Help me pick schools besides Stanford

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<p>Actually, Berkeley does offer non-zero need-based financial aid to out of state students, but it is not very much, and not enough for a needy student to cover the additional out of state tuition.</p>

<p>Virginia and North Carolina are among the few public universities that are reputed to give good need-based financial aid to out of state students. Depending on what you and your parents can afford, some other options may include those schools with relatively low list prices.</p>

<p>For in-state in Alaska, University of Alaska - Fairbanks has an ABET accredited CS degree program.</p>

<p>^Ha. No way I’m going to Fairbanks. WAY too cold there. And I feel like I need to get out of this state.</p>

<p>Make sure that you have at least one school in your application list that is a solid safety – assured admission, certainly affordable (check the net price calculator), and appropriate academically (has a good degree program in your major) and otherwise.</p>

<p>If you do not want to go to an in-state public school, the search for safeties becomes more difficult, though if you have the stats to have a non-trivial chance at Stanford, you likely have some potential large merit scholarship guaranteed for stats schools, such as:</p>

<p>University of Alabama - Birmingham (3.0 GPA, 28 ACT for $15,000 per year)
University of Alabama - Huntsville (3.0 GPA, 34 ACT for full ride; 3.0 GPA, 31 ACT for full tuition)
University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa (3.5 GPA, 30 ACT for full out of state tuition + $2,500 for engineering; 3.5 GPA, 32 ACT for full out of state tuition)</p>

<p>^Wow those scholarships seem…surprisingly easy. I’d probably qualify for all of them if I took the ACT. However, I have not taken the ACT and I don’t plan to. I’ll definitely look for similar scholarships though.</p>

<p>Qualifying SAT scores will work as well. I would recommend that you at least apply to Alabama - the application comes out in summer and is really easy, no essays or letters of rec. you basically just put in your scores and grades. It takes about five minutes. </p>

<p>University of Alabama has uniquely generous scholarships that are sort of hard to find, but you will find merit aid, possibly even full rides, elsewhere - but it won’t be a guarantee. Try University of Miami, University of Pittsburgh, Northeastern, Boston University, UVA, UNC CH, Vanderbilt, Duke, and of course SCU, LMU, etc. However, remember some of these are VERY competitive (Duke, UVA, UNC, and Vandy especially), so you definitely can’t count on them.</p>

<p>Those University of Alabama scholarships also accept SAT scores that they consider “equivalent”. For the scholarships listed in post #23, if you use the SAT instead of ACT:</p>

<p>Birmingham: 1260 SAT CR+M
Huntsville: 1360 SAT CR+M for full tuition, 1490 SAT CR+M for full ride
Tuscaloosa: 1330 SAT CR+M for engineering, 1400 CR+M SAT otherwise</p>

<p>Check the schools’ web sites for more information. All three have ABET accredited CS degree programs, so they can be inexpensive safety candidates (costs remaining after scholarships probably $10,000 to $14,000 per year, except for the Huntsville full ride which will be approximately nothing except travel costs).</p>

<p>They are rather different environments from each other, though. Tuscaloosa is the flagship, and a big football fan school. The others are smaller, and not so spectator-sport oriented.</p>