San Jose State University should be convenient for seeking computing jobs.
However, computer science is its most competitive major; see http://www.sjsu.edu/admissions/impaction/ for historical thresholds of admission.
Of course, many of the computing companies in the area also recruit at various UCs like UCB, UCD, UCSC.
Our D21 can get every question correct on ACT math with 15 extra minutes. With the time constraint, she seems to only get to 31 on practice tests and, on her first real ACT, got a 26 on that section. She’s a strong math student at school so this is depressing. Just giving you this info as an example. She’s currently considering moving to SAT. We are still waiting on Dec ACT results to decide.
ACT math IS easier. Questions super straightforward but the time constraint is no joke.
Define an actual budget. How much money do you have to spend?
It sounds like your high school counselor will just be looking to make a list of the type of schools he wants to focus on. Will he be looking at U Washington or Washington and Lee? Georgia Tech or Emory? Remember, the counselor won’t be PAYING for these schools so will be tossing out all kinds of schools based on your son’s dreams and wishes (big, small, T25, beach or mountains).
WE understand that you live in an expensive area but the FA forms will not care. You have to deal with that, just like you deal with not wanting to go to school in the south or in the ‘undesirable’ midwest. Chicago is just as cold and snowy as Ames Iowa.
For my kids, we had to consider finances first. They didn’t rule out any school until we determined if we could afford it with merit aid, but quite a few (including Boulder since we were OOS) were crossed off very quickly. One ended up at Wyoming because OOS costs are very affordable and it had a lot of things offered at Boulder (mountains, D1 sports) at half the price. One attended a private school school with a list price so high I choked when I first saw it but then we worked through the merit/aid available and it worked. That merit was available because it was not highly ranked. ROI, however, is high because engineers make more money than many other majors. She has a job. My engineer nephew who went to Boulder has a job. Her ROI is much higher because she paid less for college than he did.
You are in the list building stage. Don’t cross off whole regions yet. Be realistic if you need merit. It is unlikely you will get merit at T25 schools, at schools in the northeast, at the popular schools like CU.
Also remember that starting next September, students can take only part of the ACT second or third time around. So if he’s nailed 2 sections, he can just sit for the 2 he still wants to improve. Not exactly sure how it will work - but it sure does change the testing strategy a bit …
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/us/act-test-superscore.html
Yes, but students must take a full ACT first to be able to sit for separate sections starting in Sept 2020. And individual section scores will only be considered/relevant to colleges that superscore the ACT.
If you are looking for not too big, good CS with a chance at merit, Case Western Reserve is the type of schools you should start looking at. I believe that this year their regular merit maxed at $30k. Also, you likely want to get 34/1500+ to get into that scholarship range.
You’re fortunate to live in a state with outstanding schools for CS. If he can get in to one of the UCs you listed, or Cal Poly SLO, those are great bargains. If you want to expand the list, check out WUE options as others have suggested. Utah, Montana State, Oregon State are more likely to be affordable with merit than a school like CU (Oregon State is the CS school in Oregon, not UO). You mentioned PNW…Whitman, Willamette, Lewis & Clark, Puget Sound, Reed could all be candidates although Id think at best the price would get close to in-state. Frankly, if admitted to UCSD, UCB, UCSB, or CPSLO for CS it’s going to be really hard to beat those with private or out of state options. UWash isn’t just a tough OOS admit, there’s very little merit.
If he is excluding these areas of the country, he is excluding the best chances for merit aid. The areas he likes (CO) are not likely to give him the merit he needs to come down to $30,000 a year. Yes, CO has some highly competitive merit awards…but they are not guaranteed…at all. He would need to be at the top of the accepted student pool to be considered. CO has plenty of OOS applicants…and even more who are willing to pay the full cost of attendance.
Re: ROI. Your son will have the best ROI with a CS degree if he graduates with zero dollars in loans. Zero! You can make that happen at your instate options…and possibly in the Midwest or southeast. And maybe in places like Utah, Wyoming or Montana. It’s not going to happen at public universities in WA, OR or CO where so many kids want to go.
I still think University of New Mexico should be considered. With the Amigo Scholarship, your costs would be affordable, and the school has much to offer. @WayOutWestMom can detail the many opportunities available for engineering/CS majors in that region.
One thing to point out is that happy college students do better in college so I wouldn’t necessarily look at colleges that are not a good fit socially and academically. Cheaper is not necessarily better and it sounds like the grandparents have a sizable 529 plan, supplemented by your family contribution, and a very small loan by your student could make top 25-50 colleges in CS doable. For example, if he really likes the PNW, University of Washington - Seattle has the Purple & Gold scholarship (about 8K/yr) for OOS with cost of attendance at 50K a year you are looking at “only” 176K (200K minus 24K) versus typical UC at full pay 140K, not a huge difference especially for a computer science major with strong job prospects to take out a Stafford loan of 27K for UW.
My point is that “fit” comes in three categories (financial, academic, social) and I see no better use of your hard earned money than to invest in a great “fit” education. Just another consideration when determining his options.
Last point. D’s close freshman friend is at a CSU “flagship” but wanted to attend UC-Boulder. Since CSU was cheaper, family pushed her to attend CSU. Well after this first semester, she hated it and it now transferring to Boulder this month. No amount of saving on college at CSU would make this student happy, so what’s the point of saving money attending one college if you are miserable and hate the experience?
