<p>what would probably give more for a female going into a tech major- software/computer engineering, or computer science/systems security?</p>
<p>please help, just an opinion question</p>
<p>I doubt there’s a difference. And why don’t you wait a while before bumping the thread. Not even 45 minutes…</p>
<p>Depends on the school. Most schools don’t offer any merit-based institutional aid anyway, so your major could be anything and it wouldn’t help. Specific schools might practice preferential packaging in which female applicants to under-represented majors would get better aid, but that’s not something that can be generalized to all schools anywhere.</p>
<p>*what would probably give more for a female going into a tech major- software/computer engineering, or computer science/systems security? *</p>
<p>I doubt either one would get more merit just for the reason of studying in that area. I don’t think more merit is given for a woman in a certain type of engineering.</p>
<p>What is your situation?</p>
<p>What are your stats?</p>
<p>How much merit do you need? full tuition? more? less?</p>
<p>How much will your parents contribute?</p>
<p>Gardna is right…many schools don’t offer any or much merit aid. However, some schools do …so we need to know the answers to the above questions to make recommendations.</p>
<p>From another thread…</p>
<p>*my parents would most likely pay about 25K-30K,</p>
<p>I’m a female and plan on majoring in either comp sci or software engineering. GPA is 3.78 unweighted, 4.3 weighted. SATs- 600 critical reading, 600 math, 620 writing. (AM taking them again in Oct, </p>
<p>I live in MD, hoping to stay semi- close to the east coast, but I’m not ruling anything out at this point.
*</p>
<p>You need to ask your parents so you are certain of how much they will contribute…sometimes parents have different ideas about how much they will contribute.</p>
<p>Right now…your stats aren’t likely high enough for a good amount of merit at most of the schools with good engineering programs. </p>
<p>However, if after you retake your SATs in October, you may be fine. Also sign up for the November exam as well. </p>
<p>Is it too late to also sign up for the October ACT? Some do better on that.</p>
<p>@Gardna, "Most schools don’t offer any merit-based institutional aid anyway, so your major could be anything and it wouldn’t help. "</p>
<p><em>EVERY</em> school I applied to last year (except the Ivies) offered some type of merit aid. Many of the merit aid awards <em>WERE</em> based on major … they were</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins
SUNY Stony Brook
Vanderbilt
Duke
Wash U at St Louis
William & Mary
Wake Forest
and of course The University of Maryland</p>
<p>^^^
Were they based on major or based on a specialty within a major?</p>
<p>For instance, at my kids’ school, it doesn’t matter which specialty within Engineering or Computer Science you are, if you have certain stats, you get a scholarship…so no scholarship differences between MechE or ChemE or Comp Engineering or Comp Sci…</p>
<p>BTW what were your stats, were you a NMF, and what scholarship did you get from Vandy? </p>
<p>And are you a URM?</p>
<p>^ I missed the Cornelius Vanderbilt award at Vandy, however, they offered $5K/year(based on NMF I believe). I never really considered it since I was already offered the full Banneker/Key at UMd. The only thing that could have pulled me away from that was Harvard, but I never got off the waitlist :(</p>
<p>URM? Sort of … 1/4 hispanic …</p>
<p>Stats,
SAT I - 760 cr, 720 m, 730w
SAT II - 800 M2, 770chem, 730 F
GPA 4.0/4.0 with 10 APs (all 5’s) including Chem, Bio, CalcBC, Lang, Stats, PhysicsC, Gov, World, French, Music, …
Finished HS in three years (this seemed to bother some schools, so I didn’t apply there)</p>