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<p>Have you discussed with your parents what they are willing to contribute, and run the net price calculators on all of the schools? Better to figure out now than find out in April that you have no admissions to schools you can afford.</p>
<p>The first and most important school for your application list has to be a safety that you are assured of admission and assured of affordability.</p>
<p>Also, CS is not the same as engineering in some respects, although it may be under the engineering division at some colleges. For example, ABET accreditation is sufficient to indicate a decent quality CS major (although some may be better than decent or a better fit for a given student’s academic interests), but not necessary in that there are good CS majors that are not ABET accredited (e.g. Stanford and CMU; however, there are also some very poor CS majors that are not ABET accredited).</p>