Bad News for those Students thinking Cal State System Schools were your Safeties

[lilmom]

BfloGal, Others have talked about CSU Channel Islands and Monterey Bay as safeties. My S's safety is Channel Islands. Its a small school but a nice campus. Not as far from bigger towns/cities as Monterey Bay. Dominguez Hills is probably more like East Bay - commuter school. Another school is Cal Lutheran, just up the freeway from CSUCI in Thousand Oaks since money isn't an issue.

[MidwestMom2Kids_]

Midwestern Outreach
I would like to take this opportunity to invite students who don't get into their preferred CSU to apply to BSU. Bemidji State University. A gorgeous campus on Lake Bemidji, with many other beautiful lakes and forests nearby. Annual tuition of $6300 whether one is in-state (Minnesota) or out-of-state (California, for example) or international.
Tuition & Fees - Undergraduate Admissions - Bemidji State University
Small classes, a wide variety of majors.
Academics - Explore College - Undergraduate Admissions - Bemidji State University
It is a safety school for most students, with an admission rate over 80%.
(You do have to appreciate snow.)

[Shrinkrap]

Thanks midwestmom!....do you know what the URM situation is like there ( they might want to trot a few more out for their website! Hope that comes across as funny!)?


This is a great thread. The individual CSU forums don't get much traffic. I'm guessing that's because most CC posters don't have much personal experience. Although we are in Sonoma's local area, the stats suggest Monterrey is more of a match because it is less desirable, and I am curious about that. Is it because of it's location? I LOVE Monterrey/Pacific Grove ( and my son loves ocean activities), but I am I also like the size, and the Teledramatic Arts major. Might be easier to play for their soccer team, too. Does anyone have any insights on these things?

[mom60]

Bflogal- I would not recommend Dominguez Hills. It is definitely a commuter school.
A school to look into is Northern Arizona Univ. They have rolling admissions and if you apply in late summer you can have an acceptance by early fall. The OOS tuition is pretty low. They also take Western Tuition exchange for certain majors. They also offer an OOS scholarship. I think tuition is around the same as a CSU.

[BfloGal]

Thanks mom60. I would prefer my S not attend a commuter school. I will look into NAU.

shrinkrap: As for CSU Monterey Bay, I have 2 work colleagues whose kids go there. My understanding is that it's an acceptable school, but not the "dreamy" campus one would envision based on its location. The campus is part of an old army base (Ft. Ord), and the buildings reflect that. In addition, it's not near anything, so you can't grab some friends and walk to the bistros, for example. I would recommend visiting the campus and surrounding area first.

[BfloGal]

please forgive me for asking, but what is URM? thanks.

[ucsd_ucla_dad]

Apply to Arizona State. Terrific honors college. Huge selection of courses. Cost of living lower than in California.

I'm not disputing what you've written but it looks like ASU is also quite affected by budgetary issues - go check out the other thread today on the major budget reductions, reorganization, layoffs, and program impacts ASU has announced. Budget issues aren't unique to California so one needs to investigate the details of the impact.

[elizabethh]

Bflogal - I would also recommend NAU, my 2.9 son got in last week without having submitted test scores. University of Hawii is a good option, minimum gpa is 2.8. I wish my son would look at privates, but he is only interested in big schools with football teams and greek life. Others to consider would be Oregon State, Nebraska, and my personal favorite this fall, University of Kansas, where a 2.5 is required in core subjects.

[Shrinkrap]

URM is under represented minority ( African American, Hispanic, Native American).

[calmom]

Shrinkrap, my son spent a couple of weeks on the Monterey campus to attend a program there, and I also visited when I drove my son down. The overall area is beautiful, but the campus itself definitely looks like the abandoned military base that it is. My son did have the opportunity to talk to Monterrey students and one thing that impressed him was that the students seemed very satisfied and thought highly of their administration -- so I do think that it is an under-valued campus and definitely worth including on a safety list.

[lilmom]

BofGal, URM is underrepresented minority. It wasn't long ago that CSU San Marcos was a small under enrolled school. Now, with SDSU impacted, San Marcos is, too. It won't be long before Monterey and CI catch up.

[ucsd_ucla_dad]

I just checked another local CSU that doesn't appear in these threads very much - CSU San Marcos (in northern San Diego County) to see how they might be impacted. CSUSM is I think the newest CSU in the state or at least one of the newest ones. They are also impacted -

They state that they'll accept all applicants from the service area who meet CSU requirements which are:

1. Are or will be a high school graduate or complete a GED.
2. Meet the CSU admissions eligibility index based upon GPA in college preparatory
classes and scores from the ACT or SAT Reasoning exam.
3. Have completed required courses with grades of "C" or higher in the “A‐G” college
preparatory subjects by the end of spring 2010.

However, they also state that these requirements as well as deadlines will be strictly enforced this year (implying it might not have been so strict before).

For applicants outside the service area they state:

The California State University has declared systemwide impaction that will result in fewer
students admitted for fall 2010. Under impaction, campuses are allowed to use supplemental
admissions criteria such as grade point average or wait list students in order to control
enrollment. California State University San Marcos has been directed to reduce campus
enrollment by 6% for the 2010‐2011 academic year and will therefore utilize systemwide
impaction to manage enrollment.
As referenced above, the campus may use higher cumulative GPA, CSU eligibility index and/or school of graduation to select students if enrollment space allows consideration of nonlocal service area applicants.

http://www.csusm.edu/admissions/docu...ions%20FTF.pdf

[ucsd_ucla_dad]

Can anyone suggest good safeties for a California kid whose GPA might not land him at a good CSU (given the new constraints)?

BfloGal:
Figure out the CSU whose service area you're in and then check to see what restrictions they have in place. There seems to be a fairly prominent statement from the campus on the subject on the college's home page. Many of the CSUs will still accept all applicants in their service area who meet the minimum CSU requirements as I posted above for CSU-SM. If your service area CSU isn't one of the ones still accepting all local CSU qualified applicants, then that should be a good safety if your kid meets the requirements. He could then also apply to all the other colleges he's interested in to give him choices.

Most CSUs will be commuter schools to a fair extent but some are less so that others (SDSU for example). Even CSU-SM has some dorms but I expect that most of the attendees are commuters.

[calmom]

Humboldt does not appear to be an impacted campus. (See CSU Impacted Campuses and Programs | Student Academic Support | CSU )

It's also a beautiful, residential campus located in a stunningly beautiful area of the state.

The campus has been hurt by financial cutbacks over the past several years, which is reflected in reduced faculty & course availability. So there's no escaping the California budget problem -- see University Budget Office ? Humboldt State University

[Shrinkrap]

My son's school told us we were local for Sonoma, but I can't seem to verify anywhere. It seems we are local for "Maritime", but that \'s a specialized school, so it can't just be that one. I did find this

"We have 23 campuses in the CSU," Rhodes explains. "SSU is one of four or five that gets more entering students from outside the service area than from inside." The university gets 19 percent of incoming freshman from within its own service area and 81 percent from outside."

left stuff out ....then

"This small, local pool of eligible candidates requires SSU to recruit students from out of the area. "We can talk all this intellectual and philosophical ********, but you have to have real people here," Rhodes says. "We're not going to fill our 1,600 to 2,000 freshman slots with people from our local service area."

It mentions six counties. Anyone know how I can find out which ones?

here

Metroactive | Music, Clubs, Movies, Events, News | San Jose, CA Feb 09. Not to drag this off topic, but any insights would be welcome.