santookie

We're not SE Asian, we're Korean/Chinese/White (think Scotish). Iowa state offered $7500? Thats barely a dent, hmm wondering if I should take it off the list.

MD Mom what did Pitt offer your daughter? If you don't mind me asking and did she have similar stats to my son? Thanks for the response in advance.

ucbalum - thanks for scanning the scholarship for me! If we ever meet I definitely owe your a beer or something. You always give me some awesome input!

barrons - thanks for looking as well! The amount of scholarships on each site makes my eyes go crossed.

BobWallace

Louisiana Tech might be your best financial safety - stats would guarantee a full ride there (Presidential Scholarship):
http://www.latech.edu/admissions/Sch...%20website.pdf

For the Alabama schools, UAH might be a better fit than UAB, as it has a broader engineering curriculum. (Nothing against UAB in general.)

mom2collegekids

Have you visited Bama? If not, and you plan to, be sure to let me know so I can get you in touch with the Honors College people who will arrange his day...meeting with profs, touring the new Science and Engineering Complex, touring the Honors dorms, etc.

This year's freshman class will be 60% OOS! And, the acceptance rate is now down to about 44%...which is pretty good for a state school. However, it would still be a safety for your son with his stats.

As you know, he'd get free tuition PLUS 2500 per year....remaining costs (room, board, books, etc) would be about $11k per year if you choose the honors dorms.

(be sure to estimate travel costs in all OOS schools....those costs can add up if your child (and PARENTS) travel to and from the school a couple of times a year. Just one PARENTS' trip to an OOS school to help with "move in" can cost a couple thousand once you consider airfare, car rental, hotel, restaurants, etc).

And...as other parents will tell you, there are always some surprise expenses that will pop up...child's phone dies, laptop gets broken, need cold weather clothes/shoes for very cold climates, study abroad opportunities, etc....those things don't seem to get included in COAs. In other words, you can't budget college costs to the dollar. Even a funded REU opportunity will likely cost you.

Considering what you said in the previous thread about your ability to pay being significantly less than college financial aid EFC, you may want to see if any of the schools listed here are suitable safeties (of course, check if they have decent ABET-accredited engineering degree programs of interest):

All of Bama's eng'g disciplines are ABET accredited. CS is as well.


ACT 33 and SAT 2080

As you probably already know, those scores won't likely get merit money from Harvey Mudd and some of the other higher ranked schools mentioned. An ACT 33 is very good, but as you know, it's not in the top quartile for some of these mentioned schools.


I think some people are forgetting that merit money gets applied to NEED first. So, unless the merit is huge, it won't change what the family has to pay. For instance... $15k from URoch isn't going to reduce your EFC.


Regarding Parent loans.....Do you have any younger kids to put thru college? If so, keep in mind that you'll be making loan payments while trying to put the younger one(s) thru college as well. That would mean even less money to put towards EFC.

To get your TOTAL costs down to the $20k range, that means your child needs at least a 3/4 tuition scholarship. $15k-20k per year merit scholarships to privates isn't going to get you down to that cost.

As you've said, your fixed expenses are pretty much set...mortgage, insurance, utilities, etc are pretty much going to be the same...you don't sound like you have many areas in which you could "cut back."


Remind your wife that companies do not pay new-hire engineers more money because they graduated from Presigious U. Everyone starts about the same, except sometimes a MIT or CalTech grad may get a little incoming salary bump....certainly not enough to justify a bunch of debt!

I'm sure the Cal eng'g grad scratches his head when he finds out that the Long Beach State or SLO grad started at the same pay as he.

noimagination

The engineering school did not seem as prominent as at some other schools. For example, the professor I talked to said that the university implemented a 120-credit graduation requirement across the board. This is very unusual for engineering programs, which normally require a few extra credits. Based on that conversation, I got the impression that credit counts were artificially lowered to fit the university requirement at the expense of accurately representing the total workload.

That's obviously not much of a problem, but I still remember it because the rest of my research seemed to corroborate the idea that engineering was not WUSTL's strongest suit.

