<p>@ucbalumnus:
MIT is a Street target, but CMU not really.</p>
<p>Also, Mudd has some merit money (most are 10K/year over 4 years).</p>
<p>Even if your kid can’t get in to Cal or UCLA for CS (and really, if he can’t, what are the odds that he’d get in to CMU instead?), the alternative has to be UC-Davis? What happened to UCSD, UCSB (Creative Studies) or Cal Poly-SLO? Also, UIUC, Purdue, and GTech even at full-pay are slightly cheaper than CMU (especially with AP credits). Plus, he may get some merit money at some of those places. And yes, he may well get a good amount of merit money from USC as well.</p>