Please advise CSE colleges

Parent Cafe
1

My DD is a Junior on the east coast. We are trying to come up a list of colleges for visiting.

Her statistics –

GPA UW close to 3.9, W 4.2,
AP Chem – 4, AP Comp Sci – 4,
First attempt SAT 1550,
Single-sitting ACT 35 (both without any tutoring)

The courses she has taken so far -
Freshman – English Honors, French , Chemistry, , Biology, Alg2/Trig(Honors), PE
Sophomore – English Honors, French, AP Chem, Pre-Calc Honors, AP Comp Sci, PE
Junior – AP English Lang, AP French, Physics Honors, AP Calc AB, AP Stat, US History

Likely courses for the next year - AP English Lit, AP Physics, AP Calc BC, Govt, Eco (OR APGovt,AP Eco -not sure of the school policy yet), Art, 1 elective.

ECs - Model UN, Robotics, job, Community service, National Honor society, etc.

Hook - girl in engineering - if that is applicable

She wants to study Computer Science/Engineering or a Math major with Computer Science minor. Also, she would like to continue studies with a masters degree though she has not decided about yet (could be MA/MS/MBA)

We move very frequently because of the job situation so would prefer a school with low OOS COA or private where she could get significant merit scholarships. We will not qualify for need based aid.

Our budget is around 40K per year including any student loans and summer job, however we would like to stay in the 30-35K range as far as possible (she will still take the loan, and the job; we will save some $).

For personal reasons, she does not want to be in the mid-west region.

She will strongly prefer a medium to large sized fairly well known ABET accredited college in an urban or suburban setting.

D is not much of a party girl, does not want to drink but LOVES hanging out with friends. Likes being outdoors, hiking, river crossing, kayaking, etc. Since she likes to be outdoors, I am leaning towards warmer climate universities for her. She strongly prefers school name over the climate though.

We have come up with a preliminary list of colleges but would really appreciate inputs from members of this wonderful forum.

We are looking for direct admission to major. Or low college GPA requirement for the continuation to major. I have heard that some universities like Perdue, Texas, and VTech demand high cutoffs for CSE. That is not as easy to achieve considering all the changes the students go through during the first year.

When we were in CA, she liked USC, UCB, and UCSD when she went there for her ECs. We did not really take any tours.

As suggested by many parents earlier, BAMA, UAH, Pitt are on the list to visit.

Others are UFlorida, SUNY Bing, SUNY Stony Brook, Cal Poly SLO, ASU Barett, UMass Amherst, NCSU.

We are kind of unsure about the merit money offers from RPI, WPI, USC, RIT, Santa Clara University, UMD College Park, Embry Riddle, U of Colorado. Are these worth pursuing considering the COAs are 50-70k versus our capacity to pay is 40k at the most. Do these institutes give 30-40k in merit aid for her stats?

Chapman representative talked about the new Engineering facility.

We are NOT restricting to any particular region except mid-west. Her fit and the opportunities at that price range matter the most.

She would like to look for some more reaches. I do not know if there are any such colleges in my budget. What am I missing?

What other colleges/ universities will you suggest?

TIA!

1 Like
2

It’s too bad you/she resist the Midwest. A lot of diversity in the different states. Some excellent flagship U’s and top notch math and CS options. I look at the list of the many schools you mention and do not see the elite ones for math or CS. btw- it’s Purdue, a public U in Indiana (ie Midwest).

She should look at grad school rankings for fields she is interested in to get an idea where schools fall. Good undergrads will take grad level courses. Top ten or closer to top one hundred? Math and computer science have overlapping courses- crosslisted in both departments. Think of computer engineering as hardware and computer science as software. Some schools only do majors- one could double major in math and CS for example.

Your list is all over the map. Be wary of schools touting their departments. She will need to make lists of many factors and prioritize them. She seems to already have eliminated several top schools in the fields of interest as they are in the Midwest. Her current stats suggest she is a good student but not extraordinary (might not be MIT material…).

