Are there any topics already talking about availability of scholarships & aid at the following?
Anyone that’s enrolled at the following and was able to get good scholarships?
They dont seem that “selective”
Their acceptance rates range from 30-60%
Is that true?
Whats the average Net Cost of Attendance for OOS at the following?
CalPoly Pomona
Cal Poly SLO
San Diego State
San Jose State
Cal State Fullerton
Cal State Northridge
Good? Bad?
My S has a 34 ACT and 3.99 GPA, Top 1%
Thanks!!
Have you tried the NPCs?
Ive tried the NPCs but am not sure what the Scholarships will be I guess… I am curious to know from CSU parent(s) what their net cost is per year. Just to get a feel for it.
The CSUs have few scholarships and don’t give need-based aid to OOS students.
The CSUs have little interest/ability in providing any aid to OOS students and they have little interest/ability in providing merit scholarships…they don’t need to.
The CSUs rely almost exclusively on Cal Grants for need based aid, so there’s no aid for OOS students except the tiny amount of fed aid you might qualify if your EFC is low enough…but still wouldn’t cover much.
with those stats, WHY apply to OOS CSUs???
What is his major and career goal?
As @mom2collegekids stated, Cal States give little merit aid to OOS applicants so expect to pay on average around $36K/year (tuition/room/board). Priority is given to local residents within each Cal State service area.
The acceptance rates do vary as you stated: 30% and up, however, this can be deceiving. The Cal States admit by major and Eligibility index based on Cal State GPA and test scores. Since they admit by major, some schools such as Cal Poly SLO known for Engineering/STEM/Business and Architecture will have acceptance rates as low as 10% for ME/CS.
Based on the posted stats, your son would should look to schools where his stats would give him great merit aid which you will not find at the Cal States and the UC’s.
Use this link to help find merit aid: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1678964-links-to-popular-threads-on-scholarships-and-lower-cost-colleges.html#latest
He is interested in Engg/Engg Physics/Computational Math and HATES cold weather, so wants to stick to CA or AZ
He should start with the colleges listed in the link provided for Merit/Need-based aid. As stated above, California publics (UC/CSU’s) will not meet your financial needs. Look at California privates such as Harvey Mudd/Pomona College/Santa Clara/USC/Stanford/Univ of Pacific/Loyola Marymount/Univ of San Francisco/Univ of San Diego to name a few. (Not San Francisco State or University of California San Diego or San Diego State- many people mix the privates up with the publics)
Is he only interested in dry heat? A number of southern schools would give merit for his stats.
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HATES cold weather, so wants to stick to CA or AZ
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There are other states that don’t have cold weather!!
What do you want your net costs to be? Unless your son gets into a “full need” school in Calif, the schools there will be costly for you.
Arizona probably only has 2 schools that would be acceptable …ASU or UAz.
What about southern schools…great weather and great merit scholarships.
What is his PSAT? Will he be a NMSF?
http://www.csumentor.edu/finaid/pais/ is the CSU net price calculator. For non-California residents, only federal aid will be offered, if eligible. But it does show the estimated cost of attendance for each campus.
SJSU lists past admission thresholds at http://info.sjsu.edu/static/admission/impaction.html
The referenced CSU eligibility index is described at https://secure.csumentor.edu/planning/high_school/elig_index_calculator.asp and is calculated using GPA calculated as described at https://secure.csumentor.edu/planning/high_school/gpa_calculator.asp .
Note that many CSUs are heavily commuter based, so on-campus life may not be as active as at some other colleges. CPSLO is the most residential of the schools you list.
Mom2collegekids: He doesnt care for the Southern region.
He wants a “small” college, so we are leaning more towards Liberal Arts colleges as time goes by, he does want to go to a college with 80,000 kids, and takes one entire day to return home, with lay overs and changing 4 flights, and an Amtrak ride.
We are hoping its ONE flight away from the campus
Thats why I am really excited abt CA and AZ (to a certain extent) and OR
there are three things that are really important I would say
While I obviously wont pay $70k a year for the first two factors
I also wont send him to a town 3000 miles away and see him once a year and such.
Thank you ucbalumnus! I looked at all the links in the last week or so.
Thank you for all your inputs, it helps me learn a few things I did not know about this process
As far as size goes, many of the CSUs are quite large. All of those that you listed have over 20,000 students. The smallest ones other than the Maritime Academy (with about 1,000 students) are Channel Islands (about 6,000) and Monterey Bay (about 7,000); four others have about 9,000 students.
In terms of how easy it is to get there from where you are, it depends on where you are.
What about the academic programs and majors that he may want to study?
Nothing’s final yet ucbalumnus.
I just threw “Cal State” out there to see what response I get
I started looking at them only this week
We will obviously think further about all this
Yes, academic major is very important, but not at the cost of seeing him once a year :))
We dont begin applying until August, until then I will acquire my “unofficial Ph D” in this venture, by reading and exploring 
Thanks very much for your time
In another thread, you mention living in the “Mountain NW”. Many places in that region are served only by smaller airports which have mainly flights to airline hubs. So many schools other than those near airline hubs that you have flights to may require at least one connection.
If you are in one of the WUE states, there are some CSUs (not the ones you listed) and one UC that offer discounted tuition (= 1.5 times in-state tuition), though sometimes there are conditions like a higher GPA than normally needed for admission, or the discount is limited to specific majors. See http://wue.wiche.edu/search_results.jsp?searchType=all .
As far as the South is concerned, he should be open minded and challenge his preconceptions. Cities in the South are cosmopolitan places, not the locale of rednecks chewing on straw and shooting their shotguns at rusty cans.
With his stats, he would land a substantial merit scholarship at Tulane.
I agree that your son may need to be open-minded to other areas, including the south. He may have some ideas about southern schools that just aren’t true.
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We are hoping its ONE flight away from the campus
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this is probably not likely unless the college is located very close to your airline’s hub, and it doesn’t sound like you’re near a hub. Are there direct flights from Montana to UAz or ASU…or even Montana to a Calif univ?
The better the merit awards and/or financial aid, the more likely you’ll be able to afford to see your son a few times per year. With excellent aid or scholarships, you may even be able to afford to visit your son a couple of times.
What is your budget for how much you’ll spend per year?
Do you know if you would qualify for a lot of financial aid? Besides from income, do you have assets? real estate? are you self-employed or take business deductions?
Maine is an aviation backwater. Here are all the nonstop flights from PWM:
http://www.portlandjetport.org/nonstopdestinations
Ther only year-round nonstops to warm places are:
Atlanta, GA
Charlotte, NC
Melbourne, FL
There are seasonal non-stops to Disney World.
I the OP is from Montana, I’ll bet her non-stops are to Denver, SLC, and maybe Seattle.
Isn’t ME Maine?
I think she meant it was important to HER (me) not to ME (Maine)
