<p>male, white, junior, homeschooled, 3.96 GPA
AP Stats 5 as 10th grader
APGov and APChem this year w/PA Homeschoolers (accredited, making A's and is feeling very prepared for the exams)
SAT II American history 10th grade 730
ACT 34
PSAT 209
Currently taking Spanish at cc and making A's. He will take freshman English there and Spanish 3 and 4 there next year.
EC's are family mission trips, youth group, heavily involved in worship computer stuff for services and special events including making his own slides/videos</p>
<p>Next year: AP Econ, AP Physics, AP Calc BC
Spanish 3 and 4 Eng I and II at cc for dual credit</p>
<p>He is pretty conservative...much more than I am, libertarian views (not me!!!) </p>
<p>He wants to major in computer science. He doesn't want to leave Texas. So far we have </p>
<p>Baylor, TCU and LeTourneau</p>
<p>I've wanted him to consider Louisiana Tech as he would have some good scholarship opportunities there and it isn't far..maybe 2 hours or so. I think the computer science department is good there. I've wondered about Abilene Christian.. He doesn't like the no music in worship stance at all, though. ETBU seems to easy..his 7th grade ACT scores would have gotten him in there. HBU doesn't offer computer science. DBU..maybe?? The size of UT scares him to death. Are there any state schools that are smaller that might work? I'm wondering about financial safeties... We could finance 4 years of Baylor, but that would wipe out his savings and it looks like computer programmers need a master's degree or higher.. I'm trying to get organized so we can start working on applications this summer.</p>
Depends on what you want to do. If you want to work as a business programmer for darn near any company (Maybe not MS or Google), most people have only a BS. If you want to go into actual “computer science” as opposed to programming, maybe you do need more.</p>
<p>What about Rice? My son liked that and I liked it even more.</p>
<p>He will not qualify for any financial aid at Rice.</p>
<p>He is the oldest of 3.</p>
<p>Why not anywhere outside of Texas…because he is a homebody. He likes being at home. We travel a lot. We’ve been to 40 of the states in the US. He’s served in Ecuador, Honduras, and Ethiopia. He’s been to England, France and Germany. He only went to those places because we were going as a family. He would be happy to live and work in Texas and never, ever leave. I LOVE to travel… He doesn’t. I wish he would look elsewhere…</p>
<p>Why not UT Austin and Texas A&M for in-state tuition and good computer science bachelor’s degree programs? Both are large enough that religious communities of common and perhaps not-so-common religions and denominations should be findable on or near campus (though he should check to be sure).</p>
<p>If he is religiously observant, he may want to consider whether a school with a strong religious environment matches his denomination. Baylor and TCU are of different denominations.</p>
<p>If he is libertarian in that he is not bothered by the presence of others of different belief systems or habits, then he is more likely to fit in well at a non-religious environment school (assuming his religious community is present) than if he is bothered by such things.</p>
<p>He will not qualify for any financial aid at Rice.</p>
<p>He is the oldest of 3.</p>
<p>Why not anywhere outside of Texas…because he is a homebody. He likes being at home. We travel a lot. We’ve been to 40 of the states in the US. He’s served in Ecuador, Honduras, and Ethiopia. He’s been to England, France and Germany. He only went to those places because we were going as a family. He would be happy to live and work in Texas and never, ever leave. I LOVE to travel… He doesn’t. I wish he would look elsewhere…</p>
<p>==========================</p>
<p>Can you clarify…if you have younger kids to put thru college, yet you mention that if you paid for Baylor, it will clean out your savings, then how much do you want to spend each year?</p>
<p>I think that once you determine how much you’ll COMFORTABLY pay each year without sacrificing the younger kids’ future, then tell your child THAT amount. Then he may realize that that budget will somewhat limit him for choices…and then he’ll become more motivated to look elsewhere. Sometimes kids need a little incentive to go outside their comfort zones…and as parents, we sometimes have to provide the inspiration. :)</p>
<p>As for UT and TAMU being too big. Your son needs to look at their honors situations…like that elite one at UT…honors colleges can really shrink a big school.</p>
<p>As far as size goes, have him look at the actual class sizes through the class schedule at each of the schools. Once you reach a certain size, it doesn’t matter if it’s 10000 or 50000, you’ll still have some large classes. </p>
<p>Maybe two years at a community college and then UH Clear Lake? </p>
<p>He has really good stats and would probably qualify for significant merit money at smaller schools but you would need to check out their Computer Science department. I think Trinity is supposed to have a pretty strong program. I can’t say how libertarians fit in on campus there.</p>
<ul>
<li>In Texas</li>
<li>Computer science (using the ABET accreditation lists for computer science and computer engineering)</li>
<li>Less expensive (Baylor = $46,000 per year, UT Austin = $25,000 per year, Texas A&M = $21,000 per year)</li>
<li>Not too big (Baylor’s 15,000 is ok, UT Austin’s and Texas A&M’s 50,000 is not)</li>
</ul>
<p>The choices appear to be limited to:</p>
<p>Prairie View A&M
University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southernmost College
University of Texas at Dallas</p>
<p>Only slightly larger than Baylor (but under 20,000) are:</p>
<p>Sam Houston State
University of Texas at El Paso
University of Texas Pan American</p>
<p>If you can convince him to bend the size constraint, UT Austin and Texas A&M will be fine choices. If you can convince him to bend the in-Texas constraint, there are some inexpensive-after-big-merit-scholarship choices out of state, like Alabama and UAB, as well as schools like Minnesota, Virginia Tech, Stony Brook, Massachusetts, and Cal Poly SLO whose list prices are significantly lower than that of Baylor.</p>
<p>The difference between a libertarian and a social conservative for college fit purposes is that the libertarian does not mind if his/her roommate and other students are of a different religion and/or sexual orientation. (A larger percentage of younger of college age “conservatives” are more libertarian in this respect than older conservatives are.)</p>
<p>Have you checked out UT-Dallas (ucbalumnus mentioned it above)? It isn’t as difficult to get into, isn’t as large, and isn’t as liberal as UT-Austin, and it apparently has a reputable CS program.</p>
<p>^I hear that. People that go there are definitely the toughest and bravest people this nation has. Well to generalize, any Service Academy has those people. Also, the US Naval Academy allows people to see the world.</p>