You can’t get into Iowa. Not until you have proven you can get good grades at another college. OOS tuition at a CSU is about $18000 a year, plus your living expenses. Can your parents afford $36,000+ , assuming you can get into a CSU? OOS tuition at the UC’s is $44000 a year, not including living expenses. You will not get instate tuition unless you move to California first and live there for a year.
There is no easy fix for this. Put in the work and transfer. You can definitely get into college, and you can definitely transfer. You just have to do it in a different way than you originally planned. Reality.
You have lots of options -not those you’ve been thinking of but good options nevertheless:
public universities
-MN state universities: they’re public, 4-year universities thus solid and recognized. Bemidji State, Mankato State, Winona State are high matches for you. About 40-50% odds of admission.Apply to all 3.
-UmN Duluth, another high match
universities in SD
in Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Superior is a high match. Stout, Oshkosh, Parkside could be considered. Eau claire, Lacrosse are reaches. You’d get a degree from the prestigious UWisconsin system and if you do very well it may help you get to Madison, whose CS graduate programs are topnotch. Note that the same can be said of the MN State U’s.
At all of those, apply ‘undecided’ - it will not be a negative whereas applying for CS would.
private universities
Augsburg university in Minneapolis: you can probably commute, will have smaller classes, and it’s well-respected. You can either transfer sophomore year to UMN or stay. Because it’s directly in the Cities, you have access to internships if you have excellent grades freshman year.
Hamline and st Catherine’s (if you’re a girl) would be big reaches.
St Marys in Winona, St John’s in Collegeville, Viterbo, Carroll, Carthage, Coe, UDubuque, Wartburg, Loras, Central,
Concordia-Moorhead (big reach but they may like your upward trend)
All these private college go beyond stats when they look at your application. They look at character, willingness to be challenged academically, ability to learn from mistakes, etc. Apply with your test scores even if they’re test optional.
CC’s
-community colleges in the Twin Cities. St Paul College is especially strong and offers very good transfer opportunities to its AA students.
community colleges with dorms (see previous list).
A balanced list would include
st Paul college and a CC with dorm: safeties
the 3 MN State universities listed above, UMN Duluth, 1-2 Wisconsin universities as matches
Augsburg
3 reaches
Total 12
Why so many? Because your situation is a bit unusual, with a low gpa and an above average SAT/ACT and an upward trend. So your results are likely to be unpredictable. If need be, cut on the reaches NOT on the safeties and matches. The matches are just as unpredictable.
My guess is that private colleges, because they spend more time reading the application and looking for personal characteristics, may be a better bet.
Have you taken precalculus or are you taking it right now? Honors? Grade?
Have you taken physics (at any level)?
How are you doing in English - what class are you taking right now?
Dont count on private loans to pay for 100% of college. That is crazy. This amount of debt would preclude your being hired by most tech companies because it’d make you such a security risk.
Your budget is:
5.5k federal loan
Pell grant, if you qualify (have you done FAFSA forecaster? If not, do so immediately) = do you qualify? Dont forget to apply
MN State grant - dont forget to apply
Your parents’ savings
Your job’s savings (if you dont have a job, look for one and save everything)
Whatever your parents can contribute from their income
That Silicon valley rent rate is cheap if it’s per roommate. For $1,400 a month you rent a room, not even a studio, let alone a 2BR 2B.
Btw lots of tech companies are relocating or opening branches in the Midwest. MNSP has hundreds of them. Huddle is in Nebraska I think.
If you really want to live there, do very well in college, get a Masters degree from a top university (including Waterloo in Canada). That’s 6 years down the road - map out your path because, as you can see, last minute decisions make things more complicated.
I am a little confused as to what year you are in school. If you are a senior, it will be challenging to pull up grades/GPA at this point. And you said there were no other variables to consider, but it sounds like finances are a huge consideration. That changes a lot. Be sure you/your parents run the NPCs for the schools you are considering. Best not to apply to schools that are unaffordable.
Another consideration might be Western Technical College in LaCrosse. They have a dorm as well fyi. You would be guaranteed admission there and could start courses in different IT interests. They have several associate degrees that upon completion, the student is auto guaranteed acceptance into a number of colleges (again, based on associates degree earned). You can find these by going to the college webpage and looking up “university transfer”.
If you can keep your grades up, they even have a UW-Madison acceptance program. Western students who start in the Associate of Science-Liberal Arts (ASLA) program can sign a transfer contract with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. To enroll in this pathway, you must declare an intent to apply for admission to UW–Madison, meet UW-Madison admission requirements, and meet specified levels of academic achievement.
La Crosse has 3 colleges so has a college town feel. As someone else said, UW-Stout might be a great starting option as well.
Coming to California for “educational purposes” would nix any in-State tuition discount for all 4 years. @Lindagaf, California requirements are tough given the fact that so many students come to California to try to get instate rates while the State needs money.
Also, the student would not be able to attend any school for a year, and would have to self support as indicated by his budget, W2’s and California state income taxes on his 540. Rents would have to be paid at market levels. Any parent funding would also nix instate tuition. Not a good plan especially with job decreases and rent increases.
