Yes one semester of college-level Spanish actually counts for an entire 2 years at the HS I attended.
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Yes, Iâve considered USC in the past but as I stated in my original post I am more than willing to take out student loans to cover any incurred expenses for higher-tuition colleges.
You can take a $5500 federally funded Direct Loan in your name only. Thatâs it. Anything over that amount will need to either be cosigned by your parents, or taken out by them. Are they on board with that?
Unfortunately I am not being facetious about my class rank or my GPA, but I will definitely not be writing anything along these lines in my college apps.
Yeah it probably doesnât help that I have a serious inferiority complex when it comes to academics
Very sorry for making this mistake, you are absolutely correct
4 unfortunately
I would be taking out (most likely considerable) student loans to pay for tuition.
Once more. YOUR loan limit without a cosigner is $5500. You canât borrow more than that on your own.
Do you qualify for need based aid? If so, that could help you at schools on your list that guarantee to meet full need. Have you done any net price calculators to see what the net costs would be?
As a National Merit Semifinalist, you would receive a full free ride at University of Tulsa. Perhaps that is worth considering.
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My parents agreed to cosign
Iâll be looking into that for sure, not taking any colleges for granted.
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How much can you and they afford before using parent-cosigned loans?
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Thatâs nice of them. I would urge you to not take out considerable loans for undergraduate school. As a National Merit Semifinalist (and if a finalist) you should have some good merit offers at some collegesâŠnot the ones on your list, but many others.
If you decide you would like suggestions for colleges where you might receive significant merit aid, just ask here and Iâm sure folks would be happy to help you.
I will suggest you look at SUNY Buffalo. @aunt_bea can explain how this school might meet your needs. I think itâs likely you would get decent merit aid there as well.
To give the best suggestions, it would be helpful to know what your parents will contribute annually towards your college costs. You donât have to tell us any of this unless you want some less costly options.
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At Alabama youâd get 5 years tuition, four years housing and money. Think Masters degree.
Itâs for finalists.
There will be other free ones too.
There are several schools that find NMF scholars in droves - they pay, many kids play !!
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You have a 4.0 GPA with rigorous classes, through linear algebra. You have a 1600 on the SAT. You are a National Merit Semi-Finalist from California, one of the most challenging states in which to earn that status. You have a number of extracurricular activities, including where youâve made it to state-level competitions (including semi-finals), once again, in California. You have over 300 hours of volunteering and you work a part-time job.
If people develop an inferiority complex when comparing themselves to someone, they would likely develop one if they compared themselves to you. You have a very strong background and should be very proud of yourself. Since youâve mentioned insecurities with respect to your academic achievements repeatedly, I strongly urge you to take @Mapkâs advice to seek help from a mental health professional. Since you worked on an app to raise awareness about teenage depression, you hopefully have access to resources to find a health professional that will work for you.
A four is nothing to be ashamed of. When you didnât mention a score, I was wondering if it was something like a one or two. If you donât get admitted to a college, it wonât be because you got one 4 along with a string of 5s.
Iâm pretty confident that others will talk about the impact of significant college debt for a new grad, so I will leave that to them, but just know that Iâm in agreement with any cautions they may give. What I will say is that I think that your academic insecurities are definitely a factor here. It appears as though you are willing to go into considerable debt so that you can say you went to Stanford or MIT or Yale. Before you sign any promissory notes, there are a few things I think you should be aware of:
After you get your first job, 99% of employers wonât give two flying figs about where you went to college. 99% of your colleagues wonât know or care where you went to college, either. Do you really want to go into âconsiderableâ debt for a degree that wonât hold a âwowâ cachet for much longer than it will take for you to start college (because by then you will have left all the high school classmates who might have been wowed and everyone at your college will have earned the same âwowâ accomplishment which will no longer make it special).
The other possibility is that you will choose to name drop your alma mater so that you can try to impress others. What those name-droppers donât necessarily realize is that it just screams how insecure they are. Iâve known some incredibly smart and impressive people who, sadly, were insecure about their intellectual chops. And they repeatedly make mention of their SHYMP associations or awards theyâve won, etc, and it just comes off as very sad and desperate.
So, this is my way of saying, find a college that will be a great fit for you. Find places where you will have lots of opportunities to learn and explore and challenge yourself (with respect to academics but also socially and with extracurriculars). Look for schools where you feel as though you will find lifelong friends. And look for schools that will be affordable without taking any loans (or without taking more than the $28k in loans that the federal government will allow a student for undergrad, which starts with $5500 in the first year).
Then, when you graduate, you will hopefully have had a great education, fun memories, close friends, and no debt, all of which is a terrific way to start your adult life (particularly as EECS is not a field that requires or even necessarily prefers a degree from an expensive prestigious school).
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**COPYING from my other post. **
I donât think SUNY Buffalo gives out merit anymore.
Our daughter went to SUNY Buffalo intending to major in the biological sciences because she was admitted into an honors program for medicine. At that time she was given a full ride to attend Buffalo.
She was also admitted to Yale, Johns Hopkins, the UCâs, etc. She said she knew that we would be footing the bill for med school, so she seriously considered Buffalo and ended up attending there. (All we had to pay for were her Southwest flights from San Diego to Buffalo and her supplies.)
One of the courses that she had to take was bio-engineering. She discovered that she loved the engineering portion more than the biology portion.
She started taking engineering and math courses, and, as the only female, at the time, at her level, (there were three or four in the whole program) the engineering department approved her admission into engineering courses based on her math background.
She eventually became an engineering tutor and became a spokesperson for âwomen in engineeringâ at SUNY Buffalo.
She double majored in electrical engineering and computer software. That major is common at the UCâs, which is called EECS (âeeksâ).
We had to pay for an extra year but after the rest that was paid for, it wasnât a big deal. (Itâs our middle child that we had to pay expensive medical school costs!)
I donât recall what we paid in tuition at UB, but now, non-residents, pay less than $30k a year.
Thatâs a lot better than what we charge in California. Non-residents are paying $75,000 a year.
I know that UB was very proactive in seeking out daughter for corporate interviews and the âpromotion of the engineering department for femalesâ.
All of the professors knew her by her name on campus, obviously, and they promoted her as a tutor, because she always attended tutoring to maintain her Aâs and has always been a very sharp young lady.
She is very happy as an engineering and hiring manager here in California. Sheâs done very well financially and emotionally.
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I wasnât referring to your GPA or class rank, but rather your attitude towards them as expressed in the line
Your GPA and class rank are excellent. If this is your true attitude - and not written tongue in cheek - then this is the problem, imo, and not something you want to come across in your applications. Being petty - and I do think some if not many AOs would see this as petty - is generally not appreciated. Sometimes students try to write justifications like this in the âother infoâ section of applications. I am cautioning you not to do that.
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If you arenât getting into these schools, then I donât know who is.
I am starting to realize how regional admissions tends to be. We are also in CA but not in a competitive area. We just sent a kid to MIT with half of what you accomplished. We also send 2-4 kids to Stanford every year and they also donât have half of what you have. So I donât know. I think the best way to look at your accomplishments is without the context of your school and your district.
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@aunt_bea it looks like SUNY Buffalo does still give merit scholarships. Unless Iâm reading this incorrectly.
Scholarships | Undergraduate Admissions | University at Buffalo.
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Pretty late to this discussion but a message to OP.
OP - you will have a good shot at all the UCs. Just focus on writing good PIQs for now.
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