What are your test scores? The best merit aid is available to incoming freshman who have not taken any college courses yet.
Due to affordability and making the best of our situation, our oldest, an average student, did community college then transferred to our state flagship. Our youngest has higher stats than her sister, so it made sense for her to grab a full ride scholarship at an OOS flagship she wasn’t thrilled about (but seems much happier at now!).
People are recommending the gap year, so you can start over with a college list that targets affordability. This forum can help you make that list!
The UCs do not give need based aid to,OOS students…and this is NOT a secret. The thread you llinked was from 2011. That is SIX year old news. The UCs do NOT give need based aid to OOS students any more…that happened after 2011. I would suggest you read threads from THIS year…not six years ago. The policynhas changed…big time.
UW similarly is not very generous with aid for OOS students.
It sounds like you didn’t consider actual costs to attend these colleges before you applied.
What can your parents pay for college? If none of these are affordable, you will need to retool,your list. Sorry. But it sounds like you didn’t apply to colleges that would be affordable…and that is a shame.
Funding your full college education with loans is not smart…sorry…it’s not. Your PARENTS will either need to take out these HUGE loans or cosign them for you. What guarantee do have that they will be qualified cosigners after a couple,of years of taking out huge loans? They might then not qualify.
It doesn’t sound like you have a plan b.
And why is a gap year not possible? Your application list was unaffordable schools. Perhaps youmcan find something affordable if you take the time, and actually look.
I think gap years are great for kids who want them, for those who are ready to move on or who would just spend the year trying to relitigate their admissions results, I don’t think it’s wise.
If your budget is 30K for four years of college, you need to start close to home and commute. Hawaii is in WUE, so there are going to be tuition discounts available for years three and four for going out of state, just not at Berkeley.
If you like Seattle, apply to Western Washington for the Spring Semester. It is part of WUE and you will save tremendously versus these other options. (Tuition less than $10k / year for you)
Worst case you can knock out your prerequisites there and then transfer for junior / senior years.
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I realized that I spent so much time researching about my first choice school (Stanford), I know it extremely well in comparison to other schools, and I should really have some schools on my list that are likely to accept me and that I would be as excited going to as Stanford. If anyone has any suggestions or can tell me about their experience at their college, it’d be greatly appreciated!
What I’m looking for in schools:
-Be alright with or even encouraging of exploration for majors, since I have an idea of what I want to study but am not sure yet, but engineering management/international business is a likely choice
-Engaged student body, with lots of student organizations/clubs/activities
-Looking towards Cali or northeast coast states, in or near an urban area
-Great campus, sort of with that “traditional” campus vibe
-Good study abroad program
-diverse student body
-offers internship opportunities
A bit about me:
Female, Asian, under represented state to basically anywhere, 34 ACT, SAT II World History (710), Chinese (790), IB diploma candidate, took one AP (world history, scored a 5), rank 3/715, 4.0 UW 4.2 weighted GPA (highest possible at my school), decent variety of EC but nothing extraordinary maybe except teaching in rural China for three weeks one summer, solid essays and teacher recs.
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So…some sort of eng’g or business mgmt major? What about your twin?
You have the stats to get very large merit at some schools.
Are either you or your twin NMFs??? I would think with your stats you would be.
@ClarinetDad16 WUE is a competitive discount at Western. Still highly likely if they’d applied earlier, but quite possibly not an option for an April application.
You can’t afford any of the schools you listed. You will not be allowed to borrow full cost of tuition for your last 3 years. So you are either looking at exhausting your parents’ savings for 1 year at Rochester or UW… or taking a step back and attending college somewhere you can afford.
Berkeley is completely off the table – I’d hope that someone with your stats would be able to understand the difference between $59K and $32/$34K. (I’ll make the math simple - if you round off the figures, it means Berkeley is +$40K a year more expensive, $160K over 4 years, and you might as well do that because you can expect tuition and housing costs to go up each year that you are in college).
Unfortunately you apparently chose not to apply to any safeties that might have offered you substantial merit money.
Does U of Hawaii have rolling admissions?
If you want to go to college, you need to attend a school that you can afford. You’ve listed 3 unaffordable options in this thread, so you might as well have posted that you have $10K to spend on a car and are trying to decide between a new Mercedes or a Tesla.