@MYOS1634 is absolutely correct. Those tech companies run credit checks on potential hires.
Why are you assuming that you’re already in the market for a California rental? You don’t know yet if you’ll get in to any college other than a CC. Those GE requirements at any college can be tough. Some tech companies ask for a GPA.
Agree again with @MYOS1634. Real estate continues to jump up in prices. Your debt will be outrageous if you plan to fund everything with loans.
Your priority should be in improving your grades and trying to find a school that is affordable and that will accept you. All other things are moot.
If I’m understanding correctly, you’re a senior with parents whose income indicates that they could pay for college but their intention is to pay $0. They want you to attend a name brand 4-year school (not a cc) but want you to borrow the entire cost (through cosigned loans). Is that true?
The maximum federal student loan amount is $27k for all 4 years. That’s roughly $5k/year. If you work summers you might be able to earn $3k. That gives you a budget of $8k/year. That’s not enough for a residential college. Are there any colleges within commuting distance of your home? Would your parents let you live at home if that turns out to be your only affordable option?
If true (and it certainly appears like that is the case), the parents need to make accounts here and read everyone’s responses directly to knock them out of their unrealistic wishful thinking, since they probably are not willing to accept anything that their kid tells them.
I’m kind of confused by all this. There’s lots of talk about the “Asian mentality”, in regards to school choice and prestige. But isn’t it also the Asian mentality to scrimp and save and provide this education for their children? I’m not understanding if they are just upset by your grades and feeling like you should pay for college yourself, but if that’s the case, then the decision on what school should 100% be yours as well. Have you actually sat down and talked about these other schools with them or are you just assuming they will look down on them and refuse to help you?
Perhaps whatever the parents are telling the OP is what the parents are claiming or implying to the OP is “Asian mentality”, whether or not it is true. (And it is far from true, since there are lots of Asian students in community colleges and low prestige non-flagship state universities.)
@austinmshauri The only college within commuting distance is UMN Twin Cities, they don’t mind me staying with them. They want me to take out a private student loan.
@ucbalumnus What I’m getting is basically this emotional blackmail of Asian(I’m Indian but mentality is pretty similar) people don’t go to community colleges. They think that if I do I’ll probably end up working some crappy low wage construction job. That’s the stereotype they have in mind.
Also on financial aid they are being super weird, they said once that they are willing to help pay but that was the only time. Whenever I try to bring up financial aid and how it will be difficult for me to pay they get annoyed and just refuse to talk and say that how can I expect them to contribute when they still have to pay the mortgage for the house (about 200k as well).
I really don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m in this triangle where the three corners are prestige, dept and my relationship with them and I can only pick two goods.
Have you sat down with them and shown them the Net Price Calculators? Have they seen the numbers? If they expect you to pay all that money, well, just say NO. They aren’t the ones who will be paying off your student loan when you are still 50 and hoping to buy a home or raise a family. Under no circumstances should you take any kind of private loan that leaves you with that kind of debt. That will doom you to a life much worse than working in construction.
You are 18 or will be soon. Yes, your parents support you but that isn’t going to last forever. At some point, you have to make hard choices and you have to make your parents understand that you are not willing to do things that will jeopardize your independence going forward.
I’m sorry you are in this position. I do think you need to insist that they let you know exactly how much they can afford to pay. You will have to get answers to that, because you are going to be filing FAFSA and will need firm numbers for any loans you do take out. Either they want you to go to college or,they don’t, so they can’t keep messing you around about the numbers. Remember, no one is going to hand over the money you need, not at this stage.
Have you got a family member who can advocate for you and sit down for a serious discussion with you and your parents? Would they be willing to go to a meeting with you and your guidance counselor who can help explain how financing college works?
I also amazed at the faulty logic that it’s more shameful to go to CC or work an honest job than to be tens of thousands of dollars in debt. The Prestige ship sailed long ago. You can turn it around, but not until you’ve earned the grades.
What about all the private colleges in the area? St. Thomas, Concordia, Augsburg? Are they within commuting distance? They have higher acceptance rates, but could be a lot more expensive depending on your family financial situation.
You know. You could just apply and start going to somewhere like Normandale Community College and pay pretty much the entire cost of tuition and books yourself with a Stafford loan if your parents allowed you to live at home for free. It’s a great school, nothing shameful about it at all. This kid started there.
@cshell2 Yes, although they are in commuting distance I don’t find much reason to go there as they are private schools and due to the income bracket my family is in I won’t be getting many scholarships. Going there will be almost the same as going OOS, I’ll only be saving on dorm. Also there is a pretty high chance of me getting into Iowa State, University of Iowa and Arizona State despite these low stats. So if I get accepted there I think it would be better to go there as they are better recognized than to go to Augsberg, St. Thomas, Concordia.
Have you applied to these schools? They just use the RAI index to determine if you are accepted or not so you can pay the application fee to have them do it or run it yourself.