<p>Housekeeping. I did not see the question before. Admit rate from CA Community Colleges to UCLA in Fall 2013 was 28.73%:</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_tr/Tr_Prof13.htm”>https://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_tr/Tr_Prof13.htm</a></p>
<p>I’m not feeling a math intensive major for your kid- with absolutely no disrespect meant vis a vis his gifts or his disability.</p>
<p>He’ll have to figure it out of course- but to do a deep dive into some of the majors you’ve discussed knowing that he’ll likely need tutoring just to keep up- let alone to excel- given that there are so many subjects and majors in the world- wow. The calculations piece isn’t just an “oh well, he’s great at high level reasoning but needs support to get the right answer”. College level classes in any “math reliant” subject will involve weekly problem sets, frequent quizzes, etc. and even the kids in the class who don’t have your son’s “bandwidth” intellectually and may not be as gifted as he is on the concepts- they can bang out calculations, get the right answers, i.e. pass the course (with a reasonable amount of work, of course). Engineering doesn’t always require having genius level math skills, but being able to “bang out” a long string of calculations in order to get to the interesting stuff is absolutely a requirement.</p>
<p>If he needed tutoring for Algebra 1 and 2 he is really setting himself up for some grueling work in college.</p>
<p>Why not help direct his gifts towards less math intensive subjects??? I took remedial math before enrolling in grad school (it was a requirement, believe me I didn’t volunteer) and my classmates and I were a combination of math phobic, poorly taught, various learning disabilities, etc. If I had to do that level of prep just to progress in my major I don’t think I could have handled undergrad.</p>
<p>We definitely have talked about this in depth, and he’s pretty sure if he cannot do well enough (A?) in this class, he realizes Engr isn’t for him. So far, he’s had three sessions of tutoring for the semester, so much less than he’s had before. It makes more sense to him than math has before. So, yes, he has to apply to colleges and chose majors, but there are plenty of other non-engr. majors at his schools that leaving out engr schools would be fine. I think engr. just feels “safe” to him in terms of employment after college.</p>
<p>Most of the schools on the list are ones with majors <em>not</em> in engineering… In fact, as of now, the only Engr. schools he’s applied to are SDSU, Missouri S&T and SDS Mines. </p>
<p>The two local schools are tough because there really are no other majors besides music that are appealing. And honestly, it’s one thing to major in music at Princeton, and quite another to major in music at SDSU. Does that make sense? So, what’s left at SDSU? ME. No other major looks good except possibly Television, Film, and New Media major.</p>
<p>For UCSD, it’s really music or ME/Engr physics. Nothing else looks interesting. That’s the bummer of the local schools: no ID, no animation, and no game design. So he has to choose something.</p>
<p>And I have helped him plenty, btw. You have no idea.</p>
<p>Have you looked into UCSC’s Computer Game Design Major??</p>
<p><a href=“http://cs.soe.ucsc.edu/game-design”>Computer Science and Engineering – Baskin School of Engineering;
<p>Not the right fit. UCI fits the bill better. Trying to avoid schools that have too much of a drinking culture.</p>
<p>The list is good to go unless some private Christian schools.</p>
<p>He’s got:</p>
<p>4 ID schools
6 Game/Animation/Arts-Tech schools
2-3 Music/Film/Creative Writing schools
5 Engr schools (with possible switch to music at two of them)</p>
<p>And the breakdown on admissions:</p>
<p>4 reaches
5 matches (but admissions wise, all admit under 50%, so still might be considered reaches, though stats-wise, not)
8 good bets/safeties</p>
<p>I like the list, though some schools had to be left off because I think there’s no way he wouldn’t go into a lot of debt if he got into, and attended, them. Schools like USC, Becker, RPI, WPI and any other game-y, artsy school just doesn’t make financial sense to us.</p>
<p>The best thing about my son and the college admissions process is that he isn’t invested into getting into any top school. It really doesn’t matter to him, so there won’t be any angst come April. 
He rolls with it.</p>
<p>You need to prioritize your wants. If you pick a smaller school, it’s unlikely to have the exact music/gaming mix you want. If you pick a bigger school, it’s more likely to have frats and parties but offer more classes. You really can’t have it all - unless you broaden the focus. My daughter’s boyfriend (ex, thankfully) went to a school with a very specific major in mind (some kind of film business production something). After freshman year, he didn’t get into the program, so now has a general business major which he could have had cheaper and probably better at a bigger university.</p>
<p>Some people pick art schools and it works, but if it doesn’t then there is nothing else to study at those schools. An art major at a university can easily switch to history or English, but not so easy at a design school. My daughter is at an engineering school. There are a few other majors, mostly science related, but those in business and communications are pretty limited in their options because it would be hard to switch into engineering after the first year without starting over.</p>
<p>I think you should focus on the course offerings first, as that seems most important to you. If the surroundings are totally unacceptable, then don’t go there but if you/he doesn’t like the area surrounding the school, the dorms, the orchestra, you might just have to compromise on those things.</p>
<p>Right. As of now, no small schools on the list. Also, my son and I talked about not being at a school known predominantly for a lot of social drinking and drugs, so all the schools on the have more moderate reputations and/or sub free/disability dorms, though obviously lots of kids in college party and drink. As long as a school is large enough to find your own niche, it’s ok.</p>
<p>So, looks like:</p>
<p>8 mid-size (under 3K freshmen)
7 large (between 3-6K freshmen)
1 very large (over 6K freshmen)</p>
<p>Still waffling about SLO after all. </p>