Make me a college list

ucbalumnus
Wed, 04 Jul 2012 20:49:39 +0000

(Since you list senior year AP scores, have you graduated and are taking a gap year?)

NCSU is about $21,000 per year at list price in-state, has engineering and CS, and you can try for the full ride Park Scholarship. UNC-CH has CS but not engineering; you can try for the full ride Robertson and Morehead-Cain scholarships.

The only other NC public with a large selection of engineering and CS majors is NC A&T, which is about $18,000 per year. It does have competitive National Alumni Association and Dowdy Scholarships which are full or almost-full rides. Several other NC publics do have CS but not engineering.

Depending on your ACT/SAT scores, there may be some low net cost schools due to large scholarships for your stats that you can consider for safeties:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html

If you make National Merit, there are more large scholarships (e.g. Texas A&M):
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html

If your price limit is $20,000 per year, and you won’t get any need-based financial aid at even super-generous schools like Stanford and Harvard, then you need to look mainly at schools with low list price costs of attendance and/or large merit scholarships that will bring the cost down to your affordable level.

Note that UNC-CH, NCSU, and Duke are well respected schools which form the corners of the Research Triangle. Be aware that the best respected schools for engineering and CS are not necessarily the same ones that have the most general prestige. In the northeast, for example, MIT, CMU, Cornell, and Princeton are the super-selective schools with better engineering and CS reputations than Dartmouth; a number of less selective schools are likely also higher priority on engineering and CS recruiters’ travel lists over Dartmouth.