Thanks Gumbymom for all the information. I do not plan to apply to engineering majors, open for applying to BA CS. Plan to include all UCs, hoping for UCB, UCLA, UCSB, UCI or UCD. Will keep UCR and UCM as safety and a few CSUs.
Yes, we live local to SJSU in santa clara county.
We will need to look at the cost factor, shortlisted the colleges based on interest.
Other than UCB and UCD (CS in College of Letters and Sciences but admission is similar to Engineering), the rest of the UCās house CS in their College of Engineering or in UCIās case a separate College of CS and IS.
UCās and CSUās offer little to no merit so if you can handle $37K/year for the UCās and around $27-29K/year for the CSUās, then you should be fine for these schools. Of course, if you qualify for California and Federal need-based aid, these schools should be even more affordable.
You really need to ask your parents for your college budget.
Applying to the universities, without knowing if your family can afford them, wonāt help you later, when you canāt afford to attend them.
āHoping for meritā dollars is not the way to approach your goals.
-Find out what your family can afford
-Use the Net Price Calculators (NPC) which are on each individual collegeās website. Plug in your budget numbers to see what it will cost.
-Find affordable safeties!
Just a heads up= The public universities are funded by their their own States which means public taxpayer dollars. This means very few merit dollars for nonresident students (UW, UT, UICU, Purdue, etc.). The UCās give some merit, but mostly average less than $5k per year. The top schools tend to be need-based.
Check with your parents about how much they have saved for your college expenses.
Most students are funded by the Bank of Mom and Dad.
The only two things that are concerning about your profile here @raman_j is that 3 on AP CS A and the SAT score. How serious about CS are you? I mean, its concerning to not get credit for a major related course. I believe that @Gumbymom can second me about the 3. The thing that is concerning about the SAT score is that with anything from a 1500+ should get you into most of the UCās on your list. The only one Iām not so sure is about Berkeley because its a reach for everyone. Iām currently a CC transfer looking into there and even with my 4.0 CC GPA and PResident of a 50+ student CS club, Iām not even sure about Berkeley. If I were you, Iād try to work on your programming skills and review what you got wrong on AP CS A because CS courses will be trickier than AP CS A. Best of luck!
@LaughingGekko2003: UCās are test blind till the 2025 admission cycle so SAT scores are not considered in the application review. They are only used for course placement if submitted.
@raman_j An AP exam score of 3 or higher for AP CS A will get credit at some of the the UCās but you need to check each school for specifics since many times AP credit cannot be used for your Major pre-reqās.
Yeah, I forgot about test optional. Whoops! lol. Itās crazy to think about how much college admissions has changed. I graduated early in '20 and went straight to CC because I was only 17 at the time and now Iām looking around for colleges but I did forget about the test optional policy.
The AP score of 3 must have been due to a technical glitch or the way I submitted the paper with the new format/model for AP tests in 2020, it happened for both the tests that I took on the same day. All I know is I did extremely well in both the tests. I reached out to collegeboard, but they did not have a way to appeal.
Is there a site that can be recommended to calculate the SJSU impaction score?
I gave you link for the calculation: Impaction | Admissions
800 points x A-G Coursework GPA
Local Admission Area add 200 points
Eligible for Cal State Apply application fee waiver add 40 points
Military Status (Active Duty, Veteran, National Guard or Reserves) add 40 points
First Generation (Applicant is first generation of their family to earn a four-year college degree) add 40 points
For Engineering, the calculation is different: 400 points x Math GPA in addition to the above points.
Thank you.
Isnāt Cali part of some tuition exchange program?
I also see a lot of threads with Cali students applying to schools in Arizona and other western states. Would ASU or UA be good choices? Utah?
Georgia Techās OOS acceptance is around the 10-15% range. You most likely would be full-pay which is $50k/year.
WUE is the exchange program you are talking about. The problem is not all campuses and majors are available through the WUE. OP would have to look up each campus of interest to see if their intended major is available but definitely worthwhile to do some research.