My son has narrowed down his choices to the colleges listed in the subject line. His interests are Business+CS (in that order). He is not sure if he wants to stay on the west coast and work in entrepreneurship/tech or go to Wall Street after graduation to work in finance. Would like to keep his options open in that regard. Doesn’t have a lot of CS experience so far (other than a few classes at school) but he is a smart kid (good at Math and general academics and has good extracurriculars+leadership). UW GPA: 3.9/4.0; Weighted GPA: 4.46/5.0 and SAT: 1560/1600 with 800 in Math2 Subject test. Very competitive public High school.
UCB :
- Admitted to Letters & Sciences - will have to get 3.3 in the 3 pre-req courses to declare CS and also apply to get into Business at HAAS. Neither is guaranteed but the fallback options (Data Science if not CS and Economics if not Business) are acceptable to him.
- Interviewed for Regents Scholar but didn’t make the final cut for Regents selection. If he had got this, UCB would have been his top choice mainly because of the priority enrollment for Regents scholars.
- Really liked UCB during his overnight tour for prospective Regents scholars.
- In-state tuition as we are from Northern California.
UCLA:
- Admitted directly to CS in the College of Engineering. No undergrad business option at UCLA so he would do Business-Economics as a minor/double major.
- Selected as Regents Scholar (with priority registration and other perks like $2000 per year) plus interviewing for some additional $$ in alumni scholarships (not guaranteed and even then probably worth a few thousand dollars at most).
- Will be visiting for their overnight tour for Regents+Bruins day. Had toured the campus last year (self-guided tour) so has a general idea of the campus.
- In-state tuition
UT BHP:
- Accepted to the Honors Business program at UT Austin but not to their CSB (CS+Business Honors). BHP seems to place very well after graduation and some say is on par with UCB Haas.
- No merit scholarships.
- We are OOS but I believe after the first year, it is possible to get in-state tuition at UT Austin (by renting your own place+having a drivers’ license, etc.) Not easy but heard it is fairly common to do this.
- Hasn’t visited the campus so far and it is too late to attend “Discover BHP” now (it is tomorrow).
GeorgiaTech:
- Applied (and got into) Business but it looks like it is fairly easy to change majors once (he may change to CS as GeorgiaTech is known for CS).
- Has received invitations to apply for their various LivingLearning programs (including Honors). Hasn’t applied yet (due to extra essays requirement but may apply before the deadline).
- OOS so cost will be $12K-$15K more per year than the UCs.
Vanderbilt:
- Only private school and the highest “ranked” school under consideration.
- He was invited (and visited) to their “Mosaic” overnight tour for accepted minority students (we are Asian Indian so not a URM but still considered a minority for Vandy). Liked the campus more than UCB but seemed like the general vibe at UCB appealed more (but then Berkeley was the first overnight tour he did so it may have gotten a little “meh” for Vandy which was the second tour of the same nature?)
- No merit scholarships so will be full pay ($70K+ a year vs $35K at UCB/UCLA). We haven’t filed CSS profile so far but our FAFSA shows EFC > $70K so probably no financial aid.
- No undergrad business option but Vandy provides a chance to actually do MBA along with the undergrad degree so CS+MBA in 4 or 5 years is an option here. Maybe worth the $70K a year for that???
Other schools accepted to but not in his final top-5: NYU (Stern), UMD (CS), UNC (Chapel Hill), UW Seattle (pre-sciences not CS), UCSD, UCSB, UCI, Emory. Any of these worth considering?
Thoughts??