The following are all ABET-accredited for chemical engineering and are TE schools in the desired geographic areas. The set rate is $43,000 for SY25-26 and will be $44,000 for SY26-27. The TE info is pulled from the TE website.
School
State
TE Amount
# Applied for TE in 25-26
# Approved for TE in 25-26
% Approved for TE in 25-26
Bucknell
PA
Set Rate
196
57
29%
California Baptist
CA
Full tuition
52
8
15%
Case Western
OH
Set Rate
279
23
8%
Clarkson
NY
Set Rate
57
45
79%
Drexel
PA
Set Rate
282
5
2%
Howard
D.C.
Set Rate
3
1
33%
Lafayette
PA
Set Rate
125
10
8%
Manhattan U.
NY
Full tuition
39
20
51%
Rochester Institute of Technology
NY
Set Rate
237
25
11%
Stevens Institute of Technology
NJ
Set Rate
85
8
9%
Syracuse
NY
Set Rate
667
158
24%
U. of Delaware
DE
Full tuition
383
50
13%
U. of New Haven
CT
Set Rate
41
27
66%
U. of Pittsburgh
PA
Full tuition
526
22
4%
U. of Southern California
CA
Other Amount
471
41
9%
Villanova
PA
Set Rate
342
4
1%
Widener
PA
Full tuition
70
49
70%
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
MA
Set Rate
142
12
8%
If TE is a key component of how college will be affordable for your family, then make sure and see whether schools will be affordable if they only grant the set rate. When schools cost $90k+, a set rate award will not bring the price down to below $40k. Additionally, if TE is strongly desired, I would include some schools with a higher percentage of TE applicants receiving TE. Clarkson, already mentioned, has a great reputation for engineering and 79% of its TE applicants were awarded TE. @Bill_Marsh has spoken highly about the experience engineering students have had at Manhattan U, and it has a 50% rate, so not high, but much higher than those schools with single digit award rates.
You may want to research this further, but I suspect that the TE applications received is based on the number of admitted students who were TE applicants. So for many popular TE schools getting in is only the first hurdle, as some TE schools (like Villanova) have only 1% of the TE applicants receive TE.
Outside of TE, you may also want to consider the U. of Nevada - Reno. It’s quite close to California and a lot of California students are choosing it as well. Its prices are much lower than the UCs (closer to about $42k for tuition, room & board) and you may receive merit aid to bring the price fully within budget.
Since you’re so interested in materials science, there’s another TE school I think you should consider: Alfred. It’s ABET-accredited in biomaterials engineering, ceramic engineering (starting in 1936!), glass engineering science, materials science and engineering, mechanical engineering, and renewal energy engineering. And its TE amount is full tuition, meaning lots of savings, and they give TE to about 48% of their applicants, meaning that you have decent odds of getting a great deal here. And as a cherry on top, they have one of the coolest mascots I’ve heard of.
As an FYI, these are the schools ABET-accredited for materials engineering that were in your geographically preferred areas.
WPI also offers special scholarships for FIRST robotics participants up to and including a full tuition scholarship. If you are interested in pursuing this, note that “each team participating in one of the programs may nominate one of its student members,” so I would suggest reading all the details. WPI has ABET ChemE and MechE, and a graduate program in Materials.
USD does not have chemical engineering as a major.
An impacted CSU campus is one which cannot admit all who meet the minimum CSU requirements (completion of the a-g course pattern with a 3.0 GPA out-of-state, 2.5 GPA in-state, as recalculated for CSU purposes). An impacted major at a CSU campus is similar in this respect. Any impacted campus or major will admit competitively based on a campus-specific formula for GPA and other criteria. All of CPP, CSULB, and SJSU are impacted campuses where all majors are impacted.
CPP and SJSU publish the most recent year’s admission thresholds (you need to read their pages carefully to determine their formulae).
Rowan - NJ state school NJ & has Chemical Engineering
SUNY ESF - offers tuition match with Rutgers & has Chemical Engineering. Campus is located across the street from Syracuse University & students have access to facilitues + cross registration
I have checked costs at all of the schools on both of Austen Nut’s lists above and have factored in tuition match. The following don’t come close to being within budget:
Bucknell
Case Western
Villanova
All of the others are either within budget or close. However, not all schools have published next year’s cost or attendance yet, so it will be necessary to continue to monitor costs as some may yet become too expensive. Although there are several in the $40-45,000 range, I didn’t want to eliminate any of them prematurely.
The following are known cost, based on in state or tuition match costs:
Rutgers
Rowan
SUNY ESF
University of Maine (tuition match awards vary)
Here is a ranking of tuition match schools from highest percent of applicants receiving TE awards to lowest:
79% - Clarkson
70% - Widener
66% - New Haven
51% - Manhattan
48% - Alfred
33% - Howard
29% - Bucknell
24% - Syracuse
15% - Cal Baptist
13% - Delaware
11% - RIT
9% - USC
9%- Stevens
8% - Lafayette
8% Worcester Tech
8% - Case Western
4% - Pitt
2% - Drexel
1% - Villanova
Since prestige is a factor and there are many ways to assess prestige especially among engineering schools which may be well known in the industry but are not necessarily household names, I’m offering colleges which were ranked within the top 100 of “best colleges” in 2026 by The Wall Street Journal. I offer WSJ because they highly ranked some colleges which do not commonly appear at the top of other lists like US News. Their formula relies heavily (70%) on return on investment, i.e. post college earnings. Other lists are readily available and rend to identify the usual suspects.
Your issue is that you’re hoping and basing California choices on ifs;
Getting your SAT score up
Getting the tuition exchange scholarship
Getting loans.
If none of these happens what will you do?
USD does not have your major. Yes, it’s a beautiful campus. Yes, it has views of the ocean, but it’s expensive and it’s not too well-known outside of California.
If your parents are looking for prestige that’s not a school I would consider “prestigious”, but it’s a really nice private Catholic college. That school is aware that a lot of LA and Northern California kids want to be at that school.
My youngest sister attended USC and even on a scholarship, it was still expensive.
You’re “banking” on a 9% chance of getting the tuition exchange rate at USC if you were to get in.
USC is trying to increase their students who have high SAT test scores. That’s why there’s a push for them to admit national merit winners. Our son was being heavily recruited by USC because of his test scores and his sports rankings. They only guaranteed tuition. Every other school was cheaper and more prestigious of where he was admitted. Same thing for our daughters.
Streamline your extracurriculars. The schools want dedication, not a laundry list.
The longer your list is, the more they tend to think well the reason his test scores are down is because he spent too much time on his extracurriculars.
Have your parents do the net price calculators on each school that you hope to attend. They have to pay for your schooling so you need to make sure it’s affordable in someplace they’re willing to pay for you to go.