Is your son a rising junior or a rising senior? If he’s a rising junior, he has time to improve his GPA and SAT/ACT scores and our assessments on admissibility may change over the next year.
thank you, I see these for my possible list
UT Dallas, - YES
Michigan state - YES
Pitt - Potentially YES and worth a try ( just not less than 40K, i will try it still )
Penn State - Potentially YES and worth a try ( just not less than 40K, i will try it still )
Lehigh, Lafyette, Rochester - YES
thanks so much for helping me with this… I will have him apply all instate include Christopher New Port.
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If you want to spend over $40k, then yes UTD and Michigan State (try honors there) but why ?
No reason to apply to any when you can try Alabama, Mississippi State, WVU and be assured under $40k and schools likeBinghamton Miami Ohio, South Carolina, FSU, Delaware and maybe get to $40k or less. U of SC and especially FSU will be tough ins
These are just ideas. There are more. What is he seeking - size, location, etc.
Lehigh, Lafayette, Rochester were not for applying. I asked for you to run the net price calculators. Do they say $75k or $40k. I’m trying to determine if the colleges think you have need and will give you money for lack of income/assets.
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Getting there. little slow due to zero experience in this. What he is looking for a decent computer science college and not too far from home. I did google on the Ohio colleges and see these ones may be a good choice ?
Ohio State University
University of Cincinnatti
West Virginia looks good as well … but by ranking it looks comparitively low.
Meanwhile I will google ALabama, Mississipi, FSU as well.
Wow, what a cool little program. I can see this as being a great option for the right kid. And so inexpensive, too, even for OOS.
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He sounds like a great kid! He has worked hard in high school, taking rigorous classes and getting good grades. It must be discouraging to hear so much pessimism about “top” schools.
The factors limiting his options are:
- The extreme competitiveness of Computer Science at schools that admit by major
- His unweighted GPA, which is perfectly respectable but being top 25%, not top 10%, lowers his odds at the most competitive schools
- SAT - again respectable but won’t help him at top schools. (It might be worth trying an ACT practice test to see whether he has more of a knack for that test.)
- Budget - there are many great schools where he could get in but where there’s no chance of attending for 40K or less.
So, it isn’t that there’s anything wrong with your son; it’s just that you’re trying to thread a needle here in terms of wanting a “top” school at a “bargain” price, and not having the through-the-roof stats that are needed to land such a bargain. (Yes, it’s insane that we think of 40K/year as a bargain now.)
Definitely run net price calculators for schools like Lehigh, to make 100% sure that you wouldn’t qualify for need-based aid - sometimes people are surprised that they do.
Regarding your list…
- Private LAC’s that don’t admit by major, like Wake Forest - if you don’t qualify for need-based aid, the net cost can easily reach more than double your budget. To get enough merit aid to bring the cost down, he’d need to look at less competitive schools. The schools that fit financially may not be as strong in CS, and may not have as (for lack of a better word) “nerdy” of a cohort as he would like. You could try some like College of Wooster in Ohio (which is known for student research and thus attracts a lot of serious STEM students) or Clark in MA, that are more generous with merit aid.
- OOS publics
In NC you’re going to have to go second-tier to get in and get to your budget. And really, what’s the point of that when the second-tier schools in VA are just as good and even cheaper?
UT Dallas could actually be a nice fit for his interests and personality - it’s great for CS and attracts tons of serious students, in part because of the generous merit they offer for NMF - but he can’t get that merit money, so you’re probably looking at 60K/year or so.
Pitt could be a great fit for him, but you’re probably looking at more like 55K/year. Penn State is similar, I think.
Michigan State is going to be closer to 60K/year. You might look at Michigan Tech, which is a great STEM school, not horribly hard to get into (in part because the location doesn’t have universal appeal), and comes in under 45K/year - In State
VT - I don’t know the intricacies of competitiveness-by-major here; maybe someone who does could weigh in on whether there’s a CS-adjacent major that could be acceptable to him but have better odds.
I think UVA is going to be tough without being top 10%. (Yes, this makes it very hard on all of the strong students in Northern Virginia who, as the old joke goes, “make the top 10% of the class possible.”)
W&M - same problem as UVA, but it’s a little easier admit for men than women, and they don’t admit by major so the CS disadvantage isn’t a factor. It’s worth a try. And as I mentioned earlier, there’s the Richard Bland campus as another way in.
Plenty of attainable and affordable options in the next tier
If you’re looking farther from home now (as the Texas schools suggest), do consider Utah, which would easily meet your four-year budget with their residency deal, and which does have a very strong CS program. Colorado School of Mines is a great STEM school that could be in reach, but COA is around 62K/year for OOS. The Minnesota schools are great for CS - the Twin Cities flagship campus would cost close to 55K/year, but the Morris campus, which is a public liberal arts college with a very strong CS department, is under 30K/year. He could start at Morris and spend all four years there if he’s happy with it, or do an internal transfer to the main campus as a junior and still come close to your 4-year budget. Others to consider: NJIT, SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Geneseo (public liberal arts college with a good CS department), U of Maine (affordable with their flagship match program), WVU, South Carolina Honors, tOSU/Cincinnati/Miami Ohio, U of Alabama Huntsville (not at all like 'Bama in vibe - a STEM-focused school in a STEM-focused city - Huntsville is a hub of the aerospace industry and has the highest per capita population of PhD’s in the US. It’s a great deal with auto-merit and I hear the dorms are extra-nice!)
