@Publisher, as @evergreen5 pointed out, we can’t afford Cornell due to the high EFC of almost $50k that we definitely cannot afford to pay. We are for the most part exclusively chasing merit aid.
@kethra Take rankings and lists as a piece of the puzzle. Useful but not gospel. That said, CS doesn’t require a top school to succeed. Grades, internships, location and motivation play a big role.
UT-Dallas might be worth a look but they’ve gotten to be very competitive the last few years. What was automatic 2-3 years ago might not make it today.
I would look at the exchange schools. Some nice schools on that list for CS or similar majors. Utah should be on the list for CS.
University of Kentucky’s Patterson scholarship, apply by the Early Action deadline of December 1, 2020:
“National Merit Finalist or National Hispanic Recognition Scholar; National Merit Finalists must list UK as college choice with National Merit Scholarship Corporation. National Hispanic Scholars contact the Academic Scholarship office for required documentation.” Oos receive “Full out-of-state tuition” and in state receive “Full in-state tuition”
https://www.uky.edu/financialaid/scholarship-incoming-freshmen
They also offer competitive scholarships (Otis A. Singletary) with an on campus housing stipend. See link above.
Look into Fordham. I don’t know all the details of how much exactly they might offer, but they can be fairly generous with merit aid, and I understand they have merit awards specifically for national hispanic scholars. Fordham offers EA as well so it could be an early “know”.
Edit to add:
https://www.fordham.edu/info/20531/apply/3752/scholarships_and_grants
“ Full-tuition award renewable for four years. All students who are designated as Semifinalists by the National Merit Recognition Program or Scholars by the National Hispanic Recognition Program will be considered for this scholarship. Of this pool of candidates last year, 71% of designees received the award.”
^^ Be careful with Fordham. Their NM award covers tuition, but not fees, which amount to around $2K. Their room/board charges are very expensive – around $18K. So even with the NM award, the rest of a student’s COA will amount to more than $20k, considering books, travel and personal expenses. Not only that, but their CS program is not particularly well-regarded. For CS, I would personally steer my kid elsewhere.
Hey @kethra. I have an out of the box suggestion that might not be for everyone, but I thought I would share my kid’s HBCU (Howard University) experiences because of the merit aid opportunities (My 2 kids both have full ride scholarships) and the unique opportunities available in CS at Howard. A student with a 1500+ SAT/34+ ACT would have a shot at the Presidential Scholarship which is a full ride scholarship (Tuition, mandatory fees, room & board, a $1,900 a year book voucher, and a $2,000 a year stipend). My kids both accepted the Karsh STEM Scholarship in which applicants go through a competitive scholarship process and which look for students who want to get PhDs or MD/PhDs in Stem fields. My DS20 was offered both the Presidential and the Karsh scholarships and chose Karsh due to his ultimate goal of getting a PhD in Computer Engineering (along with the many resources available and growing national reputation of the Karsh STEM Scholars Program). The Karsh scholarship does have an income kicker (at 150K income, a household has to pay 25% of tuition costs or ~ $7,000 a year).
Howard’s CS Department is “up and coming” with major opportunities. Howard West is a program in which top Howard CS students (and now a few other HBCUs) go to Google’s Mountain View headquarters and take classes for a full year and learn. Google also has Software engineers “embedded” as faculty that have “upped the ante” at Howard. IBM just announced a new 100 million dollar HBCU program in Quantum Computing being led by Howard University with 12 other HBCUs. My DD18 (a junior) has an amazing group of friends who have had unbelievable opportunities at top tech companies or who have done summer research at a “whose who” of top schools. Your kid has an amazing list of schools already (It may be hard for any school to beat UW) and I want to wish your DS and family good luck in finding the best fit (academically, socially, and financially). Here are a few links to look at…
Once you have your safety (a school that will be affordable with automatic merit aid and would be willing/excited to attend) and you begin adding target admission/financial reach (competitive merit) a 12k+5.5k student loan budget might work at:
Ohio State with a full tuition (and obviously the more competitive full ride Distinction level) Morrill award
http://undergrad.osu.edu/cost-and-aid/merit-based-scholarships
It is an FYE program (students take general engineering core, and need a minimum gpa to declare their major). My kids found the professors were dedicated to making sure students understood engineering concepts and felt supported. There are also CS degrees available through the College of Arts and Sciences, but all CS taught by the same department. https://cse.osu.edu/current-students/undergraduate/majors
Miami University (they will recalculate the gpa for rigor of DE/AP if the school gpa does not weight, resulting in a higher scholarship tier award) https://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-guarantee/
@kethra Another thought would still go to UW but not necessarily CS. I imagine UW has other degrees for IS/IT that might not be as competitive as CS. The business school usually offers MIS degrees. He could pair that with a minor in CS. They also might have an IS or Informatics degree. To have a great school with so many opportunities that close to home I would try to find a way to make it work.
There’s a lot of “hidden” costs and fees with college. Throw-in travel costs to OOS schools and it adds-up. Good luck.
Thanks all for the great suggestions, I really appreciate all of your help! If it wasn’t for this site, I would have never have known that there were these NMF and NHRP scholarships available, so I am very grateful for your willingness to share so much great information with me and here on this site!
Congratulations on your son. He seems to have his act together.
My daughter is a National Hispanic Recognition Program Scholar. She accepted a full tuition ride to ASU, and is in the Barrett Honors College. Total cost is about $20,000/year with living expenses, partly because she is in the business school which adds in another $2K/year. Their CS program from what I understand is pretty good. At ASU, the award for NMF and NHRP is I believe the same. We’ve been really impressed by the school, and she chose it over Michigan, Wisconsin, UCSB, UCSD, and Cal Poly SLO.
Someone else mentioned Arizona. U of A has been known for its MIS program for a long time. I believe they also offer a stipend for living expenses.
I would look at University of Kentucky. I believe they offer NHRP Scholars not only OOS tuition, but a chunk of money for living expenses. I believe Texas A&M gives only $4K for NHRP, but don’t quote me on that.
I have a friend who is a professor at UDub’s CS program. If he can get in, by all means, that would be my first choice because of its reputation. But it’s extremely difficult.
That being said, if he is studying CS, he should get a good job coming out of any major school, so I wouldn’t focus on rankings, just a good fit.
List of majors at University of Washington here: http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/degree-overview/majors/list-of-undergraduate-majors/
A student who wants CS but cannot get into CS may aim for Applied and Computational Mathematical Sciences, but that is also a competitive admission major. So is Informatics. Students willing to aim for less technical IT-type jobs managing computers and software (instead of designing and developing them) may look at Information Systems, but that is also a competitive admission major.