If you got into UC boulder what was your stats and extracurriculars thx
This would be much better asked on the CU Boulder (not UC) thread.
32 ACT (35E, 31M, 27R, 35S)
3.4 GPA (2.0 fresh and soph, 4.0 junior and senior)
OOS
Applied for engineering. Was waitlisted and then accepted into the Exploratory Program. Rejected offer
Son was a in-state direct admit to engineering, and was also offered a spot in Engineering Honors. Academic stats–36 ACT, 1590 SAT, SAT II–math 2 800, chem 780, world history 800, 4.0 UW GPA, 4.7 weighted GPA, 15 AP classes with 1 4 and 8 5’s (so far), 13 CU-transcripted math credit hours above Calc BC (calc 3, diff eq, discrete, linear algebra). ECs–state-level debate with leadership, other clubs and competitions with leadership, volunteer work with tutoring students with special needs.
Even with all that, he was offered just $10k merit (added up from 3 different sources) on a $33+k COA (engineering tuition is higher than A&S). If you are looking for aid (merit or need-based) be sure you have other options. CU-Boulder is expensive for a public school and so many kids want to go there that they don’t have to be generous with aid.
@Colorado19and22. I agree with you that bright students are not awarded much in the state of Colorado, but your son could finish in less than 4 years I bet. See the state of Georgia and Zell Miller scholarship, that cover 100% of Georgia Tech and other public school’s in state tuition.
Colorado does not support smart students, so they often leave our state for education and then career too! . National Merit Finalists get NO advantage or $$$ inside of Colorado. But they get full rides to–Arizona State, U of Texas Dallas, U of Oklahoma, U of Alabama, Stevens Institute of Tech in NJ and other out of state programs.
Its less expensive to go to U of Wyoming for a Colorado student than U of Colorado. Its usually less to attend any school in New Mexico, and U of Utah allows students to gain residency in ONE CALENDAR YEAR, by simply getting
a summer job in Utah after freshman year.
U of Colorado stays afloat with California students who cannot get into their in state U of Cal programs.
Look at Boulder’s published admission stats, both overall and by school (scroll down): https://www.colorado.edu/admissions/selection
@Coloradomama I think your forgetting about the Boettcher scholarship which is a true full ride (not just tuition) to any institution in Colorado (public or private), granted only 50 scholarships are awarded each year but definitely intended to keep top students in Colorado. Certainly @Colorado19and22 DS would be competitive for it.
@Coloradomama I think your comments are spot on. I’m not upset that the merit aid isn’t there at CU, I just want to make sure parents and students know that up front. I’ve seen a lot of threads complaining about how little merit aid a student got, or comments about CU being sketchy for not admitting a kid due to not wanting to give them a scholarship. The reality is that CU just doesn’t have much in the way of merit aid.
@CU123 It is important to remember that the Boettcher Scholarship is from a private foundation, so not really part of any policy or value decision on the part of Colorado schools. My son was a competitive candidate, and moved up in the competition (semifinalist, etc.), but in the end they must have been looking for something else. Just for reference, although Boettcher is called a “full ride” it isn’t, and hasn’t been for several years. While they pay full tuition and fees they give a $2,800 “living stipend” rather than paying for room and board. https://boettcherfoundation.org/colorado-scholarships/
My NMF son chose Alabama ( was admitted to their Randall Research Scholars and Blount Scholars programs too). At the end, the cost played only a small role in his decision. The thing that took CU out for him was having to do a dual degree rather than double major if he wanted to do engineering and something else. Alabama ended up less expensive than CU would have been, even if he had gotten a Boettcher Scholarship
The highest award Colorado students can win at CU Boulder is half off the in state tuition. At Mines, there are a few full rides, but they are given equally to in state and out of state students! The usual maximum award at Mines is $20K over four years, so $5000 off tuition per year.
@CU123 There are only 42 Boettcher awards each year, and they no longer cover much room and board, the website says $2800 a year for room and board, that will not cover any Colorado college room and board.
