UCSD will give you no aid as CA publics give precious little if any aid to OOS students. I can’t imagine you will hit a $30,000 price point. I’d eliminate that one. And Berkeley…for the same reason. @Gumbymom
UMIchigan doesn’t guarantee to meet need for OOS students.
Penn State is pretty costly for OOS students, and again, I don’t think you will get to a $30,000 net cost there.
A lot of your colleges are reaches. UNC limits the %age of OOS students. Harvey Mudd is pretty competitive for admissions. So is GA Tech and especially for OOS students. Ditto Caltech and
Cornell gives only need based aid. Are you eligible for need based aid?
@momofboiler1 can talk about Purdue, your chances of acceptance and whether you might meet the $30,000 price point.
Your GPA is terrific. Have you considered taking the ACT? Some kids do better in that test.
I think you need to find a sure thing that you like that is affordable. Would you consider University of Alabama? I think that might come in at your price point with their auto merit.
Purdue is likely not going to come in under budget. They are notoriously stingy with merit awards because of the focus on keeping COA frozen for so many years.
Honestly most of the public schools on the list are not going to make budget.
OP - I’d look through the replies on your other thread to come up with a list that will meet your budget.
Maryland is a great engineering college, so it is good to be in-state in Maryland! Obviously the issue is College Park can be a tough admit, but UMBC is also very good for engineering.
Out of state, I would look at Iowa State. A real engineering powerhouse and they have both auto admissions and auto merit. So if Iowa State was affordable for you, that would set a strong floor.
A couple more you might look at OOS would be Michigan State and Minnesota, both excellent engineering colleges with OOS merit.
As stated by @thumper1, UCSD offers little to no financial aid to Non-California residents. The UC’s in general give good need-based aid for residents and very little merit aid to the majority of applicants.
Also note that UCSD does not offer Civil Engineering but Structural Engineering as a major along with being test blind. Your SAT will not be considered for admissions or scholarship consideration, only course placement.
I would run the Net Price calculator for any schools of interest but you are looking at around $80K/year to attend UCSD as an OOS student.
Here is the more common merit scholarships available at UCSD:
Regents scholars who are CA residents, and have demonstrated financial need will receive additional scholarship and/or grant funds to meet the financial need for 4 undergraduate academic years for freshmen
Includes priority enrollment and Regents Scholars Research Initiative.
Triton Scholars award- $5000/year for Non-residents
Clarkson University for high acceptance rate school (78%). They have merit scholarships including full tuition Ignite Fellowship and 25K/year merit award. It’s a small school (2500 students) upstate NY that specializes in engineering and science.
Have you or your parents run the NPC for Caltech, Cornell, and Harvey Mudd?
Given these three schools on your list, and an unweighted 4.0 GPA, I wonder about MIT (as a reach of course). However, your SAT is low for MIT so you might want to wait to see how this goes when you retake the SAT. I think that all four of these schools are “fit” schools. They are a lot of work and you need to want to work that hard for a full 4 years. Of course none of these schools will be even close to your budget unless you get very good financial aid.
I think that UMD is a very good choice. I am hoping that your chances are pretty good there since you are instate with an unweighted 4.0 GPA, but I don’t really know.
I agree that with a $30,000/year budget you should drop the various universities of California since you are out of state. I also wonder about affordability of other out of state universities.
Check out academic scholarships at West Virginia Univ
Check out Univ South Carolina- in state tuition is given to some non-residents as a merit scholarship. Total cost of attendance in that case would be close to $30k
Application deadline is Oct. 15
Similar recommendation for Manhattan University, another high acceptance rate college with excellent engineering school. Smaller enrollment (3000) as well, located on the outskirts of NYC in Riverdale, NY They also have merit scholarships, which you should qualify for.
Michigan State honors program. You get something like in-state tuition and mentorship, research, study abroad money with a chance of applying for a free ride on merit.
If you need a lot of money, you shouldn’t be applying to UMich, Berkeley, UCSD, Purdue, UNC, etc unless you’re willing to pay the full cost of attendance. Also, Harvey Mudd and Caltech are virtually certain to reject you. UNC is also shockingly selective for out of state students.
Scholarships | Texas A&M Corps of Cadets offers merit scholarships to oos students, and if you get at least $4000 per year you automatically get an OOS tuition waiver (so you only need to pay in state CoA the scholarship). But that comes with obligations, and TAMU students have to go through the ETAM process. Texas Tech gives an automatic scholarship: Incoming Freshmen Scholarships | Scholarships | TTU and offers direct entry to engineering (I think)
With a 4.0 UW and a 1450 you can also get full tuition at UIowa
UCSD does give a few full ride scholarships to engineering majors (apparently including out-of-state), but getting one should be considered a very high reach.
UCB Regents’ scholarship does come with a need-adjusted amount, but getting such a scholarship should also be considered a very high reach.
Thank you everyone for all of the help, I really appreciate it! I will look into all of the schools that have been recommended and edit my list accordingly.
Just another quick question, do I have a chance at getting in to the Honors College at UMD?
Thanks for all of replies everyone!! My college list has changed since I originally posted this, and would love to get everyone’s opinions on some of my schools. I got my SAT up to a 1530, but I’m taking it again. My class rank went up to 29/470 (4.82 W GPA). I also now have an internship and was selected for Girls State, if that has any impact. Here is my revised college list, I would love feedback! I’m a bit less concerned about budget this time, more about the fit of the school.
If cost is no longer a factor, the list looks pretty good. You might want to add in a few high merit safety schools like Alabama, Arizona, Iowa State, etc. It would open up your options when the acceptances come in, and I think you could find the merit difficult to pass up once you really look at it.
And if you are a female Eagle Scout, that’s kind of unique, although not new. But it is unique. Have you looked at the University of Maryland women in engineering program?
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