Help with college search for a student with 3.84 uw/1500 SAT for engineering/CS+X [CA resident, 4.1 UC weighted-capped GPA, no price limit]

Chance Me / Match Me!
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I’ll challenge this assessment because I assume by good school you mean top ranked.

But if you’re in engineering and you succeed, you were very capable. 40-60%, depending on the study, of engineering majors don’t finish.

My son and I don’t recommend his school for you - but he chose Alabama over Purdue with merit. So not just Purdue but with the rare scholarship. While I thought that was nuts for a no name engineering, he had two summer internships (first year roomed with Ga Tech kids from his internship), 5 job offers this Fall and is making similar or more money to high ranked school salaries for last year - I don’t know about these schools will fare this year.

. Btw - tons of kids did the same at his school - chose over more prestigious and I’m sure that happens at ASU, SJSU, Wisconsin l, Arizona, Colorado and more. They go likely for merit or location but he did so he could have his own room which wasn’t possible to his knowledge at Purdue.

The point is - if a school fits, don’t dismiss because you don’t consider it good. So schools like Reno and Utah work (in addition to others like CU and Mines) and at all these kinds of schools you’ll find kids like your son, kids that got into higher ranked schools but chose theirs for a reason - in your case a city or access to a city and easy access home .

If your son is serious about the non stop flight and city living , folks listed great targets and likelies such as SMU, Denver, Pitt and others above. UMN may be another vs Wisconsin (I couldn’t find Madison non stops).

in your case, if these are true desires there’sno reason to trade off. You have to be somewhere four years.

You should enjoy the time. If the student is a go getter they’re going to be fine !!

Edit - saw co op. Drexel, Cincinnati are others to look at but I think most schools offer co op. It was pushed heavily at my son and his friends schools and there were some from various at his internship. He wasn’t interested but the opprtunities are likely at most. Not sure how readily study abroad is for engineering but worst case a maymester or summer could be possible.

BU/NYU/GW - all Uber urban. So he has to want the city as a campus.

As for Vandy and WUSTL - I would challenge that they are not strong in STEM. But they are similarly reaches. ED, if you plan, could help at all.

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Oh did not know about the united. I will have to check this out.

Thanks a lot for the detailed list of colleges. When we picked the colleges we were going based on what is a good college for engineering and some of these college did not show up on our list.
We will look more into U of Denver, U of San Diego as they are cities. For the reaches I have not looked at some of the ones you listed like Vanderbilt and Washington U as they are not known for engineering but will look into it.

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Well I would be happy if he would choose SJSU but it is 20 minutes from home and he wants to experience a new environment if possible. He will consider this only if he is not happy with his other admits.

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Case Western is another school we have on the list but he needs to more research here.

In regards to CMU I think his chances are very low. I know about 10 to 15 kids from our school attend CMU every year and he would need a higher GPA and SAT to get into this.

We have looked at Georgia tech and I think we should add it as a reach. It would a good location wise and other factors.

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Some UC campuses (UCSD) and also SLO cannot guarantee CS classes will be available for obtaining a CS minor for non-CSE/SE majors since all CS classes are impacted so you really need to delve into the different options if going for the Economics (College of L&S) major.

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I think you’re right about it being occasional…a third party aggregator indicated that there was such a direct flight, but I can’t find it on United’s website.

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I am an engineer myself and have worked in the industry for 20 years now so I agree with you school does not matter as much and we do hire from SJSU, ASU and so on and that why they are on the list.

Having said that he wants to try the best college possible for him and I think that’s ok. Again if by best most kids do tend to look at ranking and in a high school like ours there is immense peer pressure to go to highly ranked colleges.

While we do talk to him about not using only ranking as a guide but it is something he does use as one of the factors.

Will look into Drexel as an option.

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Thanks for the info. We will keep this in mind.

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Adding a CS minor will likely be impossible at Berkeley. I’m not sure about the other schools but there are really no more reliable back door paths to CS in most UCs. There will usually be some flexibility but the odds will be very low (holistic) or the bar will be very high (target GPA requirement).

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“the best college possible for him”

This with capitalize FOR HIM - not that makes him look best to his friends.

I’m glad you will visit schools and understood on the pressure. It’s nuts what these kids do to themselves.

