My Scripps kid initially wasn’t seeking a women’s college either. In many ways, the experience is more like a women’s residential college within a coed university. I’d encourage her not to rule it out if the NPC is favorable. Pomona is a very, very tough admit. It’s understandable why she kept her course rigor in check in high school, but if her counselor rec isn’t going to say that she had the highest rigor available for her school, I would having trouble being bullish about a Pomona admit. Pomona’s Common Data Set lists both rigor and class rank as “very important,” and more than 90% of entering students were in the top 10% of their HS class. Being from a less-represented state will help, but it’s still a long shot. Scripps would give her all of the same academic opportunities. (My Scripps kid did her primary major through Pomona and took classes at all five colleges.) Though she couldn’t do an engineering major at either one, which was why I asked about the relative importance of keeping that option open.
How odd that there’s such a big difference in financial projections between USF and Santa Clara/LMU. But great that USF looks solidly affordable! My kids have had a number of friends attend USF and their experiences have been consistently positive. It seems to me that USF may hit the sweet spot here. The physics department is solid and has a range of options for minors and combined majors. She could get her feet wet in engineering via the engineering physics minor, or she could do a full engineering major if she decided to - the flexibility to switch is there, and it looks like the ABET accreditation will likely be in place by the time she graduates. I’m not comfortable saying that USF is a slam-dunk safety, given that it is need-aware, but I think it’ll happen. They value the kind of character she has shown through her challenging family circumstances, and the geographic diversity will be a plus too; and she’s a very solid applicant there in terms of raw stats.
Would she consider Pacific Northwest schools? Reed meets need and could be a realistic reach, and it’s a top feeder to physics PhD programs. (This list ranks it 4th, behind only Caltech, Harvey Mudd, and MIT: The Colleges Where PhD's Get Their Start ) No engineering, but the physics department is super-strong… and Portland is a great west coast city. Of the other PNW privates that might work, it’s again the Catholic U’s that have engineering (Seattle U and U of Portland… also Gonzaga but eastern WA is a different beast, probably not what she has in mind). For non-engineering LAC’s, there’s Lewis & Clark, Willamette, and U of Puget Sound… plus Whitman which is probably too remote/inland but is a really nice school and gives merit prereads.
Anyway, not to belabor a tangent that’s outside your criteria, but Reed seemed worth mentioning if Mudd has been clocked as appealing but out of reach.
If it’s California-only for sure, given the projected financials you describe and the desire to keep an engineering option in the mix… I’d personally be tempted to ED2 at USF (if it’s not the one to which she already applied EA). I don’t think Pomona or Stanford will happen for her (thought I’d be happy to be proven wrong), and Oxy is more limited in terms of engineering exposure. (They do have cross-registration with Caltech, but that could be a pretty rough way of wading into something new.) Oxy is a great school, but it’s very small; USF is 3x the size, which means more possibilities to choose from in terms of course offerings, research labs, and so on. And I’d be very surprised if an ED2 app to USF didn’t result in an acceptance; it would decrease the concern that the financial aid budget might be running low by the time her application was evaluated.
Not to pressure you to foreclose on other options, but given the financial pressures, that’s one risk-averse line of thinking to consider.