@pleasgod Your work experience will be more meaningful than this college selection. Surprised you didn’t buy yourself a car with that much earnings. Your university time will be such a short period of your life. An interesting opportunity if you earn 25k a year while attending uni. You could be WAYYYY ahead of the game in that situation.
You’ve worked hard? Your parents have worked too hard to have a child run them dry when there are more affordable choices.
Seriously??? If you go to the UC, you and your parents will easily save enough money to buy you a car! Can y’all do math???
This isn’t relevant. The students who’ll be in your CS classes will have scores similar to yours.
My kids went to a univ where their scores were much higher than the average, but since they were STEM majors, their lassmates also had high stats.
The decision to contribute towards your education is your parents and is family business. Listen to your parents before a bunch of strangers on the internet. You should be picking the school based on a combo of curriculum. affordability and fit. Visit the school and talk to the professors. Take a deep dive in the catalog and curriculum to see if it matches what you want. Don’t bank on graduating early ,because life happens and the best plans don’t work out.Sit down and talk to your parents to find out how much of a reach this is financially.
@VAMom23 My parents and I have had this discussion and discussed the finances. They told me to choose whatever I was happy with. They both seemed to be leaning slightly towards UW after I probed them a bit but they didn’t know either. I wouldn’t be asking strangers on the internet unless I really wasn’t sure which to choose
@pleasgod The big problem with UW is you didn’t get a direct admit into CS.
@gearmom I know, I would probably go if I did have direct admit. But does it change anything that I’ve already completed 3/7 of the prereqs with A’s, looking at their policies I’m pretty sure my credits will transfer, and I already have learned most of what is taught in the two CS prereqs?
19 and 25: Of course, no shame in not getting direct admit to UW CS, as they reportedly offered it to 250 out of 5,000 CS applicants, very few (~ 25?) OOS.
OP, if you have not yet seen this, I suggest you review the UW CS department’s answer to the question, “Should I come to UW if I want to study CS and was not Direct Admitted to the Allen School?”:
https://www.cs.washington.edu/academics/ugrad/admissions/freshmen
Congratulations on your admissions and good luck!
Without direct admit to CS, Washington is much riskier than the others in the likelihood of not being able to get into the CS major.
@pleasgod I’m not sure they will consider CC classes the same as classes taken at UW for CS admission. You should ask.
Last year, the UW CS website stated:
“For 2017, over 5,000 freshmen applicants indicated Computer Science or Computer Engineering as their first choice major. Of these applicants, around 150 students were offered direct admission. These admits have an average unweighted gpa of 3.97 and are mostly Washington state residents. Average test scores are: ACT 34, SAT math 764, SAT verbal 758.”
An OOS pre-science student would probably want to be in that general range of stats to have the best prospects for regular admission to CS at the UW.
That’s a serious issue…
I’ll chime in here. I visited UCSC with my son and from what we saw, it does seem to have a big drug culture. It turned my son off completely.
I think it’s important to go where you are happy, fit in, etc. That said, you need to work thru the financial aspects with your parents.
I feel like there is an option 4 that might be better. Your original list was far too reachy. You looked at averages which are not relevant to your CS major. You cite UCSC with an average ACT 6 points less than your but CS majors will be your peers and probably have a higher GPA than you did (I saw your illness note - sorry about that). How is your illness? Will you be O’k with a really long and cold winter?
For UW, did you not get any merit money from the OOS Purple & Gold scholarship?
I do think the non direct admit into your major CS is problematic. On the other hand, having recently done a college tour of UW, i can defiantly see the appeal.
UCSC has a totally different college vibe and even after 30+ since some of my HS classmates attended, it still has a hippie, laid back, drug use among the redwoods, vibe that might not appeal to some students.
IMO, if your parents have given you an amount they will provide for your college, I don’t think you should question it. They have had 18-21 years to figure it out and know what they can and can’t pay. If you can graduate college with less than 12k in loans, you are will ahead of the game, especially if you work in the CS/engineering field.
Good luck.
@gearmom I can’t go back and reapply—option 4 is University of Maryland CS for $48k/year. I applied as a transfer so I haven’t gotten my decision (but 90% sure I’ll get in since it’s waaay less competitive and I have a 4.0) and not sure I have time to visit.
My health is actually pretty great now. For the first time in my life, it doesn’t affect my daily life at all and I hope it will stay that way throughout college. Cold is not much of an issue.
@socaldad2002 I didn’t get any merit 
Yeah the hippie/drug culture is the main reason I don’t like UCSC. 10k in loans isn’t too bad to avoid that…
@pleasgod Why do you think UMaryland for CS is way less competitive? I would seriously consider UMaryland over Rochester and UCSC.
Who’s taking $10k in loans? Is that a year? You can only borrow the ~$5500/year federal student loan.
The University of Rochester costs $70k. If your parents pay $35k and you have a $15k grant, your net cost is $20k. If their costs increase by the same amount as they did last year, in a couple years the COA could be ~$75k. And that will be right around the time that the $25k you earned last year will add about ~$4k to your EFC, so your current $20k/year gap could jump to ~$30k for your junior and senior years. How would you pay it?
@gearmom I meant for admission, I wanted to mention that as a transfer it’s way easier to get in than as a freshman so you guys wouldn’t think I’m too cocky for assuming I’d get in haha
Thanks for the input, I will look into UMD more and maybe plan a visit