SAT score of 1270. A’s and B’s in AP and Honors classes, active in sports and has employment. Lives in Arizona, might like state with snow. May be interested in cybersecurity and game design classes/clubs. Senior in fall. Any guidance would be helpful.
GPA?
Budget?
Obvious schools would be ASU and NAU. Also consider Univ of Nevada Reno and Las Vegas.
Look at the WUE schools. Several good Cal States on the list: http://wue.wiche.edu/search_results.jsp?searchType=all
ASU. They have a lot of good things happening there. If your student avoids the party circuit.
Above average in CS is always going to be subjective. You need to look at schools where those stats are OK for admission to CS first. Instate, inexpensive, with room for a major change would be the place to start for those stats. Define budget, GPA and HS classes, math APs? physics?? Utah would be an obvious spot for WUE AND snow but one assumes CS and the gaming program would be competitive, if not, then weed out is highly likely.
Look at the WUE schools. You can search by major here: http://wue.wiche.edu/search1.jsp
If by snow you mean access to skiing, U of Utah is an obvious target - some of the best skiing in the country literally half an hour from campus, and all the resources of a major city as well. And excellent CS. (Though taking their path to residency and paying in-state tuition beginning in year two can actually be more advantageous than WUE.) As mentioned up-thread, it might be too competitive for CS, but worth a look.
There’s also Nevada-Reno, Montana State and UMontana… lots of great options for a great price, though you have to check specific requirements and limitations at the particular schools you’re interested in. https://www.bestcolleges.com/features/best-colleges-for-skiing-snowboarding/ From that list, Clarkson or U of Denver could be great private options to consider if they would work financially, depending on whether he likes urban or rural.
RIT and Drexel are particularly good for combining CS with visual arts, if that’s the aspect of game design that you have in mind. Both are co-op schools. RIT might be too reachy for CS, though.
Of course there’s also NAU in-state, which has its own snow. (More cybersecurity than game design there, I believe.)
Many options- hundreds. Do a search for overall schools and then look at CS. You will get many names mentioned but will also not get some great choices for son. Check your instate and regional choices, expand to areas he actively would like.
S19 has researched game design and AI programs. Is location an issue? He is looking mostly east coast or midwest. This will at least give you some starting points. Here are schools he has considered.
George Mason
NC State
UDel
UMD
Lehigh
RIT
Rochester
Case Western
Ohio State
Carleton
MI State
U MI
Miami OH
We live in Nebraska and they have a computer dept. Snow depends on the year but he’d definitely get a change of seasons. Not great for winter sports though.
DePaul has a very good school within their CS school, devoted to game design. They may offer decent merit aid, not sure. The CS school dean was my AI professor when I went there 35 years ago and he’s a cutting edge type of person, always looking out for the latest trends.
OP’s kid has an SAT of 1270 and a middling GPA.
I agree that those stats, although good, aren’t “above average” but could get admission to many programs but not likely much, if any, merit. In state would be the first option, he might want to add UT San Antonio to his list. They have a great cyber security program. I’d suggest retaking the SAT.
I also agree that “above average” is very subjective and those stats would not fit my idea of “above average” maybe the CC effect???
1270 is the 85th percentile. A’s and B’s in honors classes also sounds above average. The issue is that many CS programs are limited in size, so you need stats way above average to get into them. The OP has gotten what sound like good suggestions - I just want to caution that when they look at schools to make sure that they are guaranteed entry to the CS program. Some schools will accept you, but only let you into CS if your freshman year grades are above a certain threshold.
Assuming completion of the specified high school course work, https://students.asu.edu/freshman/requirements indicates that the student is automatic admit to Arizona State University. The student also meets the higher standards for the computer science major: https://webapp4.asu.edu/programs/t5/majorinfo/ASU00/ESCSEBS/undergrad/false .
University of Arizona also does not look difficult to get into: https://admissions.arizona.edu/how-to-apply/freshman
No snow, but George Mason is fantastic in that field, well-priced and close to stuff.
Even though that program is great, access may be more open than you expect because it isn’t the school around here most kids want to attend (too close to home.) The truth is, GMU does a great job with their students. Check it out.
“No snow” re: GMU? It is in northern Virginia and there is certainly snow on occasion.
1270 is way above average.
@privatebanker I guess “above average” is relative. Above average compared to all students taking the SAT? Above average for all college bound students? Above average for students applying to a specific college? Since the OP is looking for suggestions for schools I would think the latter is what would matter. My suggestion would be to use Naviance, if available, to see what the average SAT score for kids from your school applying to specific schools is. At my kids high school the average SAT score for kids applying to UT (our state flagship) is 1384 not all of these kids get in and not all that apply to comp sci get into that major. Often comp sci majors have higher requirements than general admission to a university.
So from my subjective perspective a 1270 SAT is closer to average than above average.
Last year 1060 was the average sat score for the world. There were 1.6mm test takers. At 1270 only 360k test takers takers out of the 1.6mm scored 1270 or higher. It’s 20% higher than average. And 85th percentile. Not elite. But not average
How many were juniors seniors or younger I don’t know. But I would believe that most of these taken by juniors and seniors.
Here’s the number of students going to college.
“2015, there were 11.8 million college and university students under age 25 and 8.1 million students 25 years old and over. The numbers of younger and older students increased between 2000 and 2015 (source).”
If we divide the 11.8mm college students under the age of 25 by 4. It’s roughly 3mm freshman. If we assume many of the people are not freshman coming from high school. Say taking longer. Going back etc. let’s reduce by an extra million for random populations. 2mm. Assume half take the act instead. 1mm. So 1mm if sat test takers are seniors and they are going to college. Perhaps community college but many to to hundreds of 4 year schools.
There are 3.6mm graduating seniors. Only 10 percent of this group score 1270 or better.
1270 is not average. It’s just not. And is cc forum bias leading to our judgement of the relative strength of the score. Yep.
1270 is definitely an above average SAT score. However for certain computer science programs at certain colleges, it will not reach the bar for acceptance directly into CS.
But really, it’s a decent SAT score. IIRC, that’s about what my kid had when applying to colleges. She got accepted everywhere she applied except her one reach (she only applied to 5 schools total and one was a parent request). Even with her “modest” SAT score, and no calculus in HS, she managed to graduate with a degree in engineering.
There ARE colleges where this kid’s stats will get him into a CS degree seeking program. The list above is a good start.
Average doesn't matter if average students don't graduate with the desired CS degree. Anyone have some correlation between HS stats and CS degree outcomes? It isn't an average degree. Non selective entry just means weed out later rather than initial rejection. A worse case scenario IMO. CS must have at least as many drop outs as eng.
According to Prep Scholar (take it for what it’s worth - they had the averages of all schools on one site and I was too lazy to calculate averages from ranges on each schools’ web site)
RIT average SAT 1290
Case Western average SAT 1440
DePaul average SAT 1190
UDel average SAT 1290
Arizona State average SAT 1210
GMU average SAT 1210
1270 is below the average for half of these schools. I think ASU is a great option, I wouldn’t waste the application fee on Case Western. If GMU and DePaul are within your budget then apply, I’d worry that my kid might be “weeded out” at RIT and UDel with that score and GPA but you know your kid, some are great students but not great test takers so maybe they’ll shine like @thumper1 's DD. Good comp sci programs for an A/B student with a 1270 would be ASU, UT San Antonio not Case Western and the like. It’s important to find a good fit, the good thing about comp sci is it’s more important what you DO than WHERE you go when it comes to finding a job.