We used a local college coach, we live in the Midwest and have a daughter studying engineering. The coach was helpful & worth the $. The plan was for D to take both ACT & SAT and then repeat the strongest. She scored much above expectations on the ACT before she took the SAT so we only repeated ACT I would plan to take BOTH. You need to plan dates and register NOW.
I would plan to pay at least 75% of sticker anywhere you look. Even with a female from the midwest, the merit at Santa Clara was laughable & Colorado School of Mines also didn’t offer much (I understand since this is a CO state school). We went for fit and are paying double what our state flagship (With a T10 engineering school that she did get into) would cost and it’s worth it for us. We are paying cash - 529 and current income, no loans. We have a younger son who I am sure will be full pay wherever he ends up and we need to be thoughtful about that plus H will be eligible to retire when our son is still in college.
At UNM, your son is guaranteed to get the Amigo Scholarship. The Amigo gives in-state tuition rates. In-state tuition is $7500/year, Room & board is $11-12K/year depending of what type of meal plans and dorm accommodations he chooses.
In-state tuition, fees, R&B will come in right about $19-20K.
UNM’s CS dept is ABET accredited and there are plentiful internship opportunities at 2 National Labs (Sandia in ABQ and Los Alamos in Los Alamos, NM), the Air Force Research Lab (in ABQ), Intel (in ABQ), and White Sands Missle Range (In Alamogordo). All the major Silicon Valley computer companies recruit on the UNM campus.
What specifically does your son find appealing about CU-Boulder? Skiing? Access to outdoor activities? UNM has all of those.
Frankly, here in the Mountain West, CU-Boulder has a reputation for being VERY stingy with aid for OOS students, as well as being a big party school.
If your son is open to a smaller, tech school environment, he may want to consider NM Tech in Socorro. It’s rated a “Best Buy” school and send a high percentage of its grads onto top science & engineering graduate programs.
With the WUE scholarship, it’s a tremendous bargain.
OOS scholarships at NM Tech
https://www.nmt.edu/finaid/nonresident.php
CS has excellent ROI at most schools… Especially top 50+ (some colleges are very strong in CS rankings but may not rank as high generally). You are not going to get a better ROI paying 50K or more at a T25 vs 35K or less at a “mid tier” school - so keep that in mind. Not worth spending an extra 20k+ per year for the more prestigious college. Especially if you don’t have at (are there other kids??)
Re: testing. Don’t rely on the tutor entirely. Have him do strictly timed sections at home. ACT releases 2 tests a year. Print them off from the internet and have him sit for the 1 hour math section with the calculator and strict testing conditions. Rinse and repeat. The tutor should be used for strategy and to help him figure out why he choose the wrong answer. Then take it again. Repeat ?
@NateandAllisMom I would also second what @Gumbymom says about ASU Barrett. It was very pleasantly surprising on our visit. My daughter qualified for a full tuition ride OOS, which makes it a lot less than the UCs, and I think it will be a finalist. The school caters to students and it made a larger ASU campus feel small. If your child is majoring in CS, Intel and other tech companies recruit ASU hard.
@NateandAllisMom . My smart D pays full price at an expensive private in your state. While it was not our first choice to pay full price, we are doing it because we can. Run the NPC and see what you come up with at different schools of interest. Research schools that offer CS. Find schools where you may offer geographical diversity, are not necessarily well known, etc. There are schools that will offer money for your S’s scores and grades, they are not the tippy top ones. CS is very competitive right now and he will be competing with many kids with perfect SATs and ACTs and 4.0 GPA. Set the bar lower than top 25.
@NateandAllisMom – the top 25 is mostly a merit money free zone. Even for perfect stat kids. You just have to assume it ain’t gonna happen with your kid.
Merit money goes up as you go down the USNWR ladder. The money zone generally is where your kid is a 75% or better applicant at that particular school.
If your kid has really high stats (by which I mean a 35, not a 33), you could see some merit money in the top 50-75. Think Santa Clara or Villanova.
Do not think Notre Dame. My 35 ACT, 4.0 uw, 4.7w kid got into ND but wasn’t even nominated to interview for a merit schollie there. And the top ND award is $25k – nice but not so big when the COA is about $75k a year. That’s generally how the top 25 is.
I highly recommend the long running thread on merit for 1% applicants from fellow Californian @KevinFromOC. That will give you a feel for how it all works.
Good luck!
CU/Boulder is a good school for engineering and CS.
But sticker price in the E school is $56k and the tippy top OOS merit award (if you can get it) is $15k. So $40k net is the best you could possibly do. You can probably do better elsewhere.
Since us Coloradans hate paying state taxes, we really need to get the Benjamins from the kids coming from TX and CA!!
IIRC, the Kevin from Oc thread refers to an Hispanic national scholar applicant, female from a boarding school applying to chem eng. That makes that thread a little different.
The thread everyone is mentioning has some really good discussions and ideas on schools that give merit opps. We’ve learned a lot from it this year; although we don’t have daughter like Kevin’s. **when we looked at Colorado schools, CO state and CO School of mines seemed to be a little less than Boulder. . . .
However, Washington direct admission to CS should be considered a reach.
Some students do not have a choice in that cost constraints are so tight that affordable cost is the what determines “fit” for them.
In this case, did the money saved by attending the cheaper college first make it possible to afford the remaining years at the more expensive college? This is somewhat analogous to a student starting at a community college to save money to be able to afford the last two years at a four year school.