Anonymous wrote:My very high stats kid likes UMD, which is probably a match for him, so he doesn't see the point in paying more to go somewhere else, but he'd still like to apply to a few more schools, plus some safeties since nothing is guaranteed these days.
What are some good schools for civil engineering that are either affordable as is, or offer merit that could bring the price down?
DS24 had UMD in-state as top target. Primarily interested in D1 schools for marching band. 1550, 4.0 U/W. CS not civil, but same menu of schools. Safeties which he got into were UMBC, VT, Penn State, NC State. Received merit at UMD ($4500 x 2 yrs, honors college) & UMBC ($7k x 4 yrs). Nothing from the OOS options. Though in fairness, a couple required extra merit or honors college applications, which he blew off. DS didn't apply to OOS schools that would have definitely offered significant merit liks S. Carolina, WVU, or Bama because they are not as strong in STEM as the group he applied to. We found there was no realistic way to compete with UMD from a cost/quality standpoint, particularly in CS and engineering. Higher (perceived) quality was much more expensive and to match in-state tuition or get down to your $35k target requires $20-$30k in merit from an OOS school, which can only be done with a big step-down in academic quality. He is having an excellent freshman year at UMD.