out of state colleges suggestions

College Search & Selection
1

Hi everyone.
I just came cross this site and first time posting. It’s great that parents come here to share experience and seek help.
we live in Texas. we have a 10th grader boy who is interested in Computer Engineering/Science. Best public school is University Of Texas Austin. But it’s very competitive. In order to get that major, you probably have to rank 3-5% in your school. He is in a high school that is also very competitive. In order to get top 6%, you probably have to have 5.6 GPA (lot’s of AP). He will probably have pretty good above 5.0 GPA but may not rank into 5%. Hence he may not be able to get to UT Austin with the major he wants.

here are some quick realities:

  1. he will not likely get into private Ivy schools
  2. he may not be guaranteed to a good major in UT Austin.

while he still is trying his best to get UT Austin, we are exploring other possibilities with anticipation that he will have pretty good GPA and test scores (SAT etc).

So we are thinking of getting him into some good engineering schools out of state (potentially public) knowing that we have to pay pretty high out of state tuition.

I wonder if anyone can share some your own experience of having your kids going out of state public schools? Is it worth the money and effort or just settle tier 2 public schools in your own state?

2

I think this is very, very family dependent. If you can comfortably afford OOS public tuition without taking a hit to your retirement account or taking out loans, than yep, there are some amazing OOS public schools that would be awesome to consider for CS. UIUC, U of Washington, GT, Michigan, Purdue, etc… Note that they are all very, very competitive for CS and some have a competitive transition to major requirement.

Not sure though that I would call TAMU a Tier 2 school since their CS program is ranked in the T50.

PS. A lot will depend on his test scores too.

3

It sounds like your son is doing great! Yes, I agree Texas A&M would be a great choice too, unless the environment is just not a good fit.

The answer is very family/student specific, since the complete application package is very important for merit aid and the family financial picture very important for need-based aid. You can’t look at just the “sticker price.” What students pay varies greatly, in some ways like airfare pricing. For example, Case Western Reserve U. (CWRU, “Crew”) is an outstanding STEM university in Cleveland, with a medical school and research hospital immediately adjacent to campus. It has a high sticker price, but a high % of students receive significant merit aid, which can often bring the price down to more like $30k to $45k per year. But it varies greatly.

You can google colleges that meet full financial need. Things to keep in mind. They might calculate your contribution at more than you feel comfortable paying. Or, they might be “need aware,” and it might be more difficult for a student who requires a lot of aid to get a yes from admissions. But, at least there is a commitment and a claim to meet full need.

Google Miami of Ohio merit aid for a very simple chart showing merit aid eligibility by grades/test scores. The school, which is excellent has engineering. This is a good example of a way to find out what amount of aid your son might anticipate. Some excellent public schools offer similarly concise descriptions of merit aid by grades/test scores. I’m thinking of Kansas, KSU, Iowa, Iowa State, Nebraska, Alabama, etc. (KU and KSU are in great college towns!)

If your son is hands-on and project-oriented, check out WPI in Worcester, MA. It’s a mid-size national STEM university with a beautiful campus in a nice area of Worcester. It is notably hands-on and project-oriented. Students take 3 classes at a time and do lots of internships, etc. It’s not well known in TX, but students have some of the highest starting salaries of any school. It’s done well in admissions and attracts very excellent students.

Last tip: having gone through this 3 times, I’d suggest focusing more on fun and learning what’s a good fit and less on where one can get accepted. Is an urban school better? Would a University of Alabama, with big-time football, and all that be better for your son, or a CWRU or WPI, where the vast majority of students are STEM majors and sports are an important part of the culture but not so big-time? Would Colorado School of Mines, with the Rockies and lots of outdoor opportunities be better?

