Hello, I am a current sophomore electrical engineer and I’m looking to transfer out of state to a California school. My preference would be close to San Francisco (transferring to be closer to family) but honestly anywhere in California is good, its gonna be closer than where I live now.
I have cumulative GPA at an accredited midwestern state school of 3.53 and by the end of my sophomore year I’ll have taken all of the core courses which I’ll list briefly:
-All the maths (Calc I- III, linear algebra, differential equations)
-Intro Physics I and II (so both mechanics and electromagnetism)
-Chem I and English I
-Statics, Circuits, Thermodynamics, Programming I and II (in C++)
-Signals and Systems/Linear Systems and Circuits II
Also have a couple gen-eds covered from ap scores like Macro, Micro, and Euro History and Intro to engineering covered with PLTW poe. I have some extracurriculars and one board position, as well as a computer related job. I am a female.
I have looked at the UC schools, and from what I have seen, Berkeley, UCSD, and UCLA are a long shot for me but both Davis and Santa Barbara seem like really good schools and a possible option. Than outside of UC schools, San Jose State, cal poly pomona, and cal poly San Luis Obispo. I am just trying to narrow down those five possibilities and i"m feeling lost, I cant figure out what I should compare or how to choose. I think I would want a good sized ee class, maybe about 500 or so people doing ee so theres a choice in classes, good professors, some multicultural student orgs. Maybe a school that is welcoming to minorities, which is hard to decipher because all schools will say they celebrate diversity but its impossible to tell unless youve been a student there. I also need to keep the out of state tuition cost in mind. And of course I want a valuable education that will prepare me for a job as an electrical engineer.
Any thoughts or experiences would be greatly appreciated, I’m really stuck right now. Thanks everyone
Out of state costs will be high with no financial aid at UCs. CSUs are somewhat less.
Near San Francisco (commutable), there are UCB and SFSU. Somewhat further away are SJSU, UCD, and UCSC, as well as private schools Stanford and SCU.
Most of the above schools are majority minority.
https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/infocenter/transfers-major can give you an idea of how difficult transfer admission to UCs is.
For SJSU, the transfer thresholds for applicants wanting to start in fall 2016 are listed here:
http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/impactionresultstransfer/index.html
Previous year transfer thresholds are listed here:
http://info.sjsu.edu/static/admission/impaction.html
Cost of attending is going to really affect you as previously mentioned. As an engineering major, you know how difficult the coursework is, and how working, while a student, would adversely impact time and performance. Most of the UC’s are on the quarter system=10 weeks to prove yourself in a difficult major.
Even if you have family that live in California, they cannot help you to establish residency, as an OOS, so you will pay $55K per year at the UC’s and ~$40K per year at the Cal States.
Yes I am concerned about the price, I even considered University of Nevada - Reno, which is only 4 or 5 hours from san francisco, but its ranked rather low for engineering…
I ended up applying for cal tech SLO and san jose state.