One other consideration I neglected to mention: my D was undecided about her major and was very stressed about that. With the CA public schools, although you can apply undeclared, many of the majors are impacted so there is a very real risk that you may not be able to transfer into the major you want once you figure out what that is. At her private school, students don’t declare a major until the end of their sophomore year, so that was one less thing for her to have to worry about.