Northern Arizona University (NAU) costs $25 to apply. No essays. They have rolling admissions and usually notify students within a week.
Edit to add: Applications are open for Fall 2024, so your student could apply today and have an acceptance in hand next week. Your student will likely end up at another school, but for $25, it is a nice, quick, “take the pressure off” type of acceptance.
And Flagstaff is a nice friendly city with plenty to do.
Yep Iowa State. It’s a very good engineering school with really good placement afterwards.
Michigan State Honors she will be given with a mentor, $5,000 for study abroad and research opportunities.
Illinois Tech is great and great outcomes but it’s small and a commuter school and definitely need to visit but they all get jobs. Probably get a great merit there.
If coming to see apply to UIC (University of Illinois - Chicago). They just built a new CS campus. They also are taking it seriously with this new building and jobs aplenty in Chicago and beyond.
What about Knox College? I think they give answers within 2 weeks.
Marist EA?
UMass Lowell? West Chester University (outside Philly)? Towson (Maryland)?
If you’re not interested in Penn State Main, Penn State Behrend or Altoona (Penn State Main is notoriously long but branch campuses+strong stats=answer within 2 weeks)?
Seconding Iowa State for quick answers 
+ NAU UIC, Illinois Tech, Michigan State not sure how quick they provide a reply but Michigan State with Honors is great
She’ll start September with 3 or 4 acceptances in hand
What is your nearest airport? There are times that a nonstop flight can be a lot faster than driving, even with the time to get to the airport, go through security, etc. There could be some smaller colleges/good fits if nonstop flights would work for your family, especially if either Houston or Dallas would be a convenient airport for you.
Also, with respect to the accommodations your daughter needs, are they the type that are usually available at colleges (extra time, typing responses, etc) or would she need special services?
I live in AZ and have lived in both Tucson and Phoenix areas. Between the 2 metro areas, Tucson is definitely way more LGBTQ+ aware than the Phoenix area. For example, Tucson has a big pride celebration every year. I have gay friends who’ve lived in Tucson for several years and they love it there.
That being said, the greater Phoenix area is definitely way more conservative than Tucson. BUT when it comes to LGBT+ topics, it’s more libertarian in my opinion (i.e., you live your life, I’ll live mine, nobody’s going to care much what sort of life you want to live as long as you’re a good neighbor and aren’t a butthead). You should consider adding ASU to the list…Pretty much any college campus (with the exception of super mega conservative colleges like BYU or Liberty Univ) are blue/Democrat and that is true of ASU as well.
There’s also NAU, which somebody else mentioned. Closest airport is Phoenix. Will take you ~2-3 hr to drive there, depending on whether it’s a weekend or not. My gay Tucson friends have said that Flagstaff is on the Tucson end of LGBT+ friendliness.
I am definitely including non-stop flights in the close to get to equation, which is why I stated I preferred close to an airport. I’m not sure who brought up driving distances - there isn’t really anywhere driving distance from Texas 
. However, from my area there are multiple non-stop flights a day to some cities, but not many (any?) to others. So that sort of thing is a consideration. Or a school like WPI which involves a. long flight plus a drive (not too long of a drive, but still a drive) makes me a little nervous. Nothing has been ruled out due to travel, but it definitely has a column on the spreadsheet lol.
Accommodations - I am being vague for privacy reasons. Not necessarily the most common, but nothing that would be difficult for a school to provide.
I’ve read some of the threads discussing ASU and UofA. My gut feeling is that UofA/Tucson sounds like a better fit for DD, but obviously I don’t really know. I think I couldn’t figure out the different campuses at ASU and just stopped looking at it. 
I will put NAU on the list for DD to look at also. We drove past it in Flagstaff once and I thought it looked like a nice place to spend four years.
I brought up - I said Denver or Pittsburgh - it’s all the same - unless you’re in amarillo and can drive.
Where are you in TX?
There’s a non stop to PIttsburgh from Hobby and Love on Southwest. And others mentioned other cities - Minneapolis for example.
You know there will be multiple from DFW on AA and Intercontinental on United.
Besides - your kid isn’t coming home every weekend (I hope) so what if they have a one stop - if it’s the right school, so a few hours a few times a year shouldn’t matter.
Definitely Tucson for LGBTQ and just a cooler city. I’m an ASU alum…fine school but Tucson is just “better” - it’s one campus, it’s all there, and the Honors dorm is super nice. On the flip side, ASU Barrett is arguably the top Honors College in America.
Both U of A and NAU have a 4.5 on Campus Pride, so very strong. I can’t say a high campus pride equates to a healthy LGBTQ life - but it’s a metric.
