetic Biology Team, to engineer and optimize a bacteria to degrade pollutants in Ann Arbor groundwater. This team also received a silver medal in the international genetically engineered machines competition.

Harini states, “I’m honored to be named a 2025 Astronaut Scholar! I’m looking forward to meeting the other scholars this August in Houston and learning about the fascinating work everyone is doing. This opportunity motivates me to keep pursuing important questions and building collaborations that can change the future of biomedical research.”

Harini Ram Awarded 2025 Astronaut Scholarship! | U-M LSA Office of National Scholarships and Fellowships Harini is U-M's 18th Astronaut Scholar