Sorry to be so blunt, but you do need to give up on the idea of your “dream” college and instead focus on the practical realities that need to be addressed if you want to attend college at all.
It is affordable and will serve your purpose of getting a degree.
My sister resides on Maui. Her eldest couldn’t afford the OOS tuition for the UC’s here in California. So, he went to U of H Manoa, got his degree. Got a job and they paid for his grad school.
Did Keoni want to go to UofH? Probably not. He ended up at UW with a degree in business and is using it in Honolulu, Maui and the mainland.
Most/all WUE schools are still unaffordable unless families are willing to pay. In this case, not.
WUE schools usually do NOT give both merit and WUE discount.
These students essentially need FREE tuition so that a student loan and their annual portion of the college fund can pay the rest. They will also have costly travel, so they should work/save over summers.
Considering how good your stats are, I’d take a gap year - see if CityYear offers something in Hawai’i. Or get a job and save money.
You CAN attend a good college outside of Hawai’i, and yes UHawai’i is not good and considering your stats you can do much better… but not at the schools you applied to.We (this community) can help you craft a better list. But the only way for you to attend acollege OOS that’s both strong and affordable is for you to take a gap year.
If you don’t want to do a gap year, you can still keep your fingers crossed that around May 5th the list of colleges that miscalculated yield will include colleges that offer sufficient financial aid for your stats and offer your major. Each year there are excellent colleges on the list. If after applying to colleges on the list, you still can’t afford a college, take that gap year… or enroll at UH and forget going OOS (because transfers get lousy aid and your current test scores are worth a LOT of money at many colleges in the continental US, so either preserve freshman status and don’t enroll in any college class or enroll at UH and forget about going to college OOS.)
I realize you must be confused and hurting and wanting things to turn out alright. It’s a very tough situation. Take a moment to breathe and mourn. But you’ll make it.
How much can your parents contribute PER YEAR?
Do you have a job currently or can you get one?
What’s your EFC?
@jql2017 I know this is tough, but Post #30 is dead on. I know you’re probably excited to head off to college in the fall, but one viable option would be to work, save up some money and reapply to somewhere on the mainland next year that will give merit.
It would make sense to begin by figuring out exactly how much your parents can afford each year and then know how much you personally can take in loans. As a student, you are only allowed to take out about $5,500 per year (and this goes up by 1K or so each year). You would have to do the math. Example: Parents can afford $8K per year from savings, $5K per year in loans, Student Loans $5K = 18K total. The remaining money should all come from scholarships or merit aid that you don’t have to pay back… with your stats, you should be able to get a nice financial package from somewhere!
So…maybe this student…and her twin should apply to UAH. Now.
Re: the twin getting off of the waitlist at Berkeley…don’t count your chickens before they hatch…plus how will the twin pay the almost $60,000 a year OOS cost to attend Cal?
Thank you for the input everyone, I’ll admit the financial cost I’m facing seems more real now than it was when I applied.
I spoke with my dad more about the financial situation (because I had no idea what my parents were planning) and he says at the most the would be able to pay is $30k per year for both my sister and I. He says he will probably take out student loans and start paying them off while I’m still in school and around my junior year he is going to second mortgage the house after the value increases a bit. I currently have a job and around 1.5k in savings and will work through the summer so I will have enough pay for my personal expenses in college, and I will probably do work study in college. My EFC is $34,045.
Oh and some of my stats since some were asking:
4.0 unweighted, 4.2 weighted
Ranked 3/630
34 ACT, 1430 SAT
SAT II: 710 World History and 780 Chinese
5 in AP World History, currently on track to earn IB diploma
I want to go into a systems engineering, but they have different names for this type of major at all the schools. At Cal it’s called operations research and management science. At UW it’s called Human Centered Design and Engineering. At Rochester it’s called Engineering Science. I want to go into marketing management eventually, so I was planning to double major/minor in marketing and then go to grad school for marketing.
My sister wants to study statistics. UW has the 4th best statistics program, after Stanford, Berkeley, and Harvard.
Oh please…this amount of debt will be staggering for your parents. A second mortgage on their house? Please…don’t ask them to do this.
If you applied to University of Alabama Huntsville NOW, you would get full