Consider size of departments in any given school. Ten versus one hundred in a major may mean huge differences in course offerings and professor depth. Many, many factors.

3

@collegeandi of the list Santa Clara is notoriously low on scholarship dollars. I love the school and both husband and I are graduates. S matriculated to WPI, but also applied to Santa Clara among others. He had good stats, great extracurricular and was a legacy with 4 family attending previously (both parents and 2 aunts/uncles) Scholarship offer was 10K annually which we were actually pleasantly surprised by. I think they give out few merit scholarships that are large…that said it doesn’t hurt to apply and see. Santa Clara is a very well respected school and graduates are highly valued in the job market.

4

Our son is applying for CS this year to some of the schools on your list. We decided not to apply to Purdue because of the reasons you state. Your daughter’s stats are great so I think she could do very well with merit at some privates. I would look into University of Washington, Seattle as well. Excellent program and they give OOS merit. UCSB and UCI also have excellent CS programs. I would apply to USC since she could get scholarship money there. They definitely try to recruit women to Viterbi.

My son was admitted with a scholarship to Chapman U EA and we really love the school. We attended a prospective students day in which they went over the CS program. Orange County has many tech businesses and their department makes an effort to bring them in to help structure their program. We were very impressed with their program offerings, research possibilities and future job prospects. Also, their new Engineering building where CS will be housed looks gorgeous. She could apply there as a safety and probably get one of the better scholarships.

5

Cal Poly SLO – might be interesting for her to look at – reasonable out of state cost about $40k with lots of outdoor activities, hiking, kayaking and beach nearby. Wonderful weather. Medium sized. Five year Masters program. Excellent job prospects with most Silicon Valley companies hiring Cal Poly grads. Cal Poly also has a Software Engineering major with more Math then CS major typically requires --which was ranked best Software Engineering B.S. program in the country by College Choice this past year. Best of Luck.

6

However, Washington offers some CS applicants direct admission to the CS major, but others to an undeclared status that leads to a highly competitive admission process later if they enroll. Pay attention to whether the admission offer includes direct admission to the CS major.

The same caution applies to some other schools like UCSD and UIUC.

7

Thank you, @chel17 for the Santa Clara info. I really don’t want to mislead D to get very attached if it is not a financial fit.

8

I will definitely check U of WA, Seattle. I know that it is a good program but was not sure about the merit aid for OOS. Thank you for sharing, @stardustmom .

One of D’s friends is going to Chapman for business.

I will find out more info about possible merit aid in UCI, UCSB.

9

Oh, I will pay close attention to the admission letter, @ucbalumnus . Thank you so much for pointing that out.

10

@Dadfan , I liked the school though D was not with us when we went there. D loves math, she will be happy with SLO from that POV. Thank you.

11

U of Washington changed their engineering admissions this years. I believe they guarantee that admitted students will get into an engineering major, but it may not be in the exact area they want. It is not ideal, but definitely better odds than Purdue IMO.

12

https://www.engr.washington.edu/admission/directtocollege/faq says that CS is not part of the Washington “Direct to College [of Engineering]” process. https://www.cs.washington.edu/academics/ugrad/admissions describes direct admission and non-direct admission to the CS major.

13

Thank you for sharing those very helpful points, @wis75. I agree with you regarding the mid-west schools’ performance. This decision has nothing to do with diversity or the schools.

I will not judge either D’s or anyone else’s potential from what s/he does during her/his HS years.

We did not include any top colleges she can easily qualify for because of the budget constraint and nothing more. She has many other accomplishments which I have not shared here. She is a good student and more importantly, a good person who loves to learn.

14

UCB and and other public California schools do not give OOS any financial aid (besides federal-based aid).

15

Thank you, @yikesyikesyikes for the info. We will not qualify for need based aid.

16

@collegeandi

Sounds good - just keep in mind that UCB will run over 52k in total costs.

17

How is Drexel for the merit aid?