Last comment - what you said about SJSU strikes me as a mechanism to not apply to some schools. If he decided he would choose SJSU over ASU or CU, then no reason to apply.

You have 20 common app spots plus the CA schools. . Some essays do repeat. Sounds like the he’s the kind of kid who could benefit from more, not less overall apps.

Enjoy your trips. I hope he finds that school where when he steps on campus, he feels at home.

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Have you considered any CSUs other than SLO and SJSU?

Davis is one of the few UCs that still allows admitted students to change majors into CS.

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It’s not a matter of getting admitted. It’s a matter of getting the desired major after admission.

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When you say getting desired major after Admission do you mean if he wants to change major ?

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Yes I have heard this recently. I was told one way to get around is if you are ok with taking a course during summer for example you may have a better chance of getting. I know a friends daughter was not able to get CS course at Berkeley in summer. Again there is not 100% and not ideal. We will keep this in mind when applying.

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We have considered SDSU as an option but may apply. He will not get the local student points here so it may be harder than SJSU.

Good to know about CS major change in Davis did not know about this.

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My younger son is a CS graduate from SDSU and his Freshman/Sophomore year roommate was an ME major. Both have done well post graduate as SDSU grads. Major changes are not too difficult at SDSU but you are admitted as a Pre-major and need to meet pre-req and GPA requirements before declaring the major.

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Oh good to know. Do you know if all majors start as pre-major or is it only Engineering and CS?

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Summer courses should be a backup option and not the primary enrollment strategy. With much narrower access during the regular semesters, everyone locked out will try to get into the summer semesters, and that would worsen the odds over time.

If you want CS at Cal, no matter what you think the odds are, you should definitely apply to CS. Alternately, since you student is interested in MechE you could apply to MechE within COE. If you do that, there will be much easier access to CS courses since non-EECS COE majors have reserved seats.

All said I think you are in good shape at SJSU and will likely have access to one great option although the impaction scores can vary wildly year over year. As @gumbymom stated, definitely apply to SDSU and may be even to SFSU since CS is not impacted there.

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Agree summer should not be the main option. I was not aware that non EECS COE majors have reserved seats for cs courses. We will most likely apply for Mech Engineering in CoE at Berkeley. I think this is a high reach for him based on GPA of kids who got in and the admit rates into CoE in the last few years

In regards to SJSU we do plan to apply to Mech Engineering or software engineering as this slightly easier than CS. If the impaction index is same as this year he would likely get into CS but this would be borderline compared to Mech or software. Will most likely apply for SDSU based on input here.

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At SJSU, admission is done by formula as described at Impaction | Admissions (with weighted-capped GPA). For frosh entering fall 2023, ME at SJSU required a 4680 score, according to Freshmen Impaction Results | Admissions . The student’s score seems to be 4.1 * 800 + 200 + mathGPA * 400 = 3480 + mathGPA * 400. It is unstated whether there is any weighting for mathGPA, and the threshold score can change this year.

For SJSU CS, the threshold was 3440 without the mathGPA * 400 addition, since CS is not an engineering major. So it would be unwise to consider SJSU a safety for CS.

ASU admits frosh applicants to the campus with a 3.0 GPA in the required courses, as described at https://admission.asu.edu/apply/first-year/admission . For engineering majors (which includes CS there), the applicant cannot have any math or science deficiencies, as described at https://degrees.apps.asu.edu/bachelors/major/ASU00/ESMAEMBSE/mechanical-engineering .

Difficulty of changing major depends on the college and the specific major. Unfortunately, ME and CS are often overcrowded majors at many state flagship-level schools, so they can be difficult to change into, but check each college specifically. Some of the most selective schools (e.g. MIT) may have enough money to throw at the overcrowding problem, while less selective schools (e.g. SFSU) may not have enough students with sufficient interest and academic strength to overcrowd the ME and CS majors.

For CS, he may prefer schools where the CS major is a non-engineering major, so that it would have fewer engineering-type requirements to leave more room for economics and/or political science.

If you are local to SJSU (high school in Santa Clara County), non-stop flights from SJC would likely be preferable, although non-stop flights from SFO or OAK would be acceptable. Do not use the word “direct” to airline or travel agent employees when you mean non-stop, since in airline jargon is does not mean non-stop.