You may have to readjust your thoughts about some of your schools. Consider the issues that affect nonresident students at the UC schools. Go in somewhat knowledgeable about what to expect.
The UC’s are extremely LARGE, public universities funded by limited taxpayer dollars from the State of California. You may be in courses for freshman and sophomores that are 500 to 1000 students. It’s crowded; they are LARGE.
We residents don’t have an issue taking your $75,000-80k per year.
The UCs have some of the strongest and best students from the state, and the schools that you have selected, are extremely competitive for everything that you’ve listed: programs, internships, and work opportunities.
Additionally, because the cost of housing, throughout the state, is ridiculously expensive, schools like UC Santa Cruz are known for really bad housing situations because the local residents don’t allow student housing to be built in their areas. A number of students have to transfer out because they can’t find housing.
These issues may affect you. I’m glad you want to explore areas outside of your state but please realize each state has its own issues.
If you’d like to apply to the UCs, the application closes at the end of November. The system almost always crashes at the end of November because there are hundreds of thousands of applications being submitted.
We recommend that you get your application in by the 15th of November.