If y'all really like the place, I'm sure it's a fine program. It just seems like there might be a better fit at that price and selectivity level.
Just to clarify: Idaho State University has the undergrad nuclear program. UI offers graduate programs through the Idaho Falls campus, but for undergrad you'd want ISU in Pocatello.

New Mexico is a more well-rounded safety choice if he changes his mind about nuclear.

chocchipcookie

Purdue, Georgia Tech, CMU, Case Western, Tufts, Cornell, URochester, Michigan, Alabama........good luck!

ucbalumnus

The better known (for engineering) schools do tend to attract more non-local company recruiters, so a student graduating from such a school is likely to have more choices of non-local companies to work at after graduation. Of course, each school will attract local recruiters (so that EE and CS graduates from SJSU and UCSC get a boost due to Silicon Valley proximity, as do those from Berkeley and Stanford). Note that CPSLO is generally considered highly attractive to recruit engineering graduates at, at least regionally.

santookie

Bobwallace - I saw UAH even had full rides. Only thing that turned me off was some student comments I found a this coughcough ******* site. I originally saw nothing wrong with UAH it just made me weary.

m2ck - Bama is definitely on the list. Just have to see what other offers we have before we spend all that money on airfare and hotel. Wife definitely wants to go. Can't just send the boy. sigh

noimag - aaah I could see that. WUSTL seems more geared toward pre-Med and Law.

choc - I was thinking Georgia Tech, but those scholarships see insanely competitive. I don't know guess I'll figure it out once I see his recent SAT and ACT scores. His SATII scores didn't make me feel that great about his chances.

ucb - I would agree with the Cal Poly SLO comment but thats because Cal Poly is like RHIT. More of the application then theory. More practical and you're better to start right after just completing your undergrad. Seems like my son is edging toward going to grad school.

So my list so far I think

Reach
UC Berkeley
Stanford
Olin
Princeton (wife and son want this, no idea why)
CMU (maybe)

Match
Cal Poly SLO
Pittsburgh
Alabama
Iowa State
North Carolina State
Purdue (maybe)

Safety
San Jose State

wavylays94

^Maybe more realistic reaches would be a good idea..
And Alabama is a safety
Just my two cents

whydoicare

@santookie - did you ever look at SUNY-Buffalo? They offered my kid full tuition plus a little more for engineering, on merit, with stats lower than your son's. Also, if he likes Pitt then he would probably like CMU, too. They are adjacent in Oakland, have cross registration, etc.

ucbalumnus

Berkeley is probably not as high a reach as Stanford or Princeton, unless you absolutely need the Drake scholarship.

Olin is probably out of reach financially unless its need-based aid is extremely generous (check the net price calculator). The automatic half tuition scholarship still leaves about $40,000 per year remaining cost of attendance, which is significantly higher than your price limit.

Given that Alabama has an automatic full tuition plus merit scholarship for the student's stats, it should be a safety, as admission and affordability are basically assured. The same goes for any other automatic large merit scholarship schools.

For your match list, the schools other than Cal Poly SLO are OOS publics; the cheapest (Iowa State and NCSU) have OOS list prices comparable to UC in-state list price, which is higher than your price limit, but probably won't give you as much need-based aid (check the net price calculators). So you need to make the reach/match/safety assessment based on the chance of getting large enough merit scholarships at those schools.

Perhaps Texas A&M may be worth a shot, because even some of the smaller merit scholarships come with waivers of the additional OOS tuition. Also, check other UCs' net price calculators to see if they can be affordable.

marciemi

Just a couple thoughts - reiterating that if your son is at all interested, to look into NROTC. We went through this a couple years ago as my older son was also looking for Nuclear Engineering and not a lot of colleges offered it. He was also interested in Subs/Navy. He received the full NROTC scholarship and is currently attending MIT. I know the NROTC folks there had a lot of pull in getting him in, and the opportunities/resources there are incredible. He got a 60 day intership this summer out in Las Vegas working for the NNSA (National Nuclear Security Administration) having only completed his freshman year at MIT.

I would encourage you to have your son apply to both MIT and Caltech in any case if he's interested - my son's stats weren't any better so it's worth a shot (3.89 GPA, 32 ACT, never even took the SAT1, Subject tests were 800 math and 750 Chem).

Finally, I'd back someone else and apply for Purdue as well. He'll almost 100% certainly get in, but their scholarships seem to be a bit arbitrary. My younger son got nearly a full ride (we're out of state), while others on FB and the forums with similar stats got nothing. Hard to gauge what they're looking for but it's a definite acceptance safety so you don't have much to lose to see how the financials play out. Oh, and going back to MIT, they do offer great FA. My older son didn't get any since ROTC covered most of the cost, but my younger son received FA for far more than we were expecting, so we're only paying about what the cost of an IS school would be.

Good luck!

GeekMom63

Disclaimer - my son is extremely happy as a CS major at Mudd, and also considered Case Western, Caltech, Rose Hulman, WUStL, Rice, and a few others. I think they're all excellent choices. Case Western and Rose Hulman offered good Merit aid, and Rice, Caltech, and Mudd offered good need-based aid, so that all schools essentially cost the same. Our financial situation isn't too different from yours either - please PM if you want more info.

They barely offer merit aid, and I think most of it is slated for minorities & women.

Sounds like our financial situation and a school that "meets need", like Caltech or Mudd, will probably not ask you for much more than that. However, a lot of the aid they offer will be in the form of loans for your son (very roughly, $5000 per year).

Make that EXCELLENT aid for your income bracket.

"doesn't have a chance" statistically, but by the stats you posted (especially if he can improve the SAT I just a wee bit), definitely admissible for Caltech, Olin, Mudd, Stanford, and the Ivies. MIT, like the Ivies, also gives killer aid at your bracket.

I have a young friend, a NMF, who's very happy at Case, and another similarly well-prepared student who will start there this fall.

Good luck!

santookie

wavy, I was thinking that Alabama does fall into stats get your aid so probably is a safety.

ucb - yups I did the net price calculator at Olin says we'd still have to come up with $28-29k. Drakes would be fantastic for UCB but not going to hold our breath. It's a bit of a stretch but after the first year we'd save on housing and what not. Never really considered A&M hmmmm. NC State has Park's we can dream and does have nuclear engineering. Iowa St is good all around and does have scholarships which we have a potential to get.

marc - hmmm I have no problem suggesting NROTC. But damn the son falls far from my tree, he's very liberal no idea if he's down with anything related to ROTC. unfortunately.

CMU you think it would be worth adding to our list? We decided we're taking a vacation in July and visiting CalTech, hehehe probably visit USC for the heck of it. Then back home to check out the CTCL fair they have up here.

Thanks again for all your input!

Reach
UC Berkeley
Stanford
Olin
Princeton (wife and son want this, no idea why)
CMU (maybe)

Match
Cal Poly SLO
Pittsburgh
Iowa State
North Carolina State
Purdue (maybe)

Safety
San Jose State
Alabama
Alabama Birmingham

ucbalumnus

Note that if he is unsure of nuclear engineering in terms of the relatively narrow career choices there, he may want to major in a different type of engineering of interest (e.g. mechanical or electrical) but take some nuclear engineering courses as electives, if at a school that offers nuclear engineering.

On the Alabama schools, Huntsville also offers full tuition for an ACT of 31, and a full ride for an ACT of 34, and offers various engineering majors (but not nuclear).

As far as Princeton goes, it is one of the two Ivy League schools that has a strong reputation in engineering (the other is Cornell).

You have run the net price calculators on Pittsburgh, Iowa State, NCSU, and Purdue? If the result is too high just on need-based aid, it would be merit scholarships, not just admission, that is the target (adjust reach/match appropriately). Virginia Tech may be another school along these lines; although it does not seem to have any obvious huge scholarships, it has some medium sized ones that may bring it to your affordability range starting from its relatively low OOS list price.

santookie

ucb - thats what I was thinking, taking into account the merit potential. I thought teh general rule is that your trying to push yourself to the top of their applicant pool. Especially at the state run schools. Hmmm that makes lots of state schools reaches =(

So list wise should I add NCSU, Pitt, and Iowa State as reaches?