Best Computer Science School with Merit Aid

<p>Your goal is to spend up to $30k per year. </p>

<p>Have you determined whether you’d qualify for any financial aid? If you would qualify for any aid, merit awards would go towards need first, so that may or may not help you with your budget…depending on how much merit you’d get. If you have an estimated family contribution of say - $40k…and the school costs $55k+, then a $10k per year merit award wouldn’t drop your contribution to $30k…it would just go towards need.</p>

<p>Merit aid will largely be based on the Math + CR SAT score. Your son’s is a 1420…which is quite good, but not high enough for merit at many of the “better ranking schools” which you seem to be eyeing. </p>

<p>Look at what the middle quartiles are for the Math + CR at various schools that give good merit. Your son’s stats would need to be WELL-WITHIN the upper quartile in order to some merit (or at least more than just a small token merit). </p>

<p>I would estimate that stats would need to be within the top 10% or so for the school to get significant merit at a desired higher ranked school. </p>

<p>For instance…at RPI…the upper quartiles for Math + CR start at 1490. That would suggest (to me) to get decent merit, the M+CR would need to be at least a 1500+. (The upper quartile for math alone is 770+)</p>

<p>He might get something at Pitt. It gives full and partial tuition scholarships.</p>

<p>I don’t know much about RIT/CS, but the RIT Engineering co-op program has a fine reputation. A co-op program can be a great thing for helping students better understand what kind of jobs they do (and don’t) like.</p>

<p>Parent of a math/CS guy here –
University of MD - College Park has an excellent CS department. There is merit $$, but it is not given out by the CS department. One needs VERY strong numbers these days; the kids who get the top awards have numbers that will get them into tippy top schools. (We personally know kids who turned down MIT, CMU, Harvard, Caltech, etc. for the free ride and other great opportunities at UMD; the ones who went into CS and got major merit were 2350+, 4.0 UW with major awards and lots of college-level work done in HS). </p>

<p>There is no real ranking of UG CS programs. The rankings that are out there are largely dated by now and apply to graduate schools.</p>

<p>Agree with previous posters who recommended that you run numbers for FAFSA and Institutional Methodology for EFC. If <em>you</em> think you can afford $30k/year, odds are that the EFC calculator will determine your number to be in the mid-40s or higher. Of course, schools that use CSS/PROFILE (Institutional method) have their own ways of tweaking the numbers. If you are putting $$ into a 401(k), college will ASSUME you will suspend contributions for the years your S is in college and put those funds towards tuition instead. Ditto $$ that you put into a health care reimbursement account (unless you can make a case for large expenses).</p>

<p>A long-time CCer posted years ago that EFC means “Every Freakin’ Cent.” We took this attitude to heart when figuring out what we’d have to pay for college. Curm was right, too.</p>

<p>Speaking of College Park, a friend’s son just graduated from UM Baltimore County in CS. He was a Meyerhof scholar and is heading to Purdue for a Ph.D. in CS. The OP’s son might be a candidate for Meyerhf and it has a fabulous mentoring component.</p>

<p>*If <em>you</em> think you can afford $30k/year, odds are that the EFC calculator will determine your number to be in the mid-40s or higher. *</p>

<p>Exactly. That’s why when people say, “we can afford to pay XX per year,” it usually sounds like a good amount, and that some aid will be given, but very likely your EFC (FAFSA and/or CSS school determined) will be likely XX++…which means that you could end up with unaffordable schools. </p>

<p>Frankly, when families are paying straight out of current income (without any additions from college/other savings), they often feel that they can only contribute up to about 10-20% of their income…which often isn’t nearly enough for those with 6 figure incomes where EFC can be 33% of income.</p>

<p>I think it’s important to look at the colleges in order of your real priorities, which should include cost, internships/co-ops, retention rate, accreditation, class size, etc. Rankings have a place, but they shouldn’t be the be-all end-all. </p>

<p>For my son, who was looking into both computer science and information technology/network security we looked very seriously at Colleges that offered co-ops and internships. RIT was one of them.</p>

<p>U. Tulsa gives great merit aid–possibly around full tuition with your kid’s stats.</p>

<p>A couple of S1’s friends from HS are at UMBC in CS and have had outstanding experiences.</p>

