I was just going to suggest U of Rochester, but @quietdesperation beat me to it. Well respected engineering school, merit awards, and the Eastman school of music. RPI might also be worth a look, they also offer merit.
@TooOld4School - Vanderbilt has wonderful faculty for his instrument, but socially I don’t know whether it would be a good fit. DS is nerdy (loves Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, video games, etc.) and doesn’t drink or party. Thoughts?
@quietdesperation - If he got into CMU without a scholarship, I would be tempted, but it would be unfair to our younger son after giving our older one (currently a college freshman) a limit for what we would pay, so it is not an option.
@svcamom - I am surprised your son was told not to apply to the CSUs listed above. Our older son (now a college freshman) was admitted to several of them as a CS major, including Fullerton and Sonoma, despite a 3.25 GPA and 24 ACT score: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1788351-chances-for-csu-or-even-uc-as-computer-science-major-with-low-gpa-p1.html
@quietdesperation - My son plays a large instrument, so taking a bus between the main campus and Eastman (or JHU and Peabody, Harvard and NEC, etc.) is not a feasible option. Thank you!
@eandesmom - Luckily my son doesn’t play the violin or flute, but rather a large, rather unpopular instrument, so I doubt he will have difficulty getting into an orchestra. He is also one of the best players of his instrument in his age group (has played since the age of 6, and has won awards in international competitions).
@carlsbadbruin , My son’s school advised us to not apply to the impacted schools. That they are not excepting new students in those areas of study. My son is interested in Electrical/Electronic Engineering- a pretty popular major, he will be graduating in 2018. I think it has to do with Governor Jerry Browns decision to not give financial aid to OOS starting this year. A lot of OOS were applying to UC’s because of financial aid that was given out. California parents complained to the governor that their own kids weren’t getting into the UC’s because instate kids paid less tuition and OOS paid more. So I think that the OOS are now going to the CSU’s(cheaper than UC’s) and now those programs are impacted.
With an unweighted GPA of 4.0 (UC/CSU GPA is probably 4.3 or so) and 770/760 SAT M/CR, his CSU EI is probably around 4970 (4.3 * 800 + 770 + 760), which is not far from the maximum possible. Even if his UC/CSU GPA is only 4.0 (pessimal assumption with respect to honors +1 points), his CSU EI would be 4730.
http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/ indicates that SJSU’s most selective major last year was CS, which had an EI threshold of 4550. Yes, SJSU and many other CSUs are impacted, but it seems unlikely that they would all have EI thresholds (even for their most impacted majors) that are higher than your son’s probable EI.
The CSU impacted programs printout is probably this: http://www.calstate.edu/sas/documents/ImpactedProgramsMatrix.pdf . Most CSU impaction information is at http://www.calstate.edu/sas/impactioninfo.shtml .
At CSUs, impacted programs are those which have higher thresholds for admission than the campus overall, and impacted campuses are those which have higher thresholds for admission to the campus (in non-impacted majors) than the CSU minimum EI threshold of 2900 (for California residents).
@ucbalumnus - my son’s MCA score was just about 5000, which hopefully will be enough for Cal Poly CS. It’s crazy how competitive admissions has become, especially for majors such as CS. For UCB, the CS admission rate last year for EECS was only 7%.
Update: DS has submitted apps to all of the schools listed in the original post, plus Vanderbilt. We’ll see if he receives any merit from U of W or any of the private schools. I’ll update this thread in case it is useful for future parents/students with similar financial situations and interest in both CS and music.
I bet he will end up with some great choices!
My '16 grad daughter had similar stats and ended up with merit from Mudd and UW that would have brought her costs into your range for Mudd, and close to it for UW. Sadly, our limit was lower, so cost was the factor that took both schools off her list.
I do have an older daughter at UW on the GI Bill, and it really is a wonderful place.