Good safeties and matches for CS major

TAMU and UTD are undeniably great safeties to have. Yet the whole point of the thread is that the OP wants more safeties and matches (as per the title).

Unfortunately, once the in-state options have been exhausted, there may not be any out-of-state schools that will offer a perfect combination of (1) reputation, (2) accessibility, and (3) affordability. Pretty much any out-of-state school that can be suggested will be compromised in one of these respects, relative to the in-state options.

  • A less well-known out-of-state public school (like Utah) may be accessible and affordable. But it may not have the desired national reputation.
  • A big-name out-of-state public school (like a UC) may have the reputation and may be accessible. But it may be accessible only because it has a high out-of-state price tag that drives most people away.
  • Some relatively accessible private schools (like Lehigh or SCU) have strong reputations for CS. But they may be accessible only because they are less wealthy, and again come with a price tag that drives people away.
  • A wealthier private school (like USC or Stanford) may have a great reputation, and may offer great financial aid that makes the cost affordable. But any school like that is probably going to get a ton of applicants, which means low accessibility.

So if you are looking for reputation, accessibility, and affordability in out-of-state schools, you may realistically have to settle for just two out of three.

SJSU admits by major, and CS was the most selective major for frosh admission for fall 2018.

The threshold for CS that year was 4725 for an eligibility index of GPA * 800 + SATRW + SATM, where GPA is recalculated weighted-capped by the CSU/UC method described at https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

See http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/ for more information.

@aquapt If the OP is full pay, the 1/2 tuition NMSF award still leaves a COA of $50k. Plus the OP is looking for safety/match schools. Full tuition at USC is a big reach for all.

@Eeyore123 , just running the possibility up the flagpole. I proposed matches and safeties too.

Here’s the way I see things. She’s got two perfectly good safeties in TAMU and UTD. She has super stats. I would take this approach - go through a list of the Top 40 or 50 Computer Science schools. Maybe there’s an AI list out there, I don’t know. Anyhow, eliminate the ones that will cost too much (most of the top private schools) or doesn’t have the right aura. Eliminate the schools that aren’t that close to a big city, eg UIUC, Purdue, Wisconsin, Florida, etc. Of the ones remaining, then start with NPC for each. If possible, visit the school. That’s pretty much how we came up with my own kid’s list. It was a risky strategy heavy with reaches but it worked out.

For the OP’s info, here’s the list that my kid ultimately applied to, with the risky strategy that the second-tier UCs would be the safeties. You can substitute the UC schools with Texas-based public schools.

UC-Berkeley
UCLA
UC-San Diego
UC-Irvine
UC-Davis
UC-Santa Barbara
Stanford
USC
Carnegie-Mellon
Northeastern
Vanderbilt
Northwestern

He also considered Caltech, Columbia, NYU and Michigan (visited all of them) but eliminated them at the end. The only school in the list that he had never visited before prior to applying was UCSB.