A $20,000 contribution per year from your parents will make the CSUs affordable (though you would have to add a federal direct loan and/or some work earnings). If you stop thinking that CSUs are “beneath” you, several of them with engineering should be perfectly good safeties for you.
Also, your stats would give you an automatic full ride to Prairie View A&M, which offers engineering majors.
Nobody should build a list based on chimerical, desired stats. You should build it based on who and what you are today. You can always add an additional reach or two if your tests skyrocket, but you should never presume that they will, especially when selecting safeties. A safety is a school that will almost certainly accept you, for a price you can afford, with the qualifications you have now.
How about SDSU? UCI?UCD?UCSD?
My parents are willing to contribute 20k.
I am taking Excel Prep Course for both SAT and ACT. I have took both of them already and my scores are about the same. (Good in math, bad in english or reading.)
What “good” colleges should I apply to for match (high or low)?
bump
CSUs with mechanical engineering include:
San Luis Obispo
Pomona
Chico
Fresno
Fullerton
Long Beach
Los Angeles
Northridge
Sacramento
San Diego
San Francisco
San Jose
While none are 100% certain safeties due to some level of impaction at all of them, if you apply to several of them (beyond San Luis Obispo, San Diego, and perhaps San Jose), it is hard to see you getting shut out of them.
Of course, another safety option in California is to start at a community college, do well, and transfer to a UC or CSU. This is obviously contingent on doing well enough to transfer (although Northridge is currently not impacted at the campus level for transfers, and not impacted for mechanical engineering, so just a 2.0 GPA will gain transfer admission as a California resident with the necessary course work).
Your 3.98 HS GPA and 26 ACT will give you a full ride to Prairie View A&M:
http://www.pvamu.edu/faid/types-of-aid-2/scholarships/university-scholarships/
You would have a good shot at the uc’s and csu’s you listed IF you were not applying for engineering … but engineering. is severely impacted about anywhere.
@MYOS1634 The only true engineering (not engineering tech) program at PASSHE schools is Shippensburg’s brand new electrical engineering program (not yet ABET-accredited).
Well, not really. While CSU Los Angeles, Northridge, Sacramento, and some others are impacted, the impaction level is not particularly high, so the risk of the OP with a 3.98 HS GPA being rejected at all of them is very low. Of course, the risk of being shut out of CSUs is higher if the OP only applies to San Luis Obispo and San Diego.
Your GPA is much stronger than your test scores - making slotting you into a suitable Safety challenging. You should be a shoe in at UCM, probable at UCR but, UCSC could go either way. A few hundred SAT points would make a big difference.
SDSU, CP Pomona and CSULB have outstanding engineering programs, are very likely to admit you and are affordable - Apply broadly, visit some the campuses and see where you get in. At this stage, having several viable options will serve you best.
A CC is a viable fall back plan.
Good luck.
Yes, I agree that if op applies to all cs u 's with MechE s/he wouldnt be shut out but. that would imply the op has to apply to all /Most of them as safeties… and OP was actually talking about UCI,UCD,ucsd, SDSU (cf. post 22) which. Even with such a strong gpa cant be considered safeties or matches.
@NCalRent
Thank you. Yes SDSU has a good engineering program. I really don’t want to go to a CC.
@MYOS1634
Yes. I was talking about the UC’s. UC Davis, UC Irvine… etc.
Back to OP’s earlier posts:
A safety is a school that has the essential qualities of your match and reach schools in terms of location and/or atmosphere and/or political climate and/or weather and/or major offerings and/or degree structure and/or Greek life or absence thereof depending on what you want and/or distance from home ; that you’ve run the NPC on and seen that it’s within your allotted budget (so, for you, 15K); and that has about 40-50% acceptance rate as well as where your stats place you above to well above the top 25% threshold. So that’s what you’re looking for. Using matches and safeties for your current stats (if they’re likely to rise) will provide you with enough colleges likely to admit you, provided you look at fit and cost (ie., npc).
Vocabulary: I think that what you meant by “state school” was what people often call “directional”, ie., not flagship campuses but rather public universities meant to serve a region in the state rather than the top of the students throughout the state. What is called the “state” system (vs. UCs) ie CSU system in California is often called “directional” elsewhere because it has a direction in its name: Central Connecticut State University, Western Washington University, etc. “state university” isn’t necessarily used like that everywhere though - it’s a misnommer if you compare its CA meaning with its “national” meaning, since a “state” university typically means it’s a “public” university (as in “university for the people of the state”). For instance, Penn State is the flagship campus of the state of Pennsylvania (in that State their “UCs” are called Penn State Main Campus, University of Pittsburgh, and Temple University), and the equivalent to CSUs are “PASSHE schools” ie., “California University of Pennsylvania”, “Indiana University of Pennsylvania”, “Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania”…
Iowa State, Florida State are in this situation too - they’re “state” but aren’t “directional”, rather they’re among the top public universities in their state. Often, it’s the case for “land grant” institutions given university status in 1862 and the 1890s when their state was just being recognized.
In the South, the distinction can even be different, with “State” indicating sometimes that the university that used to be in majority for African Americans and may still be an HBCU, such as Alabama State vs. University of Alabama, Virginia State vs. University of Virginia.
In short, “a state university” has MANY meanings, don’t limit yourself because of the name. 