What's up with Santa Clara University?
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Anonymous
| Per CDS, approx. 1/3 of the incoming class received merit aid with an average award of $19k. |
Anonymous
Oh yes, I should have added LMU to the list. SDSU is beloved in California, but it is huge, and a party school. It definitely has a lot of job connections but more in SoCal than NorCal. Still, a solid choice for a kid who is looking for a quintessential California college experience. Admissions from OOS will probably be challenging. |
Anonymous
Not sure about the $200k by 30, but otherwise...this is spot on. It has a specific vibe...Boston College would also be a good comparison, or think college version of Georgetown Prep or Gonzaga (with a west coast flair). Conventional and sporty kids, smart but not necessarily "life of the mind" types, very pre-professional focused, suburban, UMC. Not for my kids, but for some it would be a great fit. |
Anonymous
Thanks. Was wondering about Cal State's - which are the top one's? Are they seen as something equivalent to a GMU/VCU or more like a community college? The tution is really cheap.. so thats what made me wonder if its basically a community college? |
Anonymous
Op here. PP I don't understand what you wrote there, can you please clarify? |
Anonymous
The Cal States are definitely not community colleges--California has tons of those too. Lots of solid Cal State school. Cal Poly SLO (San Luis Obispo) is probably the number one--good academics, great location, good reputation within CA. Definitely would outrank several UC's IMHO. |
Anonymous
UC is not the same price for OOS. It's 20K less. |
Anonymous
SLO is a regional CSU not a national one. I didn't realize this until I looked at usnwr. I'm originally from CA. For STEM at a CSU, I would also look at Cal Poly Pomona and SJSU, which is in the heart of SV and a feeder to many tech companies there (also a regional school). Campus is meh, and it's somewhat of a commuter school, but it's great for STEM, and super cheap. I went there, though many years ago. |
Anonymous
CSUs are cheaper than UCs out of state, but still, Cal Poly's cost of attendance out of state is around 50k. |
Anonymous
Huh? UC says OOS total cost of attendance direct costs are $72,636. Santa Clara says total cost of attendance direct costs are $77,208. Assume same indirect costs for travel, incidentals, etc. |
Anonymous
Not according to UCLA web site, cost of attendance for oos student is $72,000. They do have to pay for housing, being from oos and all. |
Anonymous
What this means is that schools in the T30-T100 range are much less likely to get a shotgun blast of applications from competitive kids who are shooting their shot. There are many schools in the T30 range where kids know they probably won’t get in but kids also know there is a lottery aspect to admissions, and so are willing to buy a lottery ticket by submitting an application. And this can work, especially in a test optional world, so the problem feeds on itself: kids all know a kid who got lucky the year before, who maybe was competitive but not any more so than any other competitive kid, so then they decide to buy their own lottery ticket, thus driving more applications to the school. There are a lot of schools in the T30 where kids would just go based on rank alone, even if they have no particular interest in the school. That leads to enormous application pools and very low selectivity metrics for the T30s. But as you move out of the T30s, applicant behavior changes. There are going to be fewer kids who attend a T30-100 based on rank alone. That means the applicant pool for the T30-100 schools tend to have kids who have some realistic chance of getting in and also have a more personalized interest in the school. So, a school like Santa Clara and others in that range are going to be more likely to admit the students who apply because of who makes it into their applicant pool. That means their admissions rate will go up. You can see this pattern throughout the T30-100 range. Look at University of Oregon. It is the flagship in Oregon and really the only place that outstanding students in Oregon who want instate schools apply. It also draws a strong student population from other West Coast states. University of Oregon on any resume is going to be respected, and its graduates are well-regarded. In fact, if you are a competitive student looking for a job in the northwest, you are probably much better off with a degree from Oregon than much higher-ranked schools on the east coast. But it had an admissions rate of 86-93% in recent years. Why? Because it is a huge school, and really one of the only good destinations on the West Coast for kids who want a big football flagship school. That means that it attracts a group of highly qualified applicants. But at the same time, it’s not going to get a lot of kids looking for a lottery ticket. That combination of factors leads to a very high admissions rate. I don’t really understand why anybody looks at admissions rates as a serious metric of academic quality, to be honest. It seems like a low-quality signal. |
Anonymous
They aren’t at all like community college. Honestly I don’t think the CSU system has a parallel on the east coast, so it is hard to compare. It is heavily subsidized for instate kids and the goal is to provide a solid undergraduate education. For the Cal State schools, “best” is a complex question. Cal Poly SLO is by far the hardest one to get into, and is very well-regarded. So that one is probably the “best,” and a very challenging OOS admit. But after that, it starts becoming a question of area of study because schools start differentiating. For instance, if you want marine biology, you need to go to CSU Monterey Bay. If you want forestry, Cal Poly Humboldt. Classic California undergraduate experience, you want SDSU. Computer science with strong connections to Silicon Valley, SJSU. Connections to LA media technology, Cal Poly Pomona. Wine, Sonoma State. Etc. It starts to really become a major- and outcome-specific question. |
Anonymous
Interesting, thanks. But to argue the other side, for a place like SCU, if it has a reputation as being easy to get into, wouldn't it attract lower quality candidates, ie people who wouldn't even bother to apply to T30 schools? If SCU is automatically attracting from a lesser pool as a result of this dynamic, then the 80% acceptance rate is even more problematic, because their pool is not great to begin with, no? |
Anonymous
| It’s easy to get into if you are not applying in STEM subjects. The admission percentage is much lower for STEM majors which are what the vocationally-oriented DCUM parents all want for their kids. So maybe cool it with the snobbery about SCU. Your child probably won’t be accepted. |