Hope that helps!
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Don’t get hung up on rankings. And if you can get into an honors program at a large public university with significant merit money or scholarships, then you have the chance to get a high quality education at a reduced price. Win-win.
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Forget the rankings. Rankings sell magazines. They are not important in real life.
Making sure you don’t strangle yourself financially is. And if you choose rank, you will do that but end up in a similar job as the less ranked or known school. So you need to stop looking at them. You can look at curriculums or your son can - to see if they have areas of interest within CS.
If you want to be not too far from home then Ohio may be too far. How far is too far ? How big a school does he want ?
Your student is not competitive for top schools with his statistics.
But he will still get into very good programs.
He should be involved in this exercise, not just you.
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what we are looking for is School that has a strong computer science and possibly math, information systems/ Data analytics majors and can groom him well
- How far : neighboring states virginia south and east probably… want to keep the out of state option only if he cannot get thru into UVA/ Virginia Tech/ William & MAry …
Do you think applying Undecided in UVA and early Action makes a better chance?
Same question for Virginia Tech/ William and Mary
Early Decision at W&M would boost his odds, but that’s binding. If he would be happy to go there if admitted, applying ED to W&M could make sense; but he’d have to be willing to withdraw his VT app if admitted to W&M. Or, he could do ED to VT and ED2 to W&M if VT doesn’t work out.
One way to get perspective on where he stands, admissions-wise, is to look at a given school’s Common Data Set. Here is the most recent one available for UVA: https://ira.virginia.edu/data-analytics/cds/2021-2022 If you look in the freshman admissions section, you can see where admitted students fell in terms of stats. What really stands out is that almost 90% of admitted students were in the top 10% of their class (and probably many of the ones who were below the top 10% were recruited athletes or students from underrepresented parts of the state). This data is available for most schools if you want to make comparisons.
Re: Data Analytics, VT has the Computational Modeling & Data Analytics major, but I have no idea whether it’s any easier to get into than CS. Hopefully there’s someone here who’s more of a VA expert and can advise on that.
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So sometimes data analytics is in the business school. Typically, IS is in the business school.
Most schools will have strong math - at least for where a student like this will be.
I’d assume he’s not going to get into UVA/Va Tech/W&M. That said, you still apply and hope - but also, W&M, a mid size and not large campus is very different than a Va Tech - which is huge. So which does he prefer? It’s why I keep asking about size.
VA has so many good publics - VCU, GMU, CNU, JMU, ODU - my gosh, I’m jealous. You really don’t need to go outside. Even publics, schools like Randolph Macon - it’s just a question of cost, etc on the privates.
You cannot go East of Virginia - so you mean directly West?
No - if you have a major of interest, you apply for the major. But Info Systems and Computer Science are very very different. And they are typically not in the same school. If you don’t know what you want, yes, you can go undecided. But you have to check each school - transferring into these schools once you are there may not be easy - whereas math will likely always be easy.
If a school has a program, it will likely be fine for your student.
But now you’ve introduced the business school or the CS school - so your student really needs to study curriculums to see what interests him more.
On the other hand, at 17, he doesn’t yet need to know this.
There will be many schools in VA or neighboring states - even a Marshall, Salisbury, UNCC, WCU or ECU - that will be inexpensive and fine.
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How do we see the need aid ? Some pointers on that ?
Every school has a Net Price Calculator link on their admissions website.
Here’s Lehigh’s, just by way of example: Net Price Calculator
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Rising Senior
Just curious, but have you/your son visited any college campuses? Do you plan to before submitting applications?
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So @aquapt gave you a net price calculator. You want to see how much need aid , if any you’d get. That will help us guide you.
Another kind of thing to look for at some, not most, publics, is a scholarship page.
You find your place on the table and compare to that school’s tuition.
For fun, I’ve attached Alabama, Alabama Huntsville (smaller school), and Mizzou U of Missouri).
At Alabama your son would get a scholarship of
$24000. Plus $2500 for his SAT (for CS, not business).
Cost of attendance today is estimated at just under $56k so you’d be under $30,000 fir CS or $32k for MIS.
At UAH you’d get $17,700 off.
Cost of attendance is $43,300 so your net about $25,600.
These two schools I included the total estimated cost including transportation, books, miscellaneous. So the actual net cost is a few thousand less.
I mention this because the next school is Mizzou - University of Missouri. It’s a bit farther but just for example purposes. They show tuition, room and board at $52k (no extras) at at $21.5k off you are a bit over $30k. But this does not include books, travel etc.
To stay closer I ran WVU for you. You’d get $16.5k off in CS. Their cost - like Mizzou - just tuition, room and board is about $38k. So you’d be about $22k without books and travel.
With merit you typically need to keep good grades. Some a 3.0, some higher so you want to check that as well.
But these schools and many many more will give big money to someone like your son.
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While 730 is a strong grade, he would help his cause by raising his math SAT. CMU’s CompSci 25th and 75th percentiles for math are both 800.
Is there a reason you are looking for an OOS public when Virginia has so many in-state options?
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Did OP mention CMU ? I don’t recall seeing.
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Me neither. But I do recall seeing a 40k budget limit, and no mention of being eligible for need based aid.