Edit- Sorry - this was referring to UMiami in the Sunshine State.
With UMiami, you just need to apply to figure out the actual merit. They meet 100% of need on their formula. There are full pay or near full pay that get substantial merit.
Apply EA next year for the most opportunities for merit and access to their scholarship rounds.
Most private schools with merit will not give a formula for their levels. It may change each year and will depend on many variables.
Oh cool, RHIT is not quite near 30k, but it is still relatively affordable. I will definitely try to research this further.
I qualify for some need based aid, but I would definitely need to check out how competitive merit is tho. Solid recommendation tho.
Yeah, Rose Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology has a total cost of attendance of $74,226. Similar to other Tech schools like Stevens ($77,954), RIT ($72,354), RPI, WPI, etc, which is why I didnât mention them in the list submitted even though son applied to some.
That said Net Cost is going to depend on merit and income, but room and board alone at RHIT will run 17-20k+ making it unreasonable to think total cost can be kept under 30k.
That makes sense. Honestly, my budget is closer to 50k, but right now I am just searching for solid options that are relatively cheap, as I want to have many options in case of not getting into the top 30 schools im applying too (upenn, jhu, chicago, etc), the most likely outcome.
RHIT with the merit would definitely be within the budget, but I just donât think it justifies taking off a top school or a solid but cheap option.
You might also be in the running for Noblitt at RHIT. They are an outstanding school for Math and CS and could be a very affordable OOS option for you.
U of Minnesota Morris (MNâs public LAC) could be worth a look. The sticker price is well under 30K, and itâs a solid school for math and CS. Plus, thereâs the option of an internal transfer to the Twin Cities flagship campus, if you ended up feeling the need for new challenges after the first couple of years; but in the meantime youâd have saved a lot of money, and you might well like it enough to do the whole four years there.
Look at University of Delaware, Duquesne and Seton Hall. Also, York and some of the smaller schools in PA.
My biggest suggestion is to be ready to apply to EA schools and rolling admission schools the first week of August. That means your essays must be completed over the summer. Alâs line up any references before schools end this school year and find out how to get your transcripts over the summer. For Pitt, the early bird gets in first. And pay attention to each schoolâs social media pages. Pitt did a fee waiver if you sat in on an info session. Cincinnati gave a fee waiver if you applied on 8/1. SUNY schools had a whole week of free applications. If a school says demonstrated interested is important, then visit, open every email, send a question or two to admissions.
What about smaller schools like Elizabethtown, Susquehanna, Ursinus, etc. They have large merit scholarships that might bring the cost down to PSU level or cheaper.
I will be sure to check it out!
That sounds very interesting, andI have never heard of that school before. Thanks for the recommendation.
After a few visits and stuff, I have realized I think I prefer medium and large schools above the smaller schools. For example, I am close to Ursinus so I went there for a visit, and I just did not like the smaller feel. This is just a preference of course. I also prefer larger research universities.
A lot of people from our school apply to UDel, so I checked it out. It seems cool, thanks for the rec.
As for your point on EA, I absolutely intend on doing that. If anything I will probably start writing essays around april. After I am done applying to summer programs, me and my parents are going to talk about essay coaches. They said that if the summer essays donât turn out well, they will try to get some kind of coaching for my college apps, although I am going to try to write the best essays I can without the coaches first.
Social media, this one never even crossed my mind, I will definitely follow schools of interest.
Yeah they are definitely good schools, but I am not interested personally. I prefer national research universities with smaller programs like honors and what have you. I would rather apply to a well known university that is relatively affordable with top tier scholarships that are difficult but not impossible to receive (ut dallas, fsu, etc)
From everything youâve written and since youâre applying to some top schools anyway, I still suggest you take a serious look at the University of Rochester. You sound like a great fit if it works out to be affordable.
If you go visit, RIT is literally right down the road - not walking distance, but just a few miles. Google just told me 3.5 miles. You could visit both.
I will definitely check it out. I have heard that they have solid programs and a good amount of undergrad research.
The whole school has a research culture. This is an old recruiting video from them created by a male acapella group back when one of mine chose it as his school. Iâm actually unsure why anyone goes to the school not wanting research, but they also have fun. My guy was sold on the place when he visited and walking through the dorms he saw a handmade sign saying, âWeâre not nerds. Weâre intellectual badasses.â He spent the night and loved talking research all evening while at a music club, then dinner and the dorms. Most (all?) other schools he visited folks were talking sports or other things.
Note too though, if you want Big Sports, itâs not the school for you. They have sports, but not like Penn St.
Then youâll have to see if they come in at a respectable cost. For my guy they were his cheapest offer, so that certainly helped! But that doesnât happen for everyone.
For clarification, are you planning to apply to 30 top schools? Or are you planning on applying to some schools that are in the top 30?
I still think you should look into some of the âflyover countryâ schools I mentioned in post #26, but I have a few more possibilities for you:
U. of Idaho: During the pandemic a lot of tech folk started moving to Idaho (especially Boise and Coeur dâAlene). Plus, U. of Idaho offers through the PhD in both CS and math, so there is plenty of depth to be had. And, you are likely to qualify for the âInvitation to Idahoâ scholarship which would make tuition they same as for WUE students, bringing your direct costs to less than $23k.
West Virginia U: This one would be closer to home (less expensive transportation costs) and is bigger than U. of Idaho. Offers through a PhD for both of your fields of interest and youâd qualify for $16k/year in merit aid, bringing down your costs to about $23k here, too.
Binghamton (NY): This public has a very strong reputation and there have been several reports of it trying to attract high stat out-of-staters with generous merit aid. I donât think it has a scholarship chart, but I think it could be feasible to bring this down to about the cost of Penn State.
SUNY-New Paltz is another well-respected New York public school that offers a lot of small classes and faculty attention, which could be particularly well-suited to your research interests. Links provide more info on their CS and Math departments. Sticker price here is around $32k or so, so only a little bit of merit aid would be needed to drop this down into your desired safety price range.
Two large, well-reputed privates that I think youâd have a decent chance to bring down to about Penn State pricing are DePaul and Loyola Chicago, both in Chicago. DePaul is very urban-urban, while Loyola Chicago has more of a traditional college campus.
You may also want to check out U. at Buffalo (NY) and Towson (MD) to see if their Net Price Calculators give an indication of possible merit aid.
Sorry, for clarification, Iâm trying to make a college list with 12-14 schools with a bit more than half being reachier schools (gatech, jhu, upenn, chicago, etc)
I will definitely look into Binghamton, as this is the only one i have heard of.
I will google the rest and try to make some college list decisions.
Just my opinion, but if Penn St or Pitt and Binghamton are similar cost or the difference doesnât matter and you like them both (theyâre totally different settings), Iâd pick Penn State or Pitt.
Same with a lot of recommendations on this thread TBH.
If youâre looking to save money (many are to avoid significant debt), then consider some of the others.
All colleges give degrees and produce successful adults, but thereâs often a difference in what they offer along the way.
To know which ones fit you better look at professor pages to see what research they are doing. Many times a relatively unknown school is better (like Eckerd for Marine Science), but Iâm not so sure many of these are for CS and Math. Binghamton is likely to be better than many others (and closer to home for you if travel matters), but I suspect Penn St or Pitt would fit more.
Still, in your research - see what profs are doing and align with what fits you.
Tbh, I do kinda agree. I like penn state a lot so I probably would not have applied to a school that was priced similarly unless there was some wow factor. With all that said, I have found many schools that do seem to have a wow factor, so this thread has helped me a lot.