I just generalized it, I’m expecting UCs to all be reaches except for UCR and UCSC. How does UCSC’s robotics major compare to UCR’s mech major? I’ve heard it’s very hands on and mixes mech + elec.
I’m not in Santa Clara county so sadly I don’t get any benefits.
Edit: do you think it would be better to apply to less impacted majors for most UCs? How would something like industrial engineering or civil engineering compare to mech at these schools, if not physics or statistics?
Have you considered Oregon State? It offers a wide range of ABET accredited engineering majors, and seems to have a lot of programs matching your interests. Engineering majors are popular, but are not impacted, so you can freely explore your interests. Student project teams, such as robotics teams, have outstanding support from the university.
If you visit, be sure to arrange specialized tours of the engineering college, and the honors college. Given your interests, you may also want to contact the robotics club and meet with them when you are visiting. https://osurobotics.club
(If you are interested in race cars, they also have a world famous Formula SAE team.)
I’ll definitely add it to my list! Thanks for the recommendation. Would it be considered a safety or target for my stats?
Assuming that your HSGPA for CSU is the same as your UC weighted-capped HSGPA (it differs if you took college courses while in high school)…
SJSU ME is not a safety.
SJSU uses a formula of 800 * HSGPA + 400 * mathGPA which becomes 800 * 3.98 + 400 * 3.5 = 4584 for you (+200 if you will graduate from a high school in Santa Clara County). Last year’s ME threshold was 4620, according to Freshmen Impaction Results | Admissions . So consider it a reach if your high school is outside Santa Clara County, match if it is in Santa Clara County.
CPP’s formula is 1000 * HSGPA + 450 which becomes 1000 * 3.98 + 450 = 4430 for you (there are some unspecified bonus points possible). Last year’s threshold for ME was 4562, according to Freshman Student Profile . Consider it a reach.
For less selective California publics with ME, consider adding:
Apply to the major you really want, because it may be difficult to change into a popular major after enrolling (it is more selective because it is “full”).
With your SAT I think Oregon State would be very likely, as they DO consider SAT in admissions (unlike UW and the CA state schools).
Admission is rolling in the early fall. Apply early, and you may have an acceptance early in the admissions season.
The honors college is excellent. For Mech E honors students, you would have access to small honors classes throughout most of your college career, including upper level classes in your major. This is something my son didn’t see at any other school where he applied.
There is also a MechE capstone project and for the honors college you would write an honors thesis.
If you get the WUE scholarship, your cost would probably be in the same ballpark as a UC. However, not everyone gets WUE, it’s only for the top students accepted. I don’t know if it’s more GPA-based or if they would weight your SAT more heavily when awarding WUE.
Thanks for all of the links, this was super helpful and I never knew it existed. Do you think it’ll be worth applying for something like civil or do I have a decent chance for mech? Do you have any other recommendations for places to apply to?
Civil appears to be likely for SJSU and match for CPP for you based on last year’s thresholds (but those change year to year based on level of competition), but choose it only if you really want to study civil.
What are your preferences in college characteristics?
Good engineering program in terms of facilities and faculty. Smaller school and urban location preferred. Would like a diverse student body.
I’m fine with ASU and lower-tier UCs for likelies, so looking more for targets or plausible reaches.
There are much better Mech Engineering schools on your list that won’t have this 90k price tag. As already suggested, check out state flagship/land grant universities. Generally speaking, they are often better engineering schools than a lot of the high priced private schools.
Have you looked at CWRU? It checks all these boxes.
If your parents are willing to pay anything, then obviously costs don’t matter. For certain schools that are need-aware in their admissions process it could even help you a little.
If costs do matter it makes reaches even more of a reach: an admittance to a school that will cost more than you can afford to or are willing to pay, is basically meaningless.
Yep, I’ll add it to my list. I heard from some friends that the facilities aren’t great but I’m starting to hear otherwise from other sources (that it’s great for engineering).
Anything else you’d recommend?
A couple of other schools in urban locations that my son really liked: University of Minnesota (UMN) and University of Pittsburgh (“Pitt”). Both of these schools also offer merit, have honors colleges, have rolling admission early in the season, and do a good job of supporting students’ engineering projects.
UMN has particularly great facilities according to my son. See if you can get a tour of the facilities for your desired engineering department.
Pitt also offers cross registration with its neighbor CMU, if that’s of interest to you.
If you like smaller schools (Cooper, Olin) and you like Colorado (Boulder), then I’d take a close look at Colorado School of Mines, which is particularly well-regarded for MechE. It’s another hands-on, project-based type program.
Colorado State could also be worth a look - also has strong engineering, and would be quite affordable as it participates in WUE.
I agree that Oregon State could be a great choice for you. As already stated, I think you can count on being admitted, but the WUE scholarship is only given to the top 30% of admits from eligible states… which still seems like a strong possibility, but not guaranteed. You’d still probably get a smaller merit award if you didn’t get WUE. This project sounds somewhat adjacent to your drone work - maybe the people involved in this would be good to talk to: Agricultural Drone — OSU AIAA
I think less impacted majors would be easier and if you are open to other engineering or physics you can do this at the some of the higher ranked colleges. In regards to Robotics major I did not do much research on this but I have read that that it is not ABET accredited and in some industries this is important.
My Son applied to Mech engineering and some of his friends with similar stats applied for material science engineering or industrial engineering and his friends had better results at some of the schools. Mech engineering has lower acceptance rates than industrial engineering at many of the schools.
My son had a uW GPA of of 3.84 and 1540 Sat and he applied for to some of state flagships that you are applying for had acceptances from UMD (with merit), Wisconson, CU Boulder (with merit). UIUC he was rejected but he applied here for CS+economics and later learnt that is very hard major to get into as it is very in demand and small class size.
Good Luck.
Since the UCs do not see your SAT, my guess is that the only likely UCs would be UCR and UCM. (And I’m not sure if UCR would be a likely or target.) You may be admitted to other UCs, but I wouldn’t consider any of the others to be likely admits.
Most CA kids in your situation (that is, GPA relatively lower than SAT) add some schools outside of CA to their list of likelies and targets. For MechE, there are lots of great engineering schools out there. It’s worth taking the time to choose likelies and targets that are best fits for you, including visiting these schools. You might even find in the end that you prefer a likely or target over your reaches 
If Arizona State University is affordable, and you like it, then since it is a 100% sure thing safety for you, you can remove other schools from the application list that you would not choose over it.
Yes. S24 got accepted to SDSU for Aerospace Eng and Honor college. We visited there, CPP and UCR. I personally like SDSU the most out of the three. Nice location, beautiful campus, happy students…You have high test score, but not very high UC/CSU GPA. Since UCs and CSUs are test blind, Top UCs and SLO may be hard to get in. SDSU would be one more in state option for you.
I don’t believe that SDSU publishes its index criteria, but all majors are impacted, and it’s a popular school (anecdotally, it seemed to be a tougher admit than CPP among my son’s classmates). It looks like your S24 had weighted capped GPA of 4.31? The OP may find it more of a challenging admit with weighted capped GPA of 3.98. I’d peg it as more of a reach for OP.