Need help for creating school list for my son

Gumbymom
Mon, 19 Sep 2022 20:12:43 +0000

Congratulations to your student for an excellent academic record and I agree that they will be competitive at so many schools.

You state your student needs aid but how much are you willing to contribute each year towards his college costs?

As a California resident, your student should get decent aid if eligible through Federal, Cal Grants, Middle class scholarship etc……

Have you visited any schools and can you give posters an idea of what you are looking for in a college? A “Good” school is a personal preference.

If your student is focused on CS or Engineering, they need to apply to these majors as their 1st choice since switching into these majors can problematic and never guaranteed especially for the UC’s and CSU’s. Unfortunately, the excellent SAT score will not be considered in the admissions review for the UC’s or CSU’s.

Cal Poly SLO is the only California public school that I am aware of that offers some merit for NM. You can list the distinction on the UC applications but no scholarships are specific for being NMSF.
Cal Poly SLO also is the only CSU that uses 9-11th grades for the a-g courses with an 8 semester Honors point cap for UC approved Honors/AP/IB classes taken 10-11th grades.

For the UC’s, here are the admit rates based on the Capped Weighted UC GPA and not major specific so highly competitive majors will be much lower admit rates. GPA Calculator for the University of California – RogerHub

Campus | 4.20+ | 3.80-4.19 | 3.40-3.79 | 3.00-3.39
Berkeley | 30% | 11% | 2% | 1%
Davis | 85% | 55% | 23% | 10%
Irvine | 60% | 31% | 14% | 1%
Los Angeles | 29% | 6% | 1% | 0%
Merced | 97% | 98% | 96% | 89%
Riverside | 97% | 92% | 62% | 23%
San Diego | 72% | 25% | 2% | 0%
Santa Barbara | 73% | 28% | 4% | 1%
Santa Cruz | 91% | 81% | 46% | 9%

If you look at the link that @momofboiler1 posted for the UC CS admission rates, most would be in the Reach category which include UCB/UCLA/UCSD/UCI/UCSB/Cal Poly SLO. Target schools would be UCD, UCSC, UCR, San Diego State, Long Beach State and probably San Jose State. Very Likely schools can include UC Merced and any number of other Cal states.

Best of luck to your student, apply widely if Engineering/CS are the top choice for major and please run the Net Price calculators to check affordability.

Hard to make recommendations without knowing what your cost limitations are for college. Harvey Mudd and the Claremont Consortium, Cal Tech, Stanford, Santa Clara are several private universities worth a look if affordable.