<p>And no, I’m not scared. Thanks for caring!</p>
<p>*To the poster who questioned my use of the term “we”, I do in fact consider this process a family endeavor. *</p>
<p>I understand that the app process involves family input, but the student needs to own the process, his school choices, his major and his career goal. Otherwise, the student later can blame the parents when they end up not liking their school, major, etc. </p>
<p>I’ve been thru the undergrad, grad school, and med school app process with my kids. I know that families are involved with advising during the process. But, it is the student’s process.</p>
<p>To further clarify…when your son decides to propose/get married, the planning etc will involve family input…but “we” aren’t choosing the future spouse, “we” aren’t proposing, “we” aren’t getting married, etc. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>CSUs (besides SLO and Maritime) are numbers (GPA and test scores) based, but the thresholds for admission vary by major, and whether one is in the local service area for the CSU. The local service areas are described here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.calstate.edu/sas/publications/documents/CSULocalAdmission-ServiceAreas.pdf[/url]”>http://www.calstate.edu/sas/publications/documents/CSULocalAdmission-ServiceAreas.pdf</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Pomona and Fresno have four year graduation pledges for students who do not need remedial courses and follow their major’s course plan.</p>
<p>[Graduation</a> Pledge | Academic Programs | Cal Poly Pomona](<a href=“http://www.csupomona.edu/~academic/programs/grad_pledge/index.shtml]Graduation”>http://www.csupomona.edu/~academic/programs/grad_pledge/index.shtml)
<a href=“http://www.fresnostate.edu/academics/aps/documents/apm/202.pdf[/url]”>http://www.fresnostate.edu/academics/aps/documents/apm/202.pdf</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>However, relatively few students in 3+2 programs actually make the transfer. Some things to check would be how restricted choice of major at the “3” school is, whether admission to the “2” school requires competitive application or just meeting a GPA requirement (and how high), and what the cost and financial aid will be like at the “2” school (remembering that it is five total years, not four, for a student who graduates on-time from a 3+2 program).</p>
<p>Your story about family changes and the struggles to make up for failed work would definitely be the sort of evidence of “overcoming adversity” that UCSC would find compelling. Your son should write one of his UC essays on this. He needs to explain the problem he had as a freshman, explain what made him decide to turn things around, and how he accomplished this. They appreciate evidence of resilience, which they take as a demonstration that when college gets hard (which it will), the student has the fortitude to pick himself up and get back on track.</p>
<p>A strong essay will not be enough to overcome that GPA for UCSB. The applicant’s UC GPA is 3.2, which is well below the 4.01 UC GPA that is the median for admitted UCSB freshman. The detailed UCSB admitted freshman profile indicates that only 1.6% of the applicants to UCSB were accepted with UC GPAs between 3.00 and 3.29.</p>
<p>Would your son consider a Computer Science major (rather than Engineering)? It leads to as many jobs as engineering. It’d open up many more possibilities, especially in the Midwest where there are many colleges that are strong in science and are looking for first-gen, URM boys. If he could be interested in math + secondary teaching, he’d probably have even more chances.
The explanation for his grades freshman year, and what it took to make them up, could certainly be incorporated into an essay. It’d be especially useful for holistic admission colleges. The more numerical, the lower the odds.
I’d cross out all the Out of state public universities: they won’t even meet EFC and won’t provide sufficient financial aid.
Beside the schools you already mentioned, look into Olin.