Also, half go to girls and half to boys, so really only half those slots for any given Coloradan, so 21 scholarships for boys, in this case. The Boettcher is only really awarded to students who say they want to teach, become doctors, or occasionally attorneys and never awarded to engineering students. Its a bit of a political sham program, that is passed around Colorado high schools to make it “fair”, but it fails to keep the best and brightest kids in Colorado, as its just way too small.
https://boettcherfoundation.org/colorado-scholarships/
Look at the state of Georgia for an example, the state legislature passed a law that awards Zell Miller scholarships. They are competitive by GPA and test scores, and can be used at public and private Georgia universities, and because the Georgia Legislature keeps the in state tuition so low, a Zell Miller will cover 100% of Georgia Tech, U of Georgia , or Georgia State’s tuition! At GaTech, ALL Georgia students qualify for a Zell Miller, as that school’s GPA requirements are high, so thats about 50% of 14,000 students getting full tuition scholarships, at GaTech alone! Given that Georgia’s other state universities are large, the number of merit awards available to Georgia residents is truly amazing and admirable.
Some but not all of Georgia’s public schools are also ranked higher than our own fine Colorado School of Mines, or U of Colorado as well. Granted though U of Colorado in particular is ranked very highly for physics, many branches of engineering, as well as music, fine arts and more. Thus for now, they can get away with charging a lot, but it does hurt Colorado in the long term to lose so many students each year.
Look up the state of Florida’s merit programs such as Sunshine Scholarships, Bright Futures, Gator Nation etc.
Also, Colorado School of Mines offers less scholarship to Colorado students than out of state students, proportionally! So out of state students will pay LESS For Mines than CU Engineering. In state students pay MORE for Mines than CU Engineering, usually, if they win the highest merit awards at each school.
I have been meaning to call Mines about this discrepancy that out of state students get such a big break at Mines, but they have to fill up all seats, is probably the answer and not enough Colorado students want to go to Mines. Thats too bad, as its a wonderful public school that has a private school class size and good teachers.
If you want a U of Colorado diploma at a cheaper price, go to Mesa.
Here are the amounts given to out of state students at the highest levels of merit–;
Mines offers $56,000 to OUT OF STATE students over four years, $14,000 a year!
https://finaid.mines.edu/scholarships/
CU Boulder offers $25,000 over four years to out of state students, $6250 per year.
https://www.colorado.edu/scholarships/chancellors-achievement-scholarship
In state Colorado students, its the opposite, CU offers more merit , slightly than Mines.
We really need to get a statewide scholarship program that makes sense!
I don’t know where Mines gets that money for out of state students but its a very sweet deal
for non Colorado students to go to Mines, a whopping scholarship ! I think Colorado students should get a proportional scholarship to Mines but in fact they DO NOT. We pay for out of state students to get scholarships to our state schools, it perfectly ridiculous.
The scholarship money is not coming from the state. Mines and CU are two different educational systems and don’t even charge the same tuition.
We do have a state system, and it gives $75 per credit to a resident. It makes a big difference if you are going to Foothills CC, not so much at CU (although $1125 per 15 credit semester isn’t bad). That’s more than my daughter who DIDN’T get Bright Futures in Florida got and every Colorado student gets the $75, not just the top % of scholars. Not every student gets BF or Hope because there are other requirements than just gpa. Daughter’s gpa was fine but she missed some other requirements.
Colorado’s lottery money goes to parks and rec. Georgia’s lottery money goes to Hope/zell miller. Choices made by the legislatures.
School of Mines has some scholarship endorsements from rich alums. About 10-15 years ago, an alum left millions to fund scholarships for a particular program (petroleum? Bio-something?) and those students were all funded.
“We pay for out of state students to get scholarships to our state schools, it perfectly ridiculous.”
Is that really true? Aren’t those OOS students still paying more than in-state students, and thereby subsidizing them?
And in Alabama, isn’t the goal of the ultra-generous OOS scholarships to raise the ranking of the school and attract more paying OOS students? Who knows, they might even decide to stay there. Certainly that’s what Utah is trying to achieve with the offer of in-state tuition after the first year (in addition to generous merit scholarships).
In the case of California maybe you can attract enough people to move there for college and stay afterwards without offering tuition discounts. Is Colorado able to do the same?
^^Absolutely. CU has about 50% of students from OOS (NYC, Chicago, TX, and Cal). Most of them are paying the full OOS tuition, and even if they get the $6k per year, they are still paying more than instate students.
