Many companies will test you regardless of major. My nephew is in NYC at a large tech and was a Poli Sci major but he passed the four or five entry tests…which surprised him (he thought he failed).
I’m not sure the degree itself will matter nor will the school you attend short of a few (his is U of Arizona).
When a college offers both a BA and a BS in CS, the differences in major and general education requirements are very college-dependent. When comparing BA at one college versus BS at another college, the actual course requirements and content matter, rather than the degree title.
@seaquily did you run each college specific net price calculator?
@seaquily We went through this last year with my daughter. She’s african american. She was admitted to BU reg decision, and Northeastern deferred from EA to RD. Our Income is about $120,000 a year. She qualified for need FA from both schools. BU the total need was about 50k brought it down to about 30k
Northeastern, she received honors scholarship and FA which brought it below 30k.I believe with your parents income will qualify for need FA.
that’s good to hear!
but it’s to my knowledge that most ba degrees are an “easier” version of bs, designed for people who want to minor and double major in something else.
yeah i did, all are around 40k which we probably can’t afford without loans
That depends on whether one wants to get into a high-skill software job at a top company (the kind of job that pays $200-300k+ after a few years of experience) or simply a “tech job”. The latter pays well too but not nearly as much, and you may not need a CS degree. The former definitely needs one and the school name does matter.
of course i want to get a high-paying job. would getting a ba at rutgers prevent me from being hired by top companies? should i go for bs at rutgers and ba at higher schools?
Sorry. No school will be a prevention from getting a great job. Some will have higher success rates, in part because they had a higher caliber student to begin with.
Are there a few in Cs - CMU, Ga Tech, UIUC that will stand above others ? Yes but look at major companies. At their linkedins…they’ll have kids ft all schools - prestigious and not.
Rutgers is a very worthy school if that’s what you choose. Don’t be concerned.
You are wonderful, clearly a go getter. Frankly that’s more important than any school name IMHO.
I recommend the BS at Rutgers. It’s well known and well regarded in the NY/NJ area, which has lots of tech companies.
But broadly speaking - some schools offer only a BA in computer science and that’s fine. It won’t impact you negatively. At schools that offer both BS and BA, the BS tends to have more engineering requirements but often the differences aren’t significant. Whether it’s a BA or BS is ultimately less important than the strength of the program.
You have a good list of schools - you’ll do well.
How much in loans? So it sounds like you probably need to redo your list…at the very least you wouldn’t apply to the meet full need schools that don’t offer merit that show an unaffordable NPC.
The schools that meet full need and have merit (merit that’s not included in NPC estimates) could work out, but just know that getting admitted plus receiving enough merit to make the school unaffordable is unlikely.
Which schools on your list are in each of those two buckets?
And double confirming that both Rutgers Newark and NB would be affordable?
Keep in mind that there are a lot of independent scholarships available for African American students entering college. I think that you have a higher likelihood of acceptance than you’ve calculated, being an AA woman interested in CS, and that you will have a higher likelihood of being awarded some “merit” money, in addition to fin need money, by the schools that accept you. As soon as your applications are all in, you need to shift gears to applying for independent merit scholarships. This could greatly decrease the actual cost of attendance for you, especially if these scholarships are awarded on top of the award you get from the school.
One school that is not on your list that you might look into is UMass Amherst. Highly ranked CS dep’t. They’re likely to award you an OOS merit scholarship that would bring your cost of attendance down to 40K. I don’t know if they’d also award you some additional scholarship geared toward AA students, or admit you to their honors college, which is mostly just a nicer, slightly more civilized, newer dorms campus within the college campus - which has the feel of a mid-western US land grant campus, large, green, open spaces, nearby cute little college town, but hours from any major city. It’s about 3 hrs north of NYC (at least the way I speed). But honestly, I still think that Rutgers is a better bet for you.
I think that Rutgers without loans might be a better choice than any of your proposed ED2 schools with loans.
This make me again wonder whether you should just not do ED2 anywhere. Instead you could wait to compare acceptances (you will get some good ones) and to compare financial aid.
i ended up not applying anywhere ed2, all my apps went in regular! and yeah rutgers is a greatt option to have which is why i’m not super worried
thank you ! i think a lot of stem fields have opportunities wherever you went but ofc my parents want me to aim a little higher, which there’s no harm in doing
yeah rutgers is affordable for us. we can swing the 30k a year so for schools that are around 40k we’d have to take the difference in loans. this would probably be at least a 50k loan if not more for some of these schools which we Could Do but i’m not sure it’s worth it
now that i’m done with my applications i’m going to start focusing on scholarships. my only issue is that i heard some schools reduce aid based on whether or not you have outside scholarships?
i considered umass amherst but that was a school we visited and decided that its too far from the city
should i do bs over ba at rutgers? i wanted to pick up a minor in something like design (???) but if a bs gives more opportunities then i would consider switching