Exploring a little can take the edge off too. Say WPI looked like a great fit. You all wanted to see it and arranged a trip up that way, with trips to other excellent schools like Rochester, RIT, RPI, etc. Well, if possible, allow a day in the middle just to visit the Berkshires or Boston or some other area of interest while you are there. We always stayed positive and tried to explore a bit and have lots of great memories of those trips. For example, we visited several Midwest schools with one of ours. We took a day off to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin home and do a beer and pizza trip on Lake Mendota in Madison, WI. Made it feel more like a vacation than a slog.

Last, last tip: If you do decide to visit more than a couple of OOS schools, take notes–tour guide’s name, info session host’s name, important pro and cons FOR YOUR SON, and just funny, offbeat things that happen. Those can really jog the memory later.

Good luck, have fun!

4

If your son ends up not being competitive for UT Austin, I would not count on admission to OOS schools like UIUC, Purdue, etc.

I don’t see why your son needs to go out-of-state. You are fortunate to have lots of good options in Texas. You really need to look at all the in-state schools and not focus on rankings. One school may be considered better in one area while the other considered better in another area. And “better” doesn’t really matter if the school isn’t a place where your child can thrive.

Nearly 1/3 of students change their major, so don’t focus specifically on CE/CS but look for schools with multiple options. (source: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2018/2018434.pdf).

Go for some visits. In addition to the tours that are offered, ask to meet with somebody from the department, and find out more about their programs. See which programs peak your son’s interest. One of my kids ended up at a school that was originally at the bottom of the list, but after a couple of visits, it moved to the top.

5

OOS private schools are more likely to give merit or need based aid to bring the cost down somewhat than a public school will. Why are you focused on public schools? Run net price calculators (on the school website, usually on the financial aid page) at RPI, Rose Hulman, Case Western.

6

We are from TX. Son wanted to go OOS and was top 11% in HS so just didn’t even want to bother with UT or A&M. He ended up at Kansas State University with a fantastic OOS scholarship (there are also alumni scholarships if you are in the Dallas or Houston area - he got that too). We knew nothing about it before visiting and he fell in love with the students and faculty. They have a great honors program and an excellent study abroad program. We pay basically in state TX tuition. They also had a great program for him and he has departmental scholarship and will be able to to into his grad program after 3 years. He is going into their vet school. He has a 4.0 (pre med classes), knows kids from all over the US and other countries and was just elected president of his fraternity. Plenty of things to do, great college town. A lot of his frat brothers are CS or Computer Engineering.

For us the OOS public as been great. He is on a first name basis with a major corporation CEO, has research opportunities and is going to Switzerland this summer. It is possible to find lots of OOS publics with excellent OOS scholarships. We looked at Auburn, Mississippi State, Iowa State (also great for CS and engineering), Texas Tech, and Colorado State (not quite as good OOS deals but great campus). Just look for what they have. You would be surprised what you can find! Visiting really showed us what he liked and didn’t.

7

Why is Texas A&M engineering being viewed as “second tier” in comparison to UTexas?

Anyway, there are many, many fine engineering programs in this country, and Texas doesn’t just have one. Seems silly to pay a lot of money to go OOS for an engineering degree.

I know that many Texans do go OOS for engineering, but not to get a better eng’g experience. Many do so because they can get large merit at other schools that also have fine engineering.

States usually spend a lot of money on having strong engineering programs in their states because they need engineers…so usually each state has several good eng’g programs. While I know little about Texas Tech, it probably also has a very fine engineering program as well.

There’s not much if any ROI for spending more money on an eng’g degree elsewhere. My sister found this out (painfully) after paying full freight for both kids to get eng’g degrees at pricey top privates. Her kids aren’t being paid more than their colleagues who went to CSU Long Beach or San Diego State or UCDavis, or Arizona or Purdue, or wherever. Imagine after spending $250k EACH for 2 kids’ pricey educations only to have their colleagues get paid the same when those colleagues spent maybe $40k-100k total at a CSU, UC, or a school that would have given her kids large merit?