I always forget that Mines is a state school. When I visit, it seems most students are from Colorado or Texas.
Yes Colorado does lose its top students to OOS, they lost my DD to UChicago but that’s not going to change. Colorado has very good schools for the population size but it doesn’t have the academic attractiveness of the top schools in the nation. Of course your point is that we don’t fund higher education like other states and that the cost of that is half the students come from OOS, really not a terrible trade off. COA at Boulder is around 30k in-state and it’s the most expensive public university here.
“CU has about 50% of students from OOS (NYC, Chicago, TX, and Cal).”
I would be interested to know how many are top students and how many stay after college. Does it balance the loss of top students to OOS who don’t come back?
My impression is that (from what I know of Boulder) the OOS students at least from CA are wealthy kids who don’t get into the UCs, and I don’t know that very many stay after college. So if the top CO students are leaving and not coming back, that might be a net brain drain which Coloradans should be concerned about. Different to CA which probably attracts as many or more top students as it loses (and a lot of incomers stay).
But a more relevant benchmark may be Utah. One point of comparison is that CU Boulder enrolled 8 NMS scholars last year, whereas Utah enrolled 36 (https://www.nationalmerit.org/s/1758/images/gid2/editor_documents/annual_report.pdf?gid=2&pgid=61). Seems like that can’t be good for CU’s relative long term trajectory between what are otherwise pretty similar schools, and I’d bet a lot of it is due to merit scholarships.
@CU123 Any degree program at Mines and CU Engineering and CU Leeds are the most expensive in state costs , as CU charges different tuition rates for Arts and Sciences, that are lower.
The part that confuses me is that only at Mines, the scholarships for OOS merit, the top award, pay for one entire YEAR of the 4 year education, at the top level, so $56,000 over four years , while Colorado students only can win a maximum of $20,000, which is way less than the first year costs. How can Mines give out of state students a BETTER proportional deal than in state students?
Thats the part that is terribly unfair, IF the money used to pay the OOS students is Colorado Tax dollars!
But it may be private money then I guess as a Colorado taxpayer, I cannot complain but its still odd if you ask me,
that smart out of state students get a proportionally better merit ride than smart Colorado students at a Colorado public university. This is why Colorado students just go elsewhere, its very expensive to attend Mines.
Here are the costs of Mines–
$33,648 in state subtract $5000 maximum merit per year, thats $28,648
$52,698 OOS Subtract $14,000 max merit per year $38,698, very similar to in state costs , Yes its more
but not that much more than in state costs. Thats unusual. Most public universities charge a lot more for out of state students than in state, see CU Boulder for instance !
The only reason I can think of, is that Mines is trying to match costs at Cal Poly or other tech school prices out there.
Many cost a lot more though than Mines.
Compare CU costs to in state costs at U of Utah, and you will see how ripped off Colorado students are and
why Colorado top students often leave Colorado. We need to change the fee structure for our own in state students.
Colorado students should not pay $40,000 to $50,000 more over four years than all the surrounding states
that are arguably less wealthy than Coloradans are per capita.
When Coloradans can go to Arizona State, U of Wyoming or U of Utah,
for less than the public school that we pay taxes to, we know something is
really wrong in Colorado. We need to fund higher education NOW in Colorado.
Mountains and skiing do not make up for a brain drain.
https://financialaid.utah.edu/tuition-and-fees/cost-of-attendance.php
Richer states like Illinois have higher ranked public systems, and cost even less than U of Utah for in state students.
States have different ways to fund their public colleges. Wyoming gets a lot of money from fracking and royalties. It spends almost 3x the amount per student than Colorado, but do you think most students would rather go to CU or to Wyo? Colorado also has a lot more people to consider when dividing up the resources, not just for education but for social services, police and fire, health care. Colorado has expanded medicaid, Wyo doesn’t.
You do realize that Illinois has some pretty high tax rates. Chicago, darn near bankrupt. Oldest daughter went to CU Boulder majored in ChemE went to San Francisco for two years and is now back in Colorado working. Companies will drive where the brains end up, for now Colorado is a net exporter of higher education (just like the U.S.) which is OK with me. BTW UIUC shows a COA ($36k from there website) comparable to CU and Illinois residents pay much higher taxes.