School options since SDSU admission may not be in the cards?

Colleges & Universities San Diego State University
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This assumes that the students who get admitted are not qualified. I personally disagree with that notion.

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Bgrateful I’m thinking good thoughts for you and your son. Someone upthread mentioned ASU and I second that. My best friend’s daughter loved it there (it was her first choice, though) and it was the making of her - she graduated with honors after having a decidedly athletics-and-social-life high school experience. I don’t know about ranking of AE, but ASU at least has it. They’re trying to become a national school, so they do give a lot of merit aid. You can see their calculator here https://scholarships.asu.edu/estimator. The main campus at Tempe does not do WUE. Finally, they are FULL of California students and they work hard to get everyone out in 4 years. They do get a lot of last-minute applications as CA kids miss out on CA schools, and they are very quick with acceptances and scholarship offers. Best of luck to you.

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I want to say about UNR - a friend’s daughter just graduated from there. She had the grades but not the test scores for WUE, but they gave her a merit scholarship in almost the exact amount, anyway. She loved it, and her father loved zooming up from the Bay Area to pick her up for weekend skiing!

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I hate that SATs are used to gage a student’s ability to do well in college. It is a test that favors kids from wealthy backgrounds. The wealthy spend years preparing their kids for that test and therefore have a significant advantage over people who don’t have those financial means.

But I think your point about schools not being able to effectively differentiate between a large (and ever-growing) applicant pool of students who demonstrated that certain base level of achievement is accurate. And because of this, I think the schools might as well make it a lottery system. Let people know up front that those who meet a certain pre-defined standard will all be thrown into a lottery system through which their admission status will be determined. They do that at the grade school levels. Why shouldn’t college level education be the same?

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The size of the top 1 or 2 flagships that everyone wants will not catch up to California’s population unless they grew to 100,000 students each.

If you consider the UC system as the flagship analogous to that in many other states, then getting into the flagship is not harder than in many other states. But most flagship seekers want UCB or UCLA, not UCM or UCR.

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Yes, I agree. Access to fancy extra curricular activities and SAT prep definitely confers an advantage to the wealthy.

I also feel that because it is feeling a bit like a lottery you have to apply to a bunch of potential schools. If I “somehow” knew that my daughter was going to get accepted to her “preferred” school ahead of time, we would not have taken up 5 other admitted spots, just to decline them all.

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CA is no longer growing - and they’ve added campuses and capacities.

The issue is - maybe kids aren’t look at UC Merced or the Cal State San Marcos or Channel Islands of the world. Or taking advantage of the robust two year to four year system.

Just like a Missouri Resident might look at Mizzou but wouldn’t at Southeast Missouri State or Southern Missouri State? Snobbery? or something else? Just like a kid applying to 4 UCs likely never would consider Cal State Bakersfield or Fresno State. Why? I’d say snobbery.

I think that with the WUE - there are even more opportunities, especially for Californians, to get a wonderful four year education at a great price.

So I personally disagree with the assessment.

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Unfortunately, @Bgrateful1 won’t likely come in at $35K or less for ASU. U of A there’s a chance. But not ASU - they’re just not as aggressive. UNM is another that could work - doesn’t have aero but a MechE degree will get you to the same place. It would work WUE or not.

But there are 100% assured schools out there - no WUE and worrying about would they or would they not give you the scholarship - and those would be half as budget - so even though geographically they don’t fit, if one truly wants to affordably study what they want, I personally wouldn’t dismiss them.

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Not just snobbery
 my African American kid would feel very uncomfortable at many of the CSUs in towns like Fresno, Bakersfield, Merced, heck even Humboldt may feel safer than those but has 1% Black students. D24 is worried about her safety
look at what she’s seen in this country in these formative years. Even near SLO many flags and slurs.

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She would feel welcome at u of A.

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Similar situation. Son is dead set on aero engineering and has been for many years. We live in AZ and he didn’t have a chance at any CA schools. Grades are good 4.2 weighted and has 10 APs under his belt. He did get into all the AZ state schools for engineering but really wants to live in Colorado. CO Mines is too expensive and so was Boulder. He loved UC Colorado Springs. Some say it’s a commuter school but he’s not bothered by that at all. Engineering department just made Aero a BS, it currently was a minor.p. They have a brand new engineering bldg as well. Google UCCS and engineering. He was accepted into the program and got the WUE scholarship along with merit. It makes it very affordable for us, even as OOS. We visited the campus and he loved it. Might be worth checking out.

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My son picked Colorado Springs for aerospace. He’s very excited. Small school but he doesn’t mind.

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Similar situation. Son is dead set on aero engineering and has been for many years. We live in AZ and he didn’t have a chance at any CA schools. Grades are good 4.2 weighted and has 10 APs under his belt. He did get into all the AZ state schools for engineering but really wants to live in Colorado. CO Mines is too expensive and so was Boulder. He loved UC Colorado Springs. Some say it’s a commuter school but he’s not bothered by that at all. Engineering department just made Aero a BS, it currently was a minor. They have a brand new engineering bldg as well. Google UCCS and engineering. He was accepted into the program and got the WUE scholarship along with merit. It makes it very affordable for us, even as OOS. We visited the campus and he loved it. Might be worth checking out.

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That’s fair - and 100% a perspective I didn’t even consider when I wrote - just because of my ethnicity and where I live, etc so yes, I get blinded. Perhaps why I put - or something else. I knew it wasn’t “just” snobbery - but I think for some or even many it may be.

I wasn’t focused on city demographics though - and why I used the Mizzou vs. regional schools or UNC vs. UNCG / UNCW, / UNCC etc. I could have used many other CA campuses - Fullerton, Long Beach, Sonoma, etc
just chose two that came to mind.

When we see people applying to the UCs, they often leave out UCR/USCS/UCM, etc. and that’s sort of the point I was trying to make - and some of the UC applicants would never consider a CSU period - and if so, only SLO.

That’s what I was trying to say - but totally fair response that I didn’t see/consider.

Thanks

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Hi, thank you for the encouragement and suggestions. AZ WUE costs are still too high, and I just checked for UCCS (which would have been a good option for him Aero) and was disappointed it was $20k Tuition and Fees. Another person suggested a few schools Alabama and Mississippi and I really appreciate it (and their good breakdown of costs) but MT, UT,CO, NM is a geographic line he is firm about. Yesterday, we backfilled with Chico State and Sac State (Mech E only) and we’ll get applications into UofU (Aero emphasis), UNR (Aero minor), and perhaps NMSU (great WUE price and full Aero degree). We have a friend whose family is already moving to Colorado and that can solve residency if the student takes a gap year. Otherwise, their residency rules are towards the stricter scale. Good luck to your son. Thanks to everyone who has made suggestions! The three I mentioned above we would have never found without you. It lifted his spirits quite a bit. I really agree this stuff will work out for the best. Aren’t we already so happy with what our kids have done!? What an exciting time for them no matter what happens.

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Hang on. What was the T+fees amount with the WUE scholarship with merit? Is that option still available? Thx.

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Akron, Alaska, Alberta, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas?

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Arizona was the school referenced, I was confirming that student would likely be welcomed in Tucson

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For reference, here is some demographic information (from College Navigator) for a selection of CSUs and UCs, along with high school seniors in California:

School Pell Asian Black Hispanic / Latino White
CPSLO 17 14 1 21 51
CPH 49 3 3 31 50
CPP 47 23 3 53 14
CSUB 63 7 4 68 13
CSUC 42 6 3 38 43
CSUEB 44 23 9 40 15
CSUFresno 59 12 3 60 16
CSUFullerton 48 22 2 52 16
CSULA 66 11 4 76 4
CSULB 52 22 2 52 16
CSUN 57 9 5 56 20
CSUSac 50 20 6 39 22
CSUSB 60 6 5 71 10
CSUStan 58 9 2 62 18
SDSU 33 13 4 35 34
SFSU 42 24 6 38 15
SJSU 36 39 4 31 13
SSU 34 5 3 41 41
UCB 27 35 2 20 20
UCD 33 31 2 24 21
UCI 38 38 2 27 13
UCLA 27 29 3 22 26
UCM 61 21 5 55 8
UCR 50 37 3 39 11
UCSD 32 34 2 24 19
UCSB 30 19 2 25 31
UCSC 32 23 2 28 32
12th grade 12 5 56 21
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UC Riverside and UC Merced are still way better than any of other states flagship schools and competitive private schools. In fact, UC Riverside just joined the elite American Association of Universities.

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