(Additional caveat: my son started taking cog sci classes at the college he did choose and ended up not liking the discipline as much as he expected — even though he had some experience in high school— and he did switch to a sciences degree. An n of 1, but just wanted to note it.
And different colleges can differ in the Cog Sci degrees between how much emphasis they place on psychology vs neuroscience vs linguistics, for instance , so it’s good to look at that ahead of time if that’s a factor.)
Just saw the preference for SoCal and..oops. Montreal about as polar opposite as you can be from SoCal. Sorry.
Has Cal Poly Pomona been discussed? I went there for a masters degree recently and although it’s got a lot of commuters, there did seem to be a number of kids who lived on campus.
Loma Linda also only offers vegetarian meals in all of its campus dining facilities.
Likewise UBC (Cognitive Systems major), since the student and family prefer a west coast city; I thought about suggesting it earlier but didn’t think it would come in under 50K.
Yes, and some are very CS-heavy, whereas others are mostly a psych/neuro/ling blend.
The other distinguishing factor among CogSci programs is that some have a true department with its own faculty and course offerings (e.g. UCSD, Merced, UTD) whereas others just cobble together an interdisciplinary major from the offerings of other departments. It isn’t impossible for the latter approach to work well, but it doesn’t always. My Rice kid ended up feeling like she and the other CogSci majors there were sort of “poor stepchildren” in terms of advising, because they were just tacked onto the caseloads of psych or neuro or ling professors who weren’t specifically invested in CogSci as a program. She experienced much more departmental support and cohesiveness in the Sociology department, where she did her minor, and said she would have reversed her major vs. minor if she had it to do over again.
UBC won’t come in under 50k, but Simon Fraser University in Burnaby (greater Vancouver), BC (the only Canadian school in the NCAA, incidentally) will and has a BA in Cognitive Science.
this being commuter school is the issue
In what way - the commuting or the on campus facilities?
social life. its likely going to be dead on weekends as most students are commuters
True. So you want a more residential campus, right?
You could try Chico (+Honors with Honors housing)?
Not sure if this fits your location preferences, but what about U of Houston? If you get a scholarship above $1000, you qualify for in-state tuition, it’s in the middle of a major city, and I think it would fit your budget without a scholarship anyway; tuition is $26k from out-of-state
It’s a safety admissions-wise, and I think this profile has a ~60-80% chance of scholarship/honors
About 40% of frosh live on campus, suggesting that about 60% are commuters. This is comparable to CPP that the OP sees as being “too commuter” with 38% of frosh living on campus.
There are typically more from the “Honors” cohort living on campus than from the general undergraduate population though - they may be coming from further away due to the scholarship or they may feel Honors housing& programming is worth it or they may have fewer commuter obligations (family, job..)
→This could be a question to ask the Honors program at each college considered (what percentage Honors freshmen live on campus/in honors housing?)