Both of my kids went to undergrad for nearly free on large merit. One was a Chemical Engineering major and he got free tuition, plus $4500 per year. The other son was a math major with a NMF award. Our net costs for each kid was minuscule. My sister’s kids were in college at the same time as mine, so she really sees how their “investment” didn’t make any difference.

Anyway, don’t pay attention to rankings. They’re rather meaningless. The state of Calif has over 25 very good engineering programs alone. Texas probably has at least 10-15 good engineering programs. Look for ABET accreditation and good/updated facilities…that’s what matters.

8

When we toured AU (Auburn), I met a fellow that was from TX. His HS had a lot of students go to TAMU, and he felt like his life would be an extension of HS if he went there (not IMHO). I do think there are a lot of wonderful programs that are budget friendly for high stat kids. I am not surprised by what was found at Kansas State U. In HS, there are a number of one week summer HS student introduction to engineering programs and one long time one was in Kansas. Another at UA. Another at Purdue…

9

As long as he applies himself it doesn’t matter where he goes for the most part. (sans the REAL high end programs).
just saying.

10

There is huge variance among public colleges regarding aid to out-of-staters. Ones that are generous include Oklahoma State, Alabama, Nebraska, Florida State, Mississippi, Mississippi State,Kansas State, Kansas,Iowa State. Go ot their web sites & look for scholarships for out-of-state freshmen. The aid can be scholarships, a waiver of the out-of-state portion of tuition, or both. Some aid is automatic based on gpa & act/sat, while some will give you minimum gpas & act/sat but aid isn’t automatic.

11

“If your son ends up not being competitive for UT Austin, I would not count on admission to OOS schools like UIUC, Purdue, etc.”

Purdue is not a crazy difficult admit. Illinois is more so, but again, not crazy. Texas can be very tough with the newer auto admit rules.

If you want a school with great CS and CompE, without the giant classes and heavy use of TAs, look at Cal Poly.

12

However, both are significantly more competitive to get admitted to the CS major than to the campus generally. Undeclared students will face another competitive admission process (mainly based on college grades/GPA) to get into the CS major later.

13

Thank you, @ucbalumnus. That’s what I meant but didn’t articulate well.

14

It should be noted that CS at Cal Poly is on par with the most competitive admits in the nation. They project 5297 applicants for 100 slots. He may want to consider Software Engineering. Both SEs and CSs get good jobs, but for whatever reason, probably simple lack of awareness, SE is less popular and thus less competitive.

15

Here is my 2 cents from another TX Mom. We are full pay and I told both my boys we’d pay up to TX instate public rates. If they were able to find a private or out of state public for that price great but I wasn’t paying more when there are tons of great TX options.

Younger son is a senior this year and wants computer science/engineering. He is top 3% 1490 SAT and 33 ACT. Applied to and accepted at A&M, UT Dallas, Arkansas and UT (have not heard if he got computer science yet) UT Dallas gave him full tuition plus $6000 a year. I’m expecting some money from AR but maybe not as good as UT Dallas. Expecting $0 from A&M and UT. I explained to him when we started this process there were out of state publics that might work money wise- AL, Miss St etc and he was not interested in going too far. I looked into OK schools but gathered that they would end up more than willing to pay.

Older son is now a junior in Chemical Engineering at Arkansas. His stats were not as high but he did get the 90% difference of out of state tuition. We have been more than pleased with the education he is getting there. 1st 2 years when he was in dorms I think we paid about $22,000 a year.

Every family is different. We could afford the $60,000 a year for a private we are just not willing. Nothing at all wrong with people who are able and do we just felt like for Engineering/Computer Science the price difference was not worth it.

Good luck on your search.

16

Wisconsin. Great CS without the restrictions. Very UT like environment.

17

Check out Ohio State. The merit scholarships brought tuition down to near Ohio instate levels and actually less than our own in state level.
There is also an opportunity for full tuition scholarships but not sure what this require as we did not attempt those.

18

TTG makes some great points…

19

I would wait on test scores, did he sit a PSAT this year?