<p>I'm new to CC, but I already love it! I'm a senior right now, so I've gotta decide quickly on where I want to go. I really need some advice on finding colleges. I want to major in CS, but I want to go to a liberal arts college so that I can easily change majors later on. I'd also like a college that doesn't have a sole focus on academics and I'd prefer to be in California or the Northeast.</p>
<p>Grades/Tests:</p>
<p>4.0 UW GPA, 4.8 Academic Weighted GPA
SAT - 2340 800-Math, 760-Reading,780-Writing
7 AP's (all 5's)
5 SAT II's (all 800 except US History-790)</p>
<p>EC's/Sports:
Cross Country
Tennis
Peer Tutoring Club-Board Member, also tutored person in Computer Science
Robotics Club-President
IT Intern at Operation Hope (non-profit organization)
Research Intern at Harvey Mudd for Computer Science (no paper, though)
Pumpkin Launch (Engineering Competition)
Dave Wittry (High School Programming Competition, 2nd place)
Created forum for a professor at Carnegie Mellon</p>
<p>Awards:
AP Scholar w/ distinction
Scholar Athlete
Top 100
CSF</p>
<p>Any help would be appreciated and thanks in advance!</p>
<p>Lots of non-LACs are easy to change majors at, at least to those majors typically offered at LACs (often not to majors like engineering or business, but these are much less commonly offered at LACs). What are the other majors that you may be interested in?</p>
<p>Talk to your parents about the cost constraints, and be sure to run the net price calculator on each school’s web site.</p>
<p>Yes, I am a California Resident. I do not think my parents are lower income, but I am most likely going to need FA.
What I meant by going to a liberal arts college was that I wanted a college that also had non-engineering majors, but I might have been a little confused.</p>
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to a liberal arts college was that I wanted a college that also had non-engineering majors, but I might have been a little confused.</p>
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<p>Yes, you are confused. Univs have MORE majors than LACs. Univs have many, many non-engineering majors (usually more than 80 non-engineering majors).</p>
<p>Did you really think that univs are mostly engineering majors? Usually the Col of Eng’g at a univ is just a small % of the univ. Usually Arts & Sciences is the largest college in a univ…and that is where most of the majors usually are.</p>
<p>Your FA will be based on your parents’ income/assets. It is not based on you saying that you need FA. Have your parents run the NPCs at various schools’ websites to get an idea of how much your family will be expected to pay at each school. Each school will have different results…so try a couple of UCs, some CSUs, some top privates, and some mid-level privates. OOS publics will likely give you the least aid unless you qualify for merit.</p>
<p>Ask your parents how much they will pay for college.</p>
<p>Thank you for clearing that up! As for money, they gave me a rough estimate of somewhere around $200k total. And I was hoping to go to a college with a good business program as well.</p>
<p>CMU seems to be super focused on academics. Sounds like this student wants something with academics and social…</p>
<p>Probably doesn’t want the techie schools…</p>
<p>So…look at:</p>
<p>USC
Santa Clara
UCLA
UCB
UIUC
Purdue
and any of the top NE schools with good CS.</p>
<p>My nephew did CS at Tufts. While the program was good and he walked right into a great job after graduation, he didn’t like the atmosphere there. He was an athlete there which provided some social aspect, but he says that if he hadn’t had that he would have left.</p>
<p>In-state UCs and CSUs are obvious candidates for your list – at in-state list price, they will be much less than that amount. Even many out-of-state publics would be within range. However, the most expensive private schools are over $60,000 per year at list price, so you would need financial aid or scholarships for them.</p>
<p>“He was an athlete there which provided some social aspect, but he says that if he hadn’t had that he would have left.”</p>
<p>This may have been your nephew’s perception, but athletics and those involved in them are certainly not the only “social aspect” at Tufts. The great thing about Tufts is that there is no defining “atmosphere”. All sorts of kids thrive there.</p>
<p>This may have been your nephew’s perception, but athletics and those involved in them are certainly not the only “social aspect” at Tufts. The great thing about Tufts is that there is no defining “atmosphere”. All sorts of kids thrive there.</p>
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<p>Yes, it is true that it is only his perspective, but I trust it because he is a good-looking extremely personable young man who makes friends easily. He found the school unfriendly and people often just stayed in their rooms. He and his athlete pals would take the public transportation to MIT to add to their social lives. </p>
<p>Hmm. I have had lots of feedback from two recent Tufts grads as well as three current students (including D), at least a few of whom are “extremely good-looking and personable and make friends easily” (to borrow your criteria), and whose feedback I trust (regardless of how good-looking and personable they are).</p>
<p>None of them found or find the school either unfriendly or inclined to nurture kids’ hermetic tendencies. In fact, in their experience, people are about as friendly as you can imagine and look for plenty of opportunities to get out and about and not shelter away in their dorm rooms. I would never generalize about any school and say that there aren’t those students who fit your nephew’s description. But again, maybe the specific culture of Tufts’ was just antithetical to your nephew’s personality? </p>
<p>Actually a big negative with CMU is that you apply to a specific college (CS, Engineering, Arts and Sciences, etc) and switching later is just like transferring to a totally different school. Not all U’s work this way but CMU definitely does. This is part of the reason my D dropped it from her list. </p>