Dang - you sound very organized Iām glad you recognize the school type differences.
Taking Calc BC and Physics that early - heās well advanced. Sometimes these kids go too far ahead but I donāt think itās disaster - far from it.
I think heās good at more schools than you realize. I donāt think heāll need a regional/local like Stevens, unless itās a school he just really likes.
As for UW, youāre ahead of it with knowing the admission rate for CS. They donāt appear to have a minor but do have courses non majors can take. You might look into frequency of offerings. I linked these below.
The Merced and Riverside thing are long standing. When I was in HS, it was Santa Cruz and Riverside - people considered them beneath them. Itās crazy because if you use US News as a proxy, theyāre higher ranked than many you mentioned - at #57 and #75. But you are right - peer pressure is tough.
Very different picture than yesterdayās post. You sound very much in control and with good processes.
Of the schools on your list, Pittsburgh has a first year undeclared engineering program, where declaring a specific engineering major is not restricted beyond a 2.0 college GPA: Choosing a Major . However, computer science is in a separate division, where changing into it requires a competitive admission process: School of Computing and Information - University of Pittsburgh - Acalog ACMSā¢
Generally, it appears that schools not running into capacity limits for engineering or computer science majors are one or more of the following:
less selective ā they do not have that large a number of students willing and capable of doing these majors.
small ā the minimum size of the departments is large enough that even if a larger percentage of students wants the major, they will have the capacity.
wealthy ā they are able to maintain overcapacity or expand capacity in popular departments.
But it means that the more popular and selective large state universities that make up much of the list are more likely to be the ones running into capacity limits for engineering or computer science majors. Among the UCs and CSUs, it seems that the studentās list of preferred campuses is pretty much the list of those running into the capacity limits.
You and the student may want to do web searches like ā[school] change major to [major]ā for each school and each of the majors of interest.
You can look at prior prior year UC admission by campus and broad discipline major groups at Freshman admission by discipline | University of California (GPA shown is weighted-capped, so his 4.22 would be what to compare). Excluding UCR and UCM means increases the likelihood of getting no UC admissions, although his GPA gives at least a reasonable chance at the others.
CPP and SJSU do have some information about prior year admission thresholds.
CPP: CSU_GPA * 1000 + 450 is the index used (CSU_GPA is like UC weighted capped GPA). Prior year thresholds were AE 4658 (4.208 CSU GPA), ME 4587 (4.137 CSU GPA), CS 4200 (3.75 CSU GPA). CPP Freshmen Student Profile: Multifactor Admission
SJSU: CSU_GPA * 800 is the basic index. For engineering (but not computer science) majors, add math_GPA * 400 (it is unclear whether math_GPA is weighted). See Impaction | Admissions . Prior year thresholds were AE 4320, materials engineering 3000, ME 4800, CS 3440 (equivalent to 4.3 CSU_GPA), software engineering 4500. See Freshmen Impaction Results | Admissions .
CPSLO, CSULB, CSU Fullerton, and SDSU are impacted campuses that are less transparent about prior year admission thresholds. Of course, some less selective CSUs with at least mechanical engineering and computer science like Chico, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Francisco are not impacted for the campus and major and will admit at CSU baseline (CSU GPA of 2.5 for California residents). But it is likely that the peer pressure against them is similar to that against UCR and UCM.
Also note that the impacted campuses and majors likely have higher college GPA requirements or competitive admission to change major.
Iām glad you recognize the school type differences.