I couldn’t find ASU but likely have one…
Flag is super cool - and if you like to ski - but will be harder to get to - one stop via Phoenix - except there is a non stop from DFW (one a day - I just looked).
Flag will be more “regional” in audience but both have a large OOS population. Flag will be cooler in temperature. Not sure of the merit there vs. U of A which is on a table. They use unweighted - so you’d need to calculate - 4 for an A, 3 for a B, etc.
Good luck.
Not necessarily fast responders (i.e. I don’t know if any of these are rolling admissions), but if you’re trying to find some non-huge schools for CS, these are some schools that you might want to consider. They all offer at least a Master’s degree in CS, and many offer a doctorate, so there would hopefully be sufficient depth for your daughter. Since you didn’t indicate Dallas or Houston as a convenient airport, I’ll assume that your airport is not a hub that can get you to tons of destinations nonstop.
Chicago: American, United, and Southwest have hubs here, so hopefully that means a nonstop flight
DePaul (IL): About 14k undergrads, 54% female
Loyola Chicago: About 12k undergrads, 68% female
New York City metro: American, United, Delta, and JetBlue have hubs here
Fordham (NY): About 9900 undergrads, 59% female
Manhattan (NY): About 3200 undergrads, 43% female, may have a suitcase school reputation
New Jersey Institute of Technology: About 9200 undergrads, 27% (!) female
Stevens Institute of Technology: About 4100 undergrads, 30% (!) female
Philadelphia: American has a hub here
Drexel (PA ): About 14k undergrads, 49% female, and a strong co-op focus
Rowan (NJ): About 15k undergrads, 47% female
Baltimore/Washington D.C.: American, United, and Southwest have hubs here
George Washington (D.C.): About 12k undergrads, 64% female
U. of Maryland – Baltimore County: About 11k undergrads, 46% female…you may want to research if this is a suitcase school
Los Angeles: American, United, Delta, Southwest, and Alaska Airlines have hubs here
Denver: United and Southwest have hubs here
San Francisco: United and Alaska Airlines have hubs here, Southwest if you count Oakland
Seattle: Delta and Alaska Airlines have hubs here
I wouldn’t recommend Fordham for CS. Not as strong as others in CS.
Back to NAU - it looks like $11K off per year if a 3.5 in HS and $9K for a 3.0.
I’m sure it’s unweighted but you likely get the $11K.
Tuition and fees are $29K.
U of Arizona tuition are $39.6K. Not sure if there are “fees”.
Their scholarship is up to $32K. I don’t see the table but before it was - unweighted GPA - 4.0 at $32K. 3.9 was $30K. 3.75 was $20K.
They were auto merit.
U of A is a great school as are Pitt, Minnesota and more - quick admission or otherwise.
Good luck
To get a sense of how good these schools are in CS, the following ranking may be helpful. I exclude the US News rankings. While the ratings are research oriented, I think it identifies universities with good CS programs. (No LACs though, unfortunately.)
I’d add University of Houston, since you’re in Texas.
Another rank in addition to the Brown rankings above from @13street that I find interesting is the payscale mid-career salaries.
Once you get past the top schools, it really flattens out and we know a lot of the higher salaries are due to things like location, moreso than where you go.
They say this is median salary of alumni with 10+ years experience. Who or how they survey I’m not sure.
