Student with no real awards applying to in state NCSU/UNCC and reaching for MIT

[AustenNut]

I am going to throw out some names of schools that I think have a decent to excellent chance of falling within your budget, are medium to large (closer to medium, though), that offer not just CS but other related fields (computer engineering, electrical engineering, cybersecurity, etc) so it appears as though there is some relative strength in those departments, but I will leave that for you to judge. Also, since water polo seemed to be a pretty big interest of yours, all of these schools offer water polo as a club or intramural (or both).

Gonzaga (WA)
Colorado School of Mines
U. of Dayton (OH)
U. of San Diego (CA)
U. of Portland (OR)
Creighton (NE)
Bradley (IL)
U. of Denver (CO)

[BlueCoffee]

What county are you in? Because that will matter for admission chances at NCSU and UNC-CH. If you’re in Wake or Mecklinburg county, it’s still not a certainty with high stats.

I don’t know about CS at Chapel Hill, but one thing to look into (ask your college counselor) is whether you can definitely major in CS if you’re admitted. UNC has some majors that require application at the end of sophomore year and acceptance can be competitive. At NCSU, you can be accepted in your major from the start, which changes the nature of your first couple of years–it’s still challenging material, but you’re not competing against classmates for a spot in a limited program. Some students at NCSU prefer the “you’re already in, now let’s study together” approach.

[shmom41]

My DS applied to RIT and WPI this year with higher stats and got 19.5 merit from RIT and 22 from WPI. The net cost for both was over 50K. I think WPI was the more expensive of the two.

[ucbalumnus]

NCSU has CS in engineering, where students start as engineering first year (EFY). EFY students have to compete for admission to specific majors later.

UNC-CH has secondary competitive admission to CS after entering the school.