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.
how about your state’s flagship university? Though with your overall UW GPA, it might be difficult, but you do have a high test scores.
It would be difficult to apply to many out of state flagships since the majority are much more competitive for OOS students. Also, what does your CSU gpa mean?
I live in washington, and I’m definitely looking at UW. CSU gpa is specifically for california state universities
Do you live in Iceland? In any case, you’re probably not gonna get much aid unless you’re in state. Your in-state school is a good option, unless you really don’t like it, in which case some good CS ones are UW, any UC (although with that GPA, you can probably only get into UCM, UCR, and UCSC), maybe Penn State. With that ACT you qualify for some automatic scholarships, such as Flagship Scholars at LSU, worth 20.5k/yr for OOS (although it says with a 3.5 you get a full-ride, not sure if it’s UW or W gpa).
I live in Washington and am definitely going to apply but because CS is so good at UW it’s really hard to get in.
This is pretty much only true for the state you live in. You would be considered out of state for other state universities (like in California), and tuition is much higher.
There are some colleges that grant in-state tuition to high stat students, but GPA is usually part of the calculation – but some schools will look at your weighted GPA.
University of Alabama is one school you should look at. Here is their page on scholarships (and their FAQs say if the unweighted and weighted GPAs are on your transcript, they will consider the higher one):
http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.html
There are schools where you can get 150% of in-state tuition via the WUE program:
http://www.wiche.edu/wue
But not all state schools within the participating states are included, so you have to dig into this website to see which schools participate.
@intparent I actually disagree - even for oos applicants, many state schools are 25-30k per year, whereas most private colleges are around 40k
Not the flagships, especially the ones the OP probably is thinking of. U of MN was pretty low priced, but the regents there just decided to start hiking tuition by $3,200/year for OOS students until they are in the middle of the pack for the Big 10. Remember that cost isn’t just tuition, you have to pay room & board. Feel free to list schools you think are in the OP’s price range that have a good CS program.