@gearmom that cs/ce question was towards mike. Also, why does it change things? Is it because of tuition?
@eaglesalex Being very straight forward. I’m not sure that your GPA will be high enough to get whopping aid. GTech and VTech are public institutions though they start out as more affordable for OOS students than others they are very competitive. Some public colleges give good aid. Some privates give good aid but still don’t reach an affordable point for families.
It’s important to know what your mother can afford. If she could pay 10k per year and you took out a Stafford loan ($5500, $6500, $7500, $7500 for each of your years in college) and you had a summer job or work study; you could then be at the 20k a year mark. You really need to run the Net Price Calculator for each college to see what your package may include (grants etc.) Publics like University of Alabama Huntsville and UMass Lowell could certainly come in for you around 20k. The key to great merit aid is applying early. As early as possible. End of October. If applying to ten or twelve colleges is not affordable then see if you can get fee waivers.
Certainly being an URM from California (geographic diversity) could help with East Coast school admissions. So you might as well try RPI. But I don’t often hear of top private engineering schools becoming truly affordable.
To guess a first pass of schools:
Safety
University of Alabama Huntsville
University of Mass Lowell
At least two California options
Match
University of Arizona
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Morehouse
California university
Reach
RPI
GTech
VTech
Rutgers
University of Washington
You can get good options in the Midwest or south if you start a new thread. I just don’t know them.
But California has some of the best schools in the country for computer fields. It is simply sensible to put some back on the table if they are going to come in the best price for best quality. There are people on here who know just about everything about California universities.
And since you’re in California. Can you find a career mentor nearby? Computer science and engineering is such a huge and diverse field as you certainly know.
thank you for the list! And I can certainly look around, i really havent heard of a career mentor before. but i could definitely use advice from someone in the field.
I heard that UC colleges are race-blind, i.e. they don’t take race into consideration. But most elite private schools do. If you are first generation and URM, I believe you can get a better deal from elite private schools, such as the Ivies, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, etc. These colleges not only admit URMs with much lower scores, but also give better financial aid. If your family income is less than $60K, all of these schools are free to you.