| Rank | School Name | Mid-Career Pay |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harvey Mudd College | $189,200 |
| 2 | Stanford University | $183,100 |
| 3 | University of California-Berkeley | $181,100 |
| 4 | Harvard University | $179,400 |
| 5 | Carnegie Mellon University | $178,300 |
| 6 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $177,200 |
| 7 | Princeton University | $177,100 |
| 8 | Columbia University in the City of New York | $175,400 |
| 9 | Dartmouth College | $174,900 |
| 10 | Yale University | $174,300 |
| 11 | Duke University | $173,400 |
| 12 | Brown University | $170,400 |
| 13 | University of Pennsylvania | $170,000 |
| 14 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus | $168,400 |
| 15 | Rice University | $166,500 |
| 16 | University of California-Santa Barbara | $165,500 |
| 17 | CUNY Hunter College | $162,300 |
| 18 | University of California-Santa Cruz | $161,300 |
| 19 | Brandeis University | $160,600 |
| 20 | Cornell University | $160,400 |
| 20 | University of Virginia-Main Campus | $160,400 |
| 22 | Lehigh University | $160,100 |
| 23 | Worcester Polytechnic Institute | $159,800 |
| 24 | California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo | $159,700 |
| 25 | University of California-Irvine | $158,300 |
| 26 | Santa Clara University | $157,900 |
| 27 | Case Western Reserve University | $157,700 |
| 27 | Tufts University | $157,700 |
| 29 | University of California-San Diego | $157,600 |
| 30 | United States Naval Academy | $157,400 |
| 31 | Fordham University | $156,500 |
| 31 | University of California-Los Angeles | $156,500 |
| 33 | Stony Brook University | $156,300 |
| 34 | Johns Hopkins University | $155,000 |
| 35 | Boston University | $154,800 |
| 36 | University of Massachusetts-Amherst | $154,600 |
| 37 | Boston College | $153,800 |
| 38 | Northwestern University | $153,700 |
| 39 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | $153,400 |
| 40 | United States Military Academy | $153,300 |
| 40 | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $153,300 |
| 42 | Wake Forest University | $152,900 |
| 43 | University of Notre Dame | $152,500 |
| 43 | San Jose State University | $152,500 |
| 45 | New York University | $152,200 |
| 45 | University of Southern California | $152,200 |
| 47 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | $150,800 |
| 47 | University of Michigan-Ann Arbor | $150,800 |
| 49 | Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus | $150,300 |
| 50 | University of California-Davis | $150,000 |
| 50 | Trinity College | $150,000 |
| 52 | LeTourneau University | $149,800 |
| 53 | Stevens Institute of Technology | $149,200 |
| 54 | CUNY Brooklyn College | $148,800 |
| 55 | George Mason University | $148,500 |
| 55 | Emory University | $148,500 |
| 55 | George Washington University | $148,500 |
| 58 | Washington University in St Louis | $148,400 |
| 59 | University of Maryland-College Park | $148,200 |
| 59 | University of Delaware | $148,200 |
| 61 | Pepperdine University | $148,000 |
| 62 | Merrimack College | $147,800 |
| 63 | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | $147,300 |
| 64 | William & Mary | $146,700 |
| 65 | The University of Texas at Austin | $146,000 |
| 65 | Seattle University | $146,000 |
| 67 | Sacred Heart University | $145,600 |
| 68 | James Madison University | $145,500 |
| 69 | Brigham Young University | $145,100 |
| 69 | University of Rhode Island | $145,100 |
| 69 | Bucknell University | $145,100 |
| 69 | University of St Thomas (Minnesota) | $145,100 |
| 73 | Vanderbilt University | $144,800 |
| 73 | University of Minnesota-Twin Cities | $144,800 |
| 73 | Worcester State University | $144,800 |
| 76 | Colorado School of Mines | $144,400 |
| 77 | Rutgers University-New Brunswick | $144,200 |
| 78 | Bowdoin College | $144,000 |
| 79 | Oregon State University | $143,700 |
| 80 | University of Colorado Boulder | $143,600 |
| 81 | Western Washington University | $143,400 |
| 82 | California State University-Sacramento | $143,200 |
| 83 | Point Loma Nazarene University | $142,900 |
| 84 | Siena College | $142,600 |
| 85 | The University of Texas at Dallas | $142,300 |
| 86 | Michigan State University | $142,200 |
| 86 | San Diego State University | $142,200 |
| 88 | University of Puget Sound | $142,100 |
| 88 | Binghamton University | $142,100 |
| 88 | College of Staten Island CUNY | $142,100 |
| 91 | University of Mary Washington | $141,800 |
| 91 | Bethel University (Minnesota) | $141,800 |
| 93 | California State University-East Bay | $141,700 |
| 94 | Loras College | $141,600 |
| 95 | California State University-Northridge | $141,400 |
| 96 | Wentworth Institute of Technology | $141,100 |
| 97 | SUNY at Albany | $141,000 |
| 98 | North Carolina State University at Raleigh | $140,700 |
| 99 | Loyola University Maryland | $140,300 |
| 100 | University of Utah | $140,200 |
And you can’t beat the acceptance email that come from Iowa State a few weeks after your auto acceptance.
I don’t think they have very early notification, but both Puget Sound and Mary Washington have great support for those that are neurodiverse.
Is Texas disfavored for similar reasons?
and Iowa?
But @college24x2 did say this earlier:
Right now the in-state schools on the list are:
UT (super reach)
UT-Dallas and UTSA (should be likelies)
Trinity TX (Should be a target).
I have multiple (>10) students attending UTSA with similar stats every year. UTSA also has rolling admission. I’ve had students receiving admission before Halloween.
My two former students currently attending Colorado School of Mines had 1400s SAT, scored 2 and 3 on APCSA, were very happy after first year in college.