What’s his GPA without freshman year?</p>
<p>In the U our kids went to, CS was part of the school of engineering, so you don’t always get an easier time by switching from engineering to CS.</p>
<p>However CS is offered at many top-notch liberal arts colleges and at some private universities that will provide financial aid to high-scoring URM males. Additonally, some schools have CS engineering AND a CS BA, and a CS BA is as employable as CSE but College of arts and science would be easier to get into. it’s worth looking into at different schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>YMMV depending on college. For instance, for students with strong math/science backgrounds…Columbia University’s SEAS has long been considered easier to get into judging by admissions stats compared with their Arts & Sciences counterpart, Columbia College.</p>
<p>Back in the '90s* and before, for students with strong math/science backgrounds, getting admitted to doing CS at SEAS was easier than doing CS at the College. </p>
<ul>
<li>Back in my HS days in the early-mid-'90s and before, it was common practice for many lopsided college applicants with strong math/science backgrounds, but overall GPAs/SATs too low to get into Columbia College to apply & gain admission to SEAS, spend a year there, and transfer into the college as back then it only required an easy pro-forma administrative process. Columbia put a stop to this sometime after the '90s. Probably because too many students lopsided with strengths in STEM were using this process as a relatively easy backdoor to get into Columbia College and its perceived greater prestige over SEAS.</li>
</ul>
<p>Back in the 90’s?? Does anyone here care about what happened back in the NINETIES?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Am using as an example of colleges where the Arts & Sciences division is harder to get admitted into than their engineering counterpart for lopsided students with strengths in math/science to illustrate how there are exceptions to the “Arts & Sciences” is easier than “Engineering” for admissions.</p>
<p>Cobrat…that was in the NINETIES. You only have personal info (from friends and cousins) about 20 years ago. Let it go…not relevant to TODAY.</p>
<p>thumper1,</p>
<p>The important point I’m making is that OP needs to check into each individual to ensure there aren’t any exceptions to such generalizations like:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The college app process is a complex and ever changing one. We can relay old experiences but its best, OP to stay attuned to current information. Good luck. And please get a few for sure safeties on that list.</p>
<p>Cobrat, information re: Columbia is not applicable to a student with a 2.5. There’s a difference between “private universities” and “ivies”, especially considering I mentioned the Midwest, South, and Midatlantic. :)</p>
<p>If you and your son would like an unique and valuable learning experience consider Cal Maritime. It is the only Cal state that has not suffered budget cuts and it offers a few different engineering majors. The freshman are required to do a semester at sea on the their ship the Golden Bear. I have a friend whose son is currently attending Cal Maritime and absolutely loves it. They are small and close knit, with some of the most unique opportunities in the country. Check out their website with your son and see what he thinks. The school is just beautiful. CP Pomona is a very good engineering school if cannot get into SLO and maybe look at Fullerton, Sacramento, San Jose, Chico, and Northridge. </p>
<p>I agree with the earlier post about Long Beach, I think you son has reasonable chance.</p>
<p>California Maritime Academy admissions is described here:
<a href=“https://www.csum.edu/web/admissions/first-time-freshmen[/url]”>https://www.csum.edu/web/admissions/first-time-freshmen</a></p>
<p>Its only engineering major is mechanical engineering. As the name and the majors offered indicate, it is a specialty school focused on ships and shipping.</p>
<p>Doesn’t CSU Maritime offer facilities engineering as well? </p>
<p>I’m a huge fan of Cal Maritime (seriously considered going there for transport) but it has suffered some buget cuts although nowhere near as badly as some of the other CSUs thanks to private industry donations. The school used to require two training cruises, but I believe they had to make it one owing to a lack of funding.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You really need to listen to the advice out here about (1) adding safeties and matches, (2) likelihood of aid or lack of it at the schools on his list and (3) the difficulty of the engineering major. #3 in particular struck me as I read your post – engineering is a very difficult major and requires a lot of discipline. He won’t have you making sure he gets to class and get everything done. You want to make sure you don’t get him into a situation where he is over his head – it is very easy for engineering courses to go downhill in a hurry. At a minimum he should have a backup plan/major in mind if engineering doesn’t go well for him.</p>
<p>There is nothing more depressing than a kid who spends a TON of time and effort on applications (and parents as well with financial aid paperwork, which is a huge pain in the you-know-what), and only gets into a couple of colleges he doesn’t really want to attend because he/his parents were so sure the “go big” strategy was going to work for them when it hasn’t worked for anyone else. Just be sure you and he are ready to “go home” if you focus too much on reaches and ignore finding safeties he would be really happy with, and make sure he is in a major that he can be successful in.</p>
<p>You implied in your posts near the beginning of this thread that CC is just too negative about this. Trust me, most of the parents posting on here are posting from hard-earned experience… you might get poor info and off base info from some students out here, but the regular parent posters have a pretty clear-eyed picture of the big business of college admissions.</p>
<p>Correcting my post, I didn’t realize that CMA offered only one “real” engineering degree in addition to two engineering technology degrees. However, it is among the most hands on of the CSUs, and for a B- student the marine transport major can be a great deal for the right kind of student. Plus, CMA boasts a much higher six year grad rate than many other CSUs previously suggested, even though the bulk of its students are in majors which require a heavy dose of science and math. To me that indicates that CMA provides a much more supportive environment than some of the more sought after Cal States.</p>