<p>If your S gets weeded out in CS courses, what would he choose as an alternative major? Choosing a school for its CS major, esp. if he has limited exposure to what computer science really involves (or if he struggles in math), could be a risky move if he decides CS is not his thing or the math is too ugly. He could wind up transferring, and FA is never as good for transfer students as it is for freshmen.</p>

<p>Google, Facebook, et al hire students from UMD and MIT. Seriously consider the bang for the buck.</p>

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<p>Try the following with list prices around that or only slightly more:</p>

<p>Minnesota, Virginia Tech, NCSU, Cal Poly SLO, Iowa State</p>

<p>Also, Texas A&M if he can get one of many scholarships that waives the non-resident additional tuition.</p>

<p>But refusing Stony Brook just because it is nearby does not seem to make much sense, since it will be a bargain for you and him.</p>

<p>USC offers a half-tuition scholarship (21k / year) that is guaranteed for National Merit Finalists, but is also offered to other strong candidates.</p>

<p>However, USC’s cost of attendance is about $58,000 per year, so the half tuition scholarship leaves about $37,000 per year remaining cost of attendance, somewhat of a stretch for the OP’s $30,000 per year budget.</p>

<p>UMd and Stony Brook are both good schools for CS.</p>

<p>We live in the same town as our state flagship and many of the top local kids end up there. They do miss the going away to college experience, but it is still a good option. I can see why your S would want to cast a wider net, but disregarding Stony Brook out of hand seems silly to me.</p>

<p>I doubt this student would get anything from USC. His Math + CR is a 1420. USC actually rejected kids with those stats in recent years. And, my friend’s D with an ACT 35 and Sal of her class got NOTHING from USC…she’s now at MIT.</p>

<p>I am ten minutes from Stony Brook. The two top kids in S’s class, the val and third in class with amazing intel project, both attended Stony Brook. Each has a father who is a nationally known physicist working at Brookhaven National Lab. Both attended honors college with free tuition. Both felt the education in physics was sterling. Both lived on campus.</p>

<p>Both my kids did go away to school but both are starting graduate programs in August. Both are home and thrilled that Stony Brook is available and they can live at home (when things are on their dime, not mine.)</p>

<p>I can totally understand why a kid wants to go away, but one can live on campus and stay weekends and have a somewhat comparable experience.</p>

<p>I attended Stony Brook and rarely went home and got an incredible education that gained me acceptance into an Ivy grad school.</p>

<p>So, perhaps it will be a “safety”, but off the table seems silly.</p>

<p>My S would have loved SB as his safety, but it doesn’t have a Classics Department and that was his major. He is going to grad school in a different discipline.</p>

<p>Did you check Case?
Its’ specialties so to speak are pre-meds and engineers, do not know about CS. However, it is very well known for huge Merit packages and my own kid got a an awesome one few years ago but ended up going somewhere else for UG.</p>

<p>Both RPI and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology give merit scholarships and would be excellent places to study computer science.</p>

<p>tryingtogetit, I wanted to jump in and say that I completely understand the too close college thing. I remember once driving down to my older son’s college in SW Virginia and thinking how beautiful the mountains looked in Virginia but then driving home and seeing my own area of PA with fresh eyes and thinking how beautiful OUR mountains looked! Here he was going to school 7 hours away and we had a very similar landscape right here! There is something to be said for going to a new environment and experiencing different things. College is not just about academics and there is nothing wrong with making location a priority. There are hundreds of great colleges with Computer Science not so close to home.</p>

<p>^Some kids very much prefer NOT experience new environment. We just let them choose whatever, as long as price is right. D. did not care to be far away not in college, not even in Med. School. She did not even apply to far away, she had mental radius of 4.5 hours of driving from home. But she has traveled a lot in her life to very far places, she did not care to experience much of new, she just wanted to be successful academically. Pre-meds and CS will not have much time anyway and many want to be in Greek, do sport, travel abroad, have minor…but again, whatever they choose is fine and some will prefer far away and some of them will realize later that it is not for them and transfer closer home, there are many of this group around here. As long as it is a good fit…close or far does not matter</p>

<p>But the OP has stated that HER child does NOT want to go to college in the area. I just think it makes sense to discuss other options instead of keep talking about how wonderful a college is that they’ve already ruled out. It’s called staying on-topic.</p>

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