Match Me: HS Senior, Computer Science or Computer Engineering Major looking for college with friendly environment [PA resident, 3.8 GPA, 1470 SAT, 33 ACT, NMSF]

Chance Me / Match Me
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I absolutely agree! UC Davis, although it’s a huge campus, when you visit the school, you will see students/ staff with smiles.
Our middle daughter attended UC Davis and initially she had a rough start but she formed lifelong friendships. They have a fantastic array of extracurricular activities. There’s something for everyone there.

It’s not a party central school because people are actually there to learn. You do find parties but you can choose whether or not you want to go; it’s not central to the social environment of the school.

If you fall off your bike, several people help you. The biking community is awesome! There are 40,000 bikes on campus and there are lots of places to ride. The town of Davis is welcoming.

Edited to add: it’s a very collaborative environment for students. They actually work together to get good grades.

You get free tutoring every night in each of their dorm buildings and they advise you which sections of Math, English or science are being taught.

Our daughter had several friends at Davis who were gay/lesbian; it didn’t seem to be an issue because their sexual orientation wasn’t the focus of their friendships.
(Auto correct keeps changing my grammar/pronouns especially!)

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I just reached out to someone I know who has a kid attending CalPolySLO and they love it for the reasons we are looking for (friendly, not as stressful of a culture as most of the UCs can be, pretty).
So I just looked at the application process and it seems to primarily come down to coursework and grades, especially AP/IB classes, and they don’t even look at test scores or letters of recommendation. Our high school has very difficult honors classes (often harder than the APs), but i’m not sure if the UC or Cal State schools even consider out of state honors classes into their admissions process. They give students who are in state a point for honors classes that their system understands, but i’m not sure they do the same for OOS.

So maybe he doesn’t have a great shot at it after all? But right now it’s in the top 5 of places to apply.

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I’m not sure how to check how LGBTQ friendly CalPoly is. But perhaps someone else will have an idea. Or look at the groups at the college and try to get some input…if this is really important to your student.

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Agree. Engineering will have stress in most places with some GPA requirements. Even if there was a stress-free college, internships/job search will be stressful with OA and multiple rounds of interview.

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GPA requirements higher than 2.0 or competitive secondary admission are most commonly found at larger schools in the selectivity range of more selective state flagships.

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What about Cal Poly Humboldt?it has the same collaborative hands-on process as the other Cal Poly schools but a higher acceptance rate. And the cost isn’t bad, even out of state.

The STEM-focused kids from d22’s high school class who are there are thriving. They have excellent lab placements, real experience, and seem to scuba dive on the regular. At least one was a high school valedictorian, and she’s challenged and happy.

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i know nothing about Cal Poly Humboldt, so thank you for the tip! It seems just as easy to check multiple Cal State schools when applying, so great to have another one.

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So my S24 ended up at WashU. He really loved it from the first visit, and I thought it was great too, particularly for him. And it is going really well so far, so we are all happy.

But between us, your kid is basically right. I wouldn’t say WashU is quite as selective in every way as the most selective few colleges, but it is very selective in its own particular ways. And really getting more so every cycle it seems.

So I would definitely NOT advise you to try to push it on your kid. Like all these very selective colleges, it can be worth a shot if you love it, and you feel like you can make a great case as to why they should want you in particular as a student.

But it makes no sense to me to apply unless you are really feeling excited about it yourself.

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ok, sounding perfect.
He frequently is up late tutoring classmates and it’s how he has made a lot of his current friends. that’s the kind of vibe he likes and is hoping to get at a university.

Do you know anything about the overcrowding nightmares I hear from UC schools?

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I probably didn’t explain it well.
Agreed, life is stressful and there is no such thing as a stress-free life.
Life is stressful currently for son (all honors/AP classes, way too many EC commitments than there is time in the day, etc) and we want him to enjoy his college years and have time to pursue passions and figure out interests as well as have a social life.

I went to engineering school as did most of my friends. Each university, and then each school of engineering within that university has/had a unique culture. But this was back 20-30 years ago. I was surprised by how much it varied by major and by school and I’m sure this is set by the administration and their goals and values.

In some majors, kids didn’t want to help each other figure out the assignment. In fact, they would give you the wrong info on what homework was due, b/c it’s all graded on a curve and they are encouraged to think this way. Other schools are the exact opposite, even requiring students to work together for a large portion of their grade

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There are certain classes that are huge, like the intro bio and math classes, and there are a lot of factors like the hour the class is taken. Freshman and sophomore classes are larger, but upper division are a LOT smaller.

The professors know which sections will be large and they explain to their students how he/she will provide more help with the “divide and conquer” technique using their TA’s to meet with students.

They introduce the TA’s at the first couple of class meetings and announce where and when these TA’s will meet to review the lectures and provide notes. Some TA’s are better at teaching certain areas, and they will tell you. The TA’s work together and will provide their professors with feedback about how the sessions are going and who is attending.

Our daughter sought out the “popular” TA’s (word-of-mouth). The funny thing is, that she went to other professors’ TA’s because she heard that those TA’s were "better/funnier/personable/provided outlines/ friendly, etc. Some TA’s gave out flow charts (sanctioned by the professors) because they wanted the students to grasp what was coming.

The staff really tries to make the environment “learning-friendly” because they sincerely want the students to succeed. Some TA’s help the students to form study groups based on who lives in what building.

