What colleges should I be looking at?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I am looking for colleges now, and I really want to do computer science for college. I also most likely want to go to a flagship state university for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that they are generally cheaper than private colleges. My family makes enough money that I have basically no chance of need-based aid. I will have about 80-90k in a college fund from my parents, but the rest of the money will likely be in loans and merit scholarships. The second reason I want to go to a state school is because of the big support networks and job recruitment from graduation. I don’t want to sit at home unemployed when I graduate, and having this support would be very helpful. My question is what colleges that fit this criteria and have good computer science (preferably with companies recruiting graduates) should I be looking at? My stats are below, thank you for reading.

Grades: (Full IB diploma, very competitive school)
UW: 3.05
W: 3.75
CSU GPA: 3.44
After first semester this year (junior) I was diagnosed with ADHD and have been taking medication since. My UW since then is 3.5 and I think this will be a very important part of my application.

34 ACT Composite - 35 English 32 Math 34 Reading 34 Science
1490 PSAT - I might get national merit scholar finalist, it’s hard to say because of my grades.

Extracurriculars: Rowing for 17-18 hours per week, about 120 hours community service so far in high school. I also work with computers quite a bit, and am getting into 3D modeling and printing.

Work experience: Refereeing soccer games and a community work party job in Iceland. Neither is super extraordinary, the Iceland one is a little bit interesting because of the location.

2

Where do you live? Rules on tuition and financial aid differs a lot depending on the system. I assume since you listed your CSU GPA that you’re in-state for California. I would like at all of the UCs and see which CSCI programs you like, a lot of them are very good. Otherwise, Cal Poly and SLO stand out quite a bit as well.

Out of curiosity what’s your class rank at your IB school? Your UW GPA is pretty low but since it’s IB other considerations are taken into account and you should talk to your school’s guidance counselor, if it has one, to figure out how all of that factors in.

3

I’m actually in washington, sorry I forgot that. My class rank is about top 45%

4

You have a great ACT score but your GPA will be an issue. If you are looking at California schools, the UC’s will cost you around $55K/year with no FA and very few merit scholarships due to your lower than average GPA which barely makes the cutoff for OOS which is 3.4.

For CSU’s, no FA and again few merit scholarships available but the money your parents have saved would probably cover 3 years at a CSU with around $35K/year . CS is ultra competitive at Cal Poly SLO, but you would stand a good chance at SDSU/CSU Fullerton/Long Beach and Cal poly Pomona. All the CSU’s except SLO, will use an Eligibility index to rank applicants by major and EI. (CSU GPA x200) + (ACT comp x10) which makes your EI 1028. A bit low for SDSU (within range) but for the other CSU’s you look competitive.