<p>Check out Southwest. My S got great fares on SW into Pittsburgh. </p>
<p>He was NOT a 4.0, but got very helpful financial aid, and I know someone who got a full ride. </p>
<p>It does feel very urban, traffic running through campus. Pitt took my slacker tending son, and he became impassioned about academics, and a whole passel of other things. Their study abroad is very good.</p>
<p>The [honors</a> college](<a href=“http://www.honorscollege.pitt.edu/]honors”>http://www.honorscollege.pitt.edu/) at Pitt is more of an academic community than anything else. Pitt doesn’t subscribed to the walled-off variation that some other schools have, and also doesn’t require those admitted to the honors college to actually participate in it (unlike others), because it believes students need to be intellectually curious and motivated enough on their own to take advantage of its offerings. In short, it is set up so that it is up to each individual student to make what they will out of it. At the basic level, it allows a student to take honors level courses without prior approval. These are generally smaller, more in depth, often approaching graduate level in content and structure. It also facilitates undergraduate research, study abroad opportunities, closer faculty-student interaction, and preparation for the application for major awards and fellowships. It awards a Bachelors of Philosophy degree (a BPhil as opposed to a BS or BA) which requires the completion of a undergraduate thesis. It also provides honors housing and living-learning communities, as well as special honors student activities and clubs, and physcially, has its own space at the top of the [Cathedral</a> of Learning](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Learning]Cathedral”>Cathedral of Learning - Wikipedia).</p>
<p>I wanted my S to consider applying to Pitt as a safety, with the reasonable expectation, given his stats, that he would be admitted to the honors college and would get significant $$, even as an OOS student. It also helped that they have a very good philosophy program, and at the time that was his likely major. He really wasn’t interested, stating that he didn’t find an honors program within a much larger school appealing. (His “ideal” UG size was about 3000-5000.) If your S would be willing to consider a school of its size and type, it would seem like a worthy safety for him. But with only $250 as a travel allowance and a limited travel budget, I would not visit from CA unless accepted and seriously considering going there.</p>
<p>From your description, I think your son should have a number of private schools on his list that actually deliver full need-based FA with no or minimal loans to families in your financial bracket. I think it likely that he will get into at least one of them. Cast a wide net.</p>