Our daughter got through NPB (Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior) with help from students in this major and was accepted into medical school, so I think she did well.

I can’t really say that about a school like Irvine, SD or Berkeley because my former students report stress at those schools.

If your son decides to go to Davis, make sure his bike has a back fender. Otherwise, he will get the “freshman stripe”. Mud from the rains in winter will spatter onto his backpack and form a stripe of mud.

Check out the Davis wiki page for more info on the community of Davis.Davis - LocalWiki

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Put full fenders (front and rear) on any bicycle used for commuting in wet conditions.

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If you’re still potentially interested in adding, I’d second (or third?) WPI. My son is currently a junior there. He’s a MechE/CivE double major, so not a computer person, but I’d be happy to talk about the school with you if you want, just PM me. So far, it’s been an incredibly welcoming environment, with lots of group projects and collaboration. He took a seminar his freshman year that involved small group projects and the professor asked him back sophomore year to be a TA for the same class. Every junior is required to do a term long project (they have 4 seven week quarters, during which you take three courses, rather than two semesters with 5 courses each). The junior year projects, called IQP, are group projects and the majority of them are abroad (he’ll be in Greece this spring). There are also senior year projects that are more individual, focusing on research with advice and assistance from a sponsoring professor.

The whole campus seems very LQBTQ+ friendly. In general, it’s not a very political campus at all. Coming from the DC suburbs, my child has found the lack of politics surprising, but he’s enjoying the quiet.

My kid is in a fraternity, but it’s so not like a typical fraternity - yes, there’s beer and parties and a kind of gross fraternity house, but they also give resume advice and practice interview skills and have study buddies with older brothers and younger, last weekend they did their annual apple picking event.

It’s on the outskirts of Worcester, which is a real city (albeit small if you’re used to CITIES) but it has the same things other cities have (not just food scene, which is pretty good, triple A baseball, a good size arena, but also homelessness and some not great areas). The campus itself is really on the edge of the city, and is well contained and feels campus-y.

They have a surprisingly robust music program - lots of different bands and performance groups, and again, surprising to me, a pretty strong theater presence.

There seems to be a wide array of club sports that many kids partake in. I won’t say that the games are particularly well attended (even the D3 games aren’t that well attended) but the kids seem to have a lot of fun playing them.

Anyhoo, if you’re looking for solid STEM education, collegial friendly environment, and

[HAH! I weirdly ended this post there because I got sidetracked by something, no idea what I was going to say but I’m back because I can’t leave that…]
…and a good chance to work collaboratively with some solid opportunities for music and study abroad, WPI might be a good fit.

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OOS Honors courses are not weighted for the UC and CSU GPA’s, only AP/IB classes but they do recognize that students are challenging themselves by taking these classes.

Cal Poly SLO uses 9-11th grades for their GPA calculation and eligible courses taken 10-11th grades will get the extra Honors point bump up to 8 semesters of Honors points. You can use the CSU GPA calculator and add in the 9th-11th grades to get the SLO GPA. GPA Calculator | CSU

SLO also give bonus points for students that take above the minimum a-g course requirements so extra Math, Science, FL, Art, English etc… are considered in their application review.

Here is the SLO Freshman profile: First-Year Student Profile | Cal Poly

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Random aside, but the US News 2025 rankings are out and so there is lots of chatter about them, and I was reflecting on how I believe the main rankings do a truly terrible job when it comes to colleges like the ones we are discussing, the unusually engineering-focused colleges (as opposed to undergraduate engineering schools within larger, famous privates or publics).

Not that I think those other engineering schools are necessarily overrated, but I think the main rankings just don’t “get” the appeal and value of universities like RPI, WPI, RIT, Clarkson–and don’t even include Olin, Rose-Hulman, the Cal-Polys, and so on. Of course these colleges are not right for all kids, but when they are right, they are great.

But for what it is worth, US News does a ranking of engineering colleges without engineering doctoral programs, and it is way more interesting!

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-overall

This isn’t going to capture the RPI/WPI/RIT/Clarkson sort of institutions, because they have doctoral programs. Still, I think you can reason (correctly) that just because some of these colleges have doctoral programs too does not make them less good engineering schools for undergrads.

Anyway, this is just, to me, some validation of the suggestions you are getting.

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well… you sold me!!!
We will check it out. hopefully he likes it and will apply. thank you.

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With respect to LACs and computer science, Hamilton will be building a new home for its CS department with “best-in-class technologies and resources.” The center will be especially notable for opportunities in hardware, such as through its electronics and robotics labs.

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What about Santa Clara? Great internship opportunities, nice friendly school

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The first school that came to mind was a reach school, but I think it could be a nice fit for your son: Rice. It’s in Houston, so perhaps too big of a city, but it’s in a fun but lower-key area of the city. The students are assigned to different houses/colleges (a la Harry Potter) that they stay with for all four years. The students have a reputation for being very friendly and into nerdy fun. The campus has a reputation of being accepting of all students and Houston is a big blue blob in Texas. It also has strong music offerings. And with Houston being a hub for multiple airlines, there are likely to be nonstop flights home, which is a very nice bonus.

Seconding WPI, Clarkson, and Santa Clara and will continue to think of others. Perhaps Florida Tech if he’s looking for warmer weather? There are about 3400 undergrads there and the school is near the coast, a little over an hour from Orlando.

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UC Santa Cruz

Stanford