Best schools for Computer Science in Califonia?

aquapt
Fri, 25 Sep 2020 04:23:00 +0000

For schools where you apply by major (which is the case at most public U’s), applying to computer science will generally be more competitive than what you see in the overall admissions stats for that school.

Median stats for admitted students at Cal Poly Pomona are 3.51 GPA, 1140 SAT. (Although as noted above, SATs won’t be considered this coming year). And admissions aren’t “holistic” so, if your numbers fall below the cutoff for your major, that’s all there is to it. If you can spare the application fee, there’s no harm in checking the box and trying, but it’s not a likely admit for CS. If you’re in the local area, that will make it less of a reach, as they’ll add a “bump” to your GPA - I think it’s +.25

Some of the schools on Gumbmom’s list above are impacted for CS (meaning the admissions cutoff will be higher for CS than for the school generally) and others aren’t. You still might get into CS even though it’s impacted at a school like Monterey Bay, for example, particularly if you’re in the local area. But you should include at at least one non-impacted campus such as SFSU or Channel Islands.

The money conversation is important. You need to know what your out-of-pocket budget would be at a CSU, after all of the financial aid you’re eligible for is applied. https://www2.calstate.edu/attend/paying-for-college/Pages/csu-costs.aspx

If you’re able to afford something between 30K-35K/year, then there are also some good options in the Western Undergraduate Exchange, some of which may not be any farther from your home than the other end of California would be. Portland State, University of Nevada Reno, Northern Arizona… and others that are farther from CA’s borders… offer reciprocity rates to CA residents and have solid computer science programs. But if you need the need-based aid that the state of CA provides, that will limit your choices to CA schools.

If you want to aim for a more competitive CA university than you can currently get into, attending a community college that offers an associate degree for transfer in CS will give you a smooth transfer pathway into a CSU or UC. You can look for programs that articulate between CCC’s and CSU’s here: https://adegreewithaguarantee.com/en-us/Find-Colleges

Also consider CS-adjacent majors that might be a little less competitive. Use this tool http://degrees.calstate.edu/ and the search terms “computer,” “information,” “data,” and “software” to dig up all the possibilities in the CSU system.