3.9 GPA is great and being in the top 10% (ELC) is good, too. But she doesn’t have the highest rigor at her school, and as of yet, does not have a test score.
Right now she wants a larger school, preferably with a lot of students from out-of-state, desirable academic strength of fellow students, and a strong reputation within the industry.
The above could still happen. The issue, however, is the budget. Her family earns $70k for a family of 4. What’s the budget? I know the lowest UC was going to be around $12k. Is that affordable for them? At the moment, I suspect we’re looking for schools that are going to get into the $12-15k bucket (or lower).
So right now you’re looking for a school where this student could get a full tuition merit scholarship (if at a public school) that is in a low cost-of-living area. Or a school with a full ride. Or a private that will meet sufficient need to get within the family’s budget.
So yes, this student has some strong stats, but I’m not optimistic that the student’s record is strong enough to be pulling down full tuition or full-ride scholarships from public schools with lots of out-of-state students of high reputational quality (which is not the same as a good quality education).
The question is, would the student prefer to attend a UC with its reputational benefits, or is it okay to go out-of-state to a school that doesn’t have a ton of out-of-state students, or the reputational desires, etc?
All good questions- and I’ll add another- is this student ok with one (or maybe two at a stretch) trips home during the year? So Christmas but not Spring break? I think for some of the schools being suggested that extra Thanksgiving trip (an expensive time to fly) is really going to be a budget-buster.
We were relatively close to one of our kids colleges (a few hours by train) and regularly hosted random classmates (sometimes close friends, other times just casual acquaintances) who needed a place to hang during breaks when the cost and time to fly home was just prohibitive. So I don’t think this kid will lack for places to go- it’s more a question of is this going to be OK or a problem?
My high stats kids who attend oos public’s pay more after merit than they would at our in state public, and one has a higher acceptance rate (the other had a similar acceptance rate but it went went down over the last few years). The merit awards ranged from $3000 - $22,000, but tuition and room and board started at $50,000+.
Given family financial constraints this student truly has only very few options:
Stay in state.
Try to find private or public with full ride. That is going to be monumental problem even with good stats (but not the very top stats.)
My advice would be to find/focus on some CA far enough school to make student feel that she “moved away.” Given great schools in CA it makes little sence to go OOS for lesser school for more tuition with huge family need. CA is huge, so there are a lot of great options.
When my D20 was looking, UA(Arizona) and UNLV had impressive Honors programs, big school flagship vibes and came in under the COA for the UC schools. I know it’s not East Coast or Midwest but it is far enough away to feel different.
You might look at Lafayette despite the smaller size. I believe they meet need and they also have merit. Slightly less selective than some on your list. If the student got a good deal there perhaps they would consider a tradeoff of size. it’s around 2900 students I think.
One source you may want to look at is the data sets from Washington Monthly’s college rankings. They used to have all the data sets (national, regional, universities, liberal arts colleges) in one workbook, but my quick cursory glance shows that people need to now click on each category (national universities, national liberal arts colleges, etc) and it will then allow you to download the data set for those rankings. One of the things they include is the net price for families that earn below $75k, so you can sort the school by that measure to see which are likely to be high on the affordability scale. Of course, with public colleges that often includes financial aid (and pricing) for in-state residents that wouldn’t be available to this student outside of California, but it’s definitely a place to start.
I went through all of the private schools that are ABET-accredited for chemical engineering. I’ve included schools that have admittance rates above 20% that had a net price below $20k (or super close) for families earning less than $75k/year, per the 2023 Washington Monthly data set. I did not have location or size impact the school’s inclusion (or exclusion).
Christian Brothers: Located in Memphis, $11,559 net price for families under $75k, but only about 1300 undergrads and 2k students total.
Illinois Institute of Technology: Located in Chicago, about 3100 undergrads, and $19,477 net price for families under $75k.
Milwaukee School of Engineering: About 2600 undergrads, and $18,393 net price for families under $75k.
Syracuse (NY): About 15k undergrads and $19,697 net price for families under $75k.
Trine (IN): About 3800 undergrads near the border of Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. $20,298 net price for families under $75k.
U. of Tulsa (OK): About 2600 undergrads with a net price of $20,249 for families earning less than $75k.
For reference, the schools in my earlier post that meet these same criteria are:
Case Western: $18,830
Lafayette: $16,238 (looked more generous on College Navigator)
Lehigh: $16,834
U. of Rochester: $18,212
If they are ABET-accredited for chemical engineering, are a private school, and have an acceptance rate above 20% and they’re not listed above, the net price for families earning below $75k was above $20k.
The reach-for all schools I mentioned earlier were:
Tufts: $10,718
Northwestern: $5481
U. of Notre Dame: $12,578
Vanderbilt: $6462
WashU: $5961
Rice: $5193
Princeton: $4618
Yale: $2810
There are other reach-for-all schools that are ABET-accredited in chemical engineering like Brown, UPenn, Cornell, etc. that are likely to be affordable, but I did not include them all.
Regardless of these averages, OP’s family should run the NPCs, as their particular circumstance may make the net price higher or lower.
Anecdotally, basically every school my son applied to met our SAI with a combination of merit and financial aid. Some of those same schools are ones suggested on this thread. WPI was the only school that didn’t get very close. They offered 24K merit + 15K need aid, leaving a cost of attendance of ~36K.
I totally agree with you. But I didn’t want to be too doom and gloom with the numbers, and if the family qualified for the full Pell Grant (about $7500/year I think) and the kid took out a $5500 loan and/or was working to help cover at least $10k of it, I thought that those schools might at least have a potential route to affordability.
A net price of $12k would typically include around $8-10k student contribution ($5.5k direct loan plus $2.5-4.5k student work earnings), leaving a parent contribution of $2-4k. The parents probably spend that much now on a high school student living at home.
A net price of $20k would mean a parent contribution of $10-12k.
Can someone educate me, how much that student would pay in CA?
I suspect CA public would be a bit more generous with some scholarships.
If I would be that family, I would rather go Community College->top CA school we can afford vs. loans+OOS+travel cost+ lower rank engineering to get a break…
From what I remember someone posting somewhere on the forum, UCs often end up being less expensive that Cal States for residents of California from lower-income families, if the student is living on-campus.
Among engineering schools that do not award PhDs, Rose Hulman is ranked #1, ahead of better known schools like Harvey Mudd. The professors there self-select for teaching, rather than research, and class sizes are capped at 30 students. My son did a summer STEM project there and we were very impressed by his advisor and other professors we met. Rose is also generous with merit aid for students it wants. According to my son, “Rose Hulman would be my top choice, hands down if it were not in the middle of nowhere Indiana”.
Historically, for California residents with high FA need, net prices tended to be CSU commuter < UC < CSU residential. UC FA does adjust for living situation, while CSU FA does not.
I understand OP’s posting here for suggestions as her daughter wants to go OOS. They can all look at the OOS options, and there have been some good ones the family may not have considered like Iowa State.
I think in the long run, due to the budget, a California state school may be the best option. I’d encourage her daughter to look at the California schools that are farther from her home as being a different state (if they live near SF there are schools in San Diego, Riverside, LA, Santa Barbara that are ‘far away’) and find things about those schools that she really loves. Look at the OOS schools, but always be aware of how much they cost and how extra things like travel will add to the cost.
Unfortunately, all kids can’t go to an OOS school just because they want to. The majority of kids go to schools in their home states because those are the best financial deal. The California kids are lucky that they have a lot of very fine schools at a good price.
