Our 3rd of three kids is a Junior in HS (the other two are underclassmen working on their Bachelors degrees now). She is looking to study Computer Science. Our budget is $25-30K per year, figuring four years which should be do-able considering she’ll be starting with a good number of AP credits (1 as a sophomore, 5 as a junior, probably just 3 as a senior as she is pursuing a research internship that will require her to leave two class periods early, and she’ll use the available timeslots to take AP Physics, AP Calc BC and AP English, plus the two classes she has left in the Comp Sci career academy which aren’t AP). She has looked at big schools and small schools and wants to go to a big school–she has said if it doesn’t have a marching band it’s not big enough. She seems to like schools with a lot of school spirit. Not a tech school, because she wants options in case she doesn’t like Comp Sci. Her unweighted GPA is 3.5, weighted GPA is 4.2 (end of sophomore year), she’s taken the SAT once and got 1410 (plans to take it again). Not sure what her class rank is, but it’s probably between top 15 and 25 percent. She’s active in the HS band (leadership roles), captain of a self organized HS club sport (played all 3 years), NHS member, members of music, math and tech honor societies, very active in the robotics club (she just started robotics this year), hoping to complete her GS Gold Award, and will probably have two impressive internships on her resume by the time she applies to college next fall. She’s a go-getter. She’s ideally looking to go somewhere that’s 6-8 hrs from the DC area. Somewhere that doesn’t have a reputation for lacking diversity. Ideally somewhere that there’s opportunities nearby (near a city, not necessarily IN the city, the outskirts of the city are fine). Not somewhere that is really super cold or really super hot.
Her list currently includes NC State, U of South Carolina, U of Maryland (in-state for us) and Ohio State. I’m having trouble determining if Rutgers New Brunswick, or NC State give any significant amount of merit aid to non-residents. We’d appreciate feedback on that, and any other suggestions of places to consider that offer good merit aid to non-residents.
Agree w/ @thumper1 . We live in LA, but know alot of kids going to Bama for the guaranteed merit. Tuition & fees is about $30k for OOS, so w/ some good merit it might work. It’s pretty freaking hot down here though. So I don’t know where weather ranks on your child’s list. LOL
Kids who graduate from UMD with Computer science degrees are doing very well finding jobs making a lot of money, if that matters. UMD is a great school with several highly ranked programs. My son, declared a business major in HS, picked UMD over some higher ranked places where he got scholarships, because he would have so many really good options if he changed majors. (He did stick with business, and is doing well, but not making as much as his CS friends).
I believe Rutgers does have some merit scholarships such as President scholarship, Scarlet scholarship etc. However, I believe it isn’t a very transparent process and those who get them have above 2300 /2400 on the SAT and 4.0 GPA etc. You also have to apply by certain dates to be eligible. So you may want to give them a call.
@theloniusmonk My experience has led me to believe that you never know what’ll happen (kids seem to get it to schools that you would never expect, and get rejected from schools that seem like a sure thing) but I would think her odds of getting into Maryland are pretty good. A large number of kids from her high school go there, and she’s interested in going somewhere new. Plus she’s very wary of being somewhere that her parents could easily pop in for lunch. She still may end up there for financial reasons and I’m sure she’d be fine. It is a good school.
@thumper1@ChaosParent23 both my husband and I visited Alabama (two separate trips, I took S18 before he applied, and my husband took him after he was admitted and he was trying to decide where to go ). We were all very impressed. It made my son’s shortlist but he ultimately decided to go elsewhere. If I was choosing that’s where he would’ve gone. ?
She went to high school where you could pop in for lunch, and yet you didn’t. I bet you’d have trouble finding her on a campus of 30,000+ if you didn’t tell her you were coming.
I went to school 45 minutes from home. My parents never ever stopped by. My nephew went there and found it was fine as his mother would come and buy him brunch on Sunday mornings and then go away. He never had to devote an entire weekend to his parents visiting. In, out, dad would come to fix the car, he’d run home for a meal and to stock up on free groceries. Worked for everyone.
My son was accepted as a computer science major at both the University of Maryland and the University of Delaware. UDel gave him a merit scholarship that would have made the cost of attending their school comparable to the cost of attending Maryland. These people are not stupid. They know how much money to offer you.
He ended up going to Maryland and has never regretted it. He later got a master’s degree in computer science and has had a series of very good jobs.
That said, the credentials that my son had, quite a few years ago, probably wouldn’t get him into Maryland today. He could probably still get into UDel, though. They welcome out-of-staters.
For school spirit and marching bands I’d suggest both Syracuse and Michigan but whether those fit depend upon what you mean by the exclusionary criteria of “very cold”. Neither is Minneapolis. Doesn’t usually get much below 0. There is that snow thing, averaging 130" for Syracuse and something like 50" for Ann Arbor. But you didn’t mention how she feels about snow.
She still may end up there for financial reasons and I’m sure she’d be fine. It is a good school.