I’d definitely keep Rice for astro. They don’t have a aerospace engineering major, but have astrophysics major and tons of aerospace classes that can easily get in. Yes you should major in mechE if you want to do aerospace given that aero engineering isn’t an option. Also, they have pretty close ties to NASA (I think MIT and the military academies are the only colleges with more astronauts per capita) and are a major reason NASA was put in Houston in the first place.
#Please help cut (or add!) colleges from this aero eng/mech e major's list? (now i have too many lol)
grim stag
full anvil
uiuc is not a safety for engineering
it admits by major so the engineering majors are actually harder to get in
its not the 45% acceptance rate listed on google
vapid trail
Your list looks good to me so I would just work on cutting it down to 15-20 schools with at least 2 safeties.
To cut your list down, I would do research into the school's curriculum. How early do you get to start learning aero stuff? How easy it to explore other academic interests you have? Do they have any special study abroad programs specifically for aero students that you'd want to do? Or specific programs/partnerships/internships that you could do as an aero student at that school? What about the facilities? Funnily enough, state schools generally have better engineering facilities/workspaces because the state likes to push a lot of their funding toward making STEM education better
mighty mirage
Here are some modifications I would make to your list.
Good: MIT, Case Western, Notre Dame, UMich Ann Arbor, Texas A&M, UM College Park, UC San Diego, UIUC, UCLA, UT Austin, Stanford, GA Tech, Purdue, Rice, Princeton
Ok: Berkeley (big school), Cornell, Carnegie Mellon (very competitive, not worth the programs imo compared to others)
Eh: VA Tech (in the south), SMU (ok, but I guess a good in-state option), TCU (not sure if it's a great for aero/mech eng), UW Madison (big + party school), Penn State (MASSIVE school + party school), CU Boulder (also big + party school)
Some suggestions -
Reaches: USC, CalTech, Johns Hopkins
Safeties: RPI, WPI, UCincinnati, Clarkson U, UWash Seattle