<p>I plan to study engineering in college (most likely computer engineering, but I'd like to at least keep my options open), and need some advice on which schools to apply to. My list so far is:</p>
<p>UCB (I am a CA resident btw)
UCLA
UCSD
UCSB
Cal Poly SLO</p>
<p>My stats:
2250 SAT (800 M, 770 W, 680 CR)
SAT II (Math 2 - 800, US History - 760, Chem - 710)
4.4 UC GPA (one B in sophomore year in Spanish)
IB Diploma
EC's:
A little bit of engineering stuff (summer program, club (MESA, secretary this year))
Sports (year round sports for 4 years, 2 time captain in XC)
nothing much else significant to speak of</p>
<p>Because of some benefits from my parent's work, I receive about ~$20k a year towards tuition, eliminating the cost of tuition from UC's and CSU's, and making them a great bargain. Now I am trying to figure out if there are any privates worth applying to that would give me pretty generous merit aid, enough to at least lower the cost down to close to the state schools (I would need around another ~$20-25k to make this happen). Is there any schools I should look into that could give me that? Also, it would be nice to hear more opinions about other UC's and CSU's to consider. Besides education, I also want to have a fun college lifestyle (sports, parties, etc), which is another reason why I am sort of leaning towards the big state schools. </p>
<p>Need-based aid, even at the most generous schools like Stanford, will not be sufficient for affordability? (Try the net price calculator at each school to see if you have not done so already.)</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus
I have done Stanford (which I know to be one of the most generous schools) and it comes out to about $33k per year. This is 2.5-3x the amount of a state school, a pretty significant leap in cost.
As for safeties, I am not completely sure. Most likely a few of the UC’s or CSU’s that are not on my list yet.</p>
<p>Is it correct to assume that the $20,000 benefit from your parent’s work is per year, and only applicable to UCs and CSUs? Or can it be applied to other schools?</p>
<p>If you aim to keep the cost down to $11,000 to $15,000 per year, then you likely need at least a full tuition merit scholarship, since need-based aid, even at Stanford, seems to be insufficient (unless the $20,000 can be applied there). Use the thread linked to in post #1 to look for automatic and competitive full tuition or better scholarships.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus It can be applied at private schools, but from what I understand, any money coming in from that will just be subtracted from financial aid. Since I am not really getting any more than $20k in financial aid from anywhere, that puts every private school at around $40k at the minimum. Therefore, to effectively remove the cost of tuition from privates (thus putting the cost on par with state schools), I would only need a half tuition scholarship (full tuition would actually be unnecessary, and wasted, because of the $20k I’m already getting towards tuition).</p>
<p>If you can stack that $20k on top of the merit aid given out by a University, and you want to stay in California, you might consider USC and Santa Clara. You might get a merit scholarship from either of these schools or you might not, but they both award some merit scholarships each year that can close your gap. They both have outstanding engineering schools.</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids
Yes it can be used at any school. As for the remaining cost, my mom (father is now deceased) will probably provide for around $30-40k over my four years. Not sure on exactly how much yet. The rest I will probably take on as student debt (or I might be borrowing it from her, but either way I will still have to pay it off). My sister graduated from UCLA with only $25k in debt, which I do not consider too extreme. </p>
<p>@knightcub
I’ve considered Santa Clara, although I do not like them as much since I sort of want to get away from home (I live in San Jose). For USC, I’ve always known they offered some merit aid, but was never so sure if I would be competitive to get any of it. But I will consider it. </p>
<p>USC offers quite a few merit scholarships. Yes, they are very competitive, but for the price of $75 and the time it takes to write a top notch set of application essays you can find out if you will be awarded one of those merit scholarships. Be forewarned, you need to submit your USC application before 12/1/14 in order to qualify for consideration of a merit scholarship.</p>
<p>@biofio
so sorry to hear about your dad. Was this loss recent? I thought you recently mentioned that your dad works at Stanford.</p>
<p>Anyway, I sent you a PM because you misunderstood Alabama’s award. Although it is for the amount of tuition, it isn’t really a tuition award. So, you are free to use your $20k award towards tuition (which is required) and you could use the $25k award from Bama to cover everything else…and then Bama would send you a check for the leftover money. </p>
<p>@mom2collegekids it was this summer, and thank you. He previously worked at Stanford, which is I am getting the benefit from (they put half of Stanford’s tuition towards any other college tuition I choose to attend). </p>
<p>the loss of your father is so recent that your mom may not yet fully realize the financial impact. It may take awhile before she’s able to evaluate what the household financial situation really is (how much she has to pay for daily expenses, future retirement, etc) Your sister’s situation (moderate amount of debt) may have been because the family financial condition was better. Now, things have sadly changed. </p>
<p>You can’t borrow much from the federal gov’t ($5500 as a frosh). Yes, technically you could borrow from your mom, but why do that when you don’t need to? Very good engineering can be found at 200 schools in the US. Taking on big debt for engineering doesn’t have a good return on investment. The person with big debt from School A will get the same starting salary as the engineering grad from Cal Poly, CSULB, Purdue, UMich, etc. Companies don’t pay you more just because you went to X school. They pay their new-hires the SAME. </p>
<p>However, which companies come to recruit at each school will differ, usually with a significant bias toward local and regional companies. Of course, a student can seek and apply to companies on his/her own outside the realm of those who come to recruit, although smaller non-local companies may be hard to find in the first place.</p>
<p>given the OP’s initial list, are there any schools on it that get insufficient visits from recruiters, @ucbalumnus? can you recommend any cali schools that get a similar number of recruiters to campus as the least of these schools get? SJSU, for instance. </p>
<p>@ucbalmnus @jkeil911 Yes, this is probably the most concerning thing for me. I am not so worried about the quality of my education (I think that almost any place is fine, especially for undergrad), but it would seem like job prospects and opportunities at schools like Cal Poly SLO, UC Berkeley, or even the lower tier UC’s would be better than at a place like Alabama. Also, I think that I would get more opportunities in California if I went to a state school, and although obviously I am not sure, California seems like a place I would want to work and live in. Ultimately, I feel that there are many upsides to every school, and it certainly won’t be easy choosing when that time comes around!</p>