<p>The beginning of college application season is nearly here. My son and I have been talking about whether he should take another look and perhaps expand the list of schools he is going to apply to. He prefers a larger school but is open to looking at small schools as well. We live in WA but he is open to going pretty much anywhere in the country. He is not crazy about attending any of our state schools. His budget for tuition+ R&B is about the same as what our state school would cost, so 80k-100k over 4 years but less sure would be nice. He will not qualify for any need based aid.
His UW gpa is 3.99 with pretty much all honors/AP classes. AP Lang/APUSH and AP Chem this year and he expects nothing lower than a 4. Four more AP's next year. His ACT score is 33 (35E, 35M, 31R, 32S).</p>
<p>The schools currently on his list are (in no particular order):
Purdue
Ohio State
Texas A&M
University of Alabama
University of Arizona
Arizona State???</p>
<p>We are familiar with the Automatic Full Tuition and Competitive Full Tuition threads on CC.</p>
<p>Are there some other schools that he should be considering for a good solid CS education?</p>
<p>For CS, it’s hard to beat UDub for the in-state cost when pretty much every CS program that is better would cost you more (and where you’d have between zero and very little chance at merit aid). I would rate UDub CS above all of those you listed in terms of opportunity after graduation, frankly. Is there a reason why he dislikes UDub?</p>
<p>BTW, why are you looking at only OOS publics? In terms of merit aid, they’d be much more likely at privates (and very unlikely for OOS at publics). Strong engineering schools but not with UDub’s reputation in CS, like Case Western, Rose-Hulman, URochester, RIT, Stevens, WPI, & RPI. USC is also a possibility (especially if he’s a National Merit semifinalist in line to become a finalist).</p>
<p>With UDub’s small (for a public) intake in to its CS program, getting in for CS there is no guarantee. So you need a safety.</p>
<p>New Mexico Mining and Tech would qualify, and under the Western Undergraduate Exchange, you’d only pay 1.5 times in-state tuition.</p>
<p>Oh right, Alabama. I’m fuzzy on the qualification details, but someone is sure to show up and tell you that your son qualifies for an automatic full-tuition scholarship there if his test score qualifies him (I think they do).</p>
<p>@Erin’s Dad - Purdue is a reach from the merit perspective but there are kid’s with lower stats that received 12-16K/year in the last couple of years as well as kids with higher stats that got nothing. We will see what happens.</p>
<p>@mytwods At A&M he has guaranteed scholarships through the Corp’s that would make it less than in-state Texas which is considerably less than in state WA. Although, he has since decided he doesn’t really want to be in the Corps. A $1000 dollar scholarship from A&M comes with an out of state tuition waiver and he does like A&M so it is worth a shot.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan At Alabama he will qualify for full tuition +$2500/yr guaranteed. Probably the biggest knock on UDub is their admission to CS process. Only 15-20% are direct admits and outside of those only about 1/3 of pre CS majors get admitted to the upper division program. Admission criteria is kept somewhat of a mystery by making it holistic. As a direct admit it is attractive but presently he does not seem inclined to roll the dice on being one of the chosen few.
He is not stuck on an OOS public. We have talked a bit about Case Western and Rose Hulman but it seems unlikely that he will get enough merit $ to get tuition +R&B down to $20-25k/yr. Are we wrong on that? They are possibilities in his mind.
USC was on the list for a while and would be a great opportunity. He has not taken the SAT II’s which are probably necessary to get their big scholarships. His PSAT score was only a little over 200 and would need to be in the 218 range for WA, so no National Merit awards. The 1/2 tuition ones still make it more than we think it’s value is. He may apply there yet as it is a common ap school.</p>
<p>@BobWallace We have talked about Maryland a bit and it has been mentioned before but we have not really researched it. Perhaps we should.</p>
<p>You might be surprised by Case. I’m not sure what their determining factors are for their university scholarships, but with stats like you posted for your ds he might qualify for $25,000-$30,000. It isn’t based on what many people describe on CC, bc ds was accepted and awarded one and the only interest he ever demonstrated was submitting an application. I don’t think it is as simple as GPA and stats b/c when we were considering Case and I was reading their page here on CC, the scholarships didn’t seem to be consistently applied, but those that reported scholarships in that range seemed to have comparable stats to ds. Ds did apply EA, not RD, have no idea if that influences anything or not.</p>
<p>One of the things that really stood out to ds about his Case acceptance was the personal note from someone (I don’t remember who it was any more) about one of his essays. It was very affirming for ds. (silly, really, but more affirming than some of the generic acceptances.)</p>
<p>FWIW, the scholarship was awarded w/no financial info disclosed. After we filed FAFSA and CSS, he qualifed for a small work study and student loan. Our EFC is what knocked Case off of his list of options. He tried for one of their very competitive full-ride scholarships and obviously didn’t win.</p>
<p>If you can handle that EFC, definitely give a Case a shot.</p>
<p>And can’t help but throw this in b/c of PurpleTitan’s comment about UA. (though I actually really understand b/c I almost told ds not to apply to UA b/c some of the posts about UA on here annoyed me as not seeming authentic but more like advertisements.) Typing out the part about the personal note from whoever it was at Case reminds me about the personal letter he received from the president of UA about a special award he received from UA (one of only 2 awarded/yr.) The hype about UA really isn’t hype. It really is real. :)</p>
<p>However some of them, even if they are not that big, do come with waivers of out-of-state additional tuition.
<a href=“Home - SFAID”>Home - SFAID;
Note that Texas A&M does have a good National Merit scholarship.
<a href=“Home - SFAID”>Home - SFAID;
<p>He should certainly apply to try to get into Washington CS as a direct admit. The hard choice will be if he gets into Washington but not CS, and his other choices where getting into the CS major is easier are more expensive.</p>
<p>Merit scholarships are offered, but Arizona State’s main Tempe campus is not in the WUE list (the Downtown, Polytechnic, and West campuses are in the WUE list; none offers WUE tuition for CS majors, if they offer CS at all), and University of Arizona’s main campus offers WUE tuition only for mining engineering majors (University of Arizona South that caters to transfer students from community colleges who want to stay where they are does offer WUE tuition for CS majors).</p>
<p>I don’t think he is going to go to South Dakota. He took University of Minnesota off of his list when he learned that they had tunnels between the buildings due to the cold weather. So maybe there are some geographical limitations.</p>
<p>University of Nebraska was mentioned to him but he doesn’t seem interested at this point.</p>
<p>Case Western’s estimated tuition + R&B is about $55k so a 30k scholarship would put it at our current limit. $30k appears to be the largest scholarships offered at Case?</p>
<p>We haven’t looked at Stevens. We will take a look.</p>
<p>Schools that offer WUE discounts to CS majors on the west coast (other than Washington) include:</p>
<p>California State University: Bakersfield, Chico, Monterey Bay, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Marcos, Stanislaus, Humboldt
University of Hawaii: Hilo, Manoa
Portland State University</p>
<p>However, it looks like he would be an outlier academically at these schools (particularly the CSUs listed here). If he is willing to go to a school where he would be such an outlier, he may want to at least do so for free or much lower cost than even the WUE cost (i.e. full tuition or greater scholarship).</p>
<p>CWRU certainly does give large merit aid (like 3/4th tuition) to some folks, though usually those who are comfortably above their 75th percentile (so maybe not?)</p>
<p>WPI has a bunch of scholarships, and guarantees valedictorians/salutatorians at least $20000. If the scholarships are stackable, WPI definitely could be within range (and getting $25K from there doesn’t seem unlikely).</p>
<p>U of Miami and Richmond have full-tuition scholarships. U of Miami has been known to put together big merit packages even if you don’t get full tuition/ride.</p>
<p>Miami U has automatic scholarships (half-tuition to full) that your son qualifies for. In the Midwest, it’s a pretty respected public.</p>
<p>Yes, I believe that $30,000 is their max university scholarship. They have some highly competitive full rides, but there are only a handful.</p>
<p>We didn’t investigate further, but bc the scholarship is a fixed amt vs. in terms of something like price of tuition, the avg annual increase of COA should be considered. That wording can mean a significant difference. </p>
<p>again, I don’t remember the specifics, but Case’s GPA requirements for maintaining the scholarship was lower than some schools. iIRC, I think Wooster had the most generous leeway for GPA and scholarships. UA’s is high. Ds’s scholarships have varying requirements including a 3.5. If he hadn’t already earned a 4.0 in multiple classes like 300 level mechanics 1 and 2, a 3.5 would give me pause. So keeping ascholarship is another consideration beyond simply receiving it.</p>
<p>Emory (and their less competitive Oxford College) gives many full-tuition scholarships.</p>
<p>Another path is to rack up a ton of credits through AP tests. Many of the publics give credit for 3 or above on a ton of tests (I have in mind Wisconsin, which also gives credits for CLEP). UIUC gives 20 credit hours for a 5 in Chinese. At Wisconsin, 18 credits is about 14K. I believe 120 to graduate. Say he enters with 40 crredits through AP & CLEP. 81 credits for 63K (and you’d have to pay room and board).</p>
<p>18 credits is a heavy load, however. Still, Wisconsin probably has a better reputation in CS than all these schools besides UDub. Illinois has an even better reputation in CS.</p>
<p>The problem is that Emory has a relatively small CS department with limited offerings.</p>
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<p>However, one must be careful to check how applicable the AP and CLEP credits are to degree requirements. In some cases, they may end up being just extra credit units with no applicability to subjects for the major or breadth requirements which effectively impose a minimum number of credits or semesters of attendance.</p>
<p>I agree on the AP/CLEP credits. They can often be used to meet many of the humanities/social science requirements and may free up some room in the schedule to take some additional classes of interest but they don’t tend to shorten the time required to complete a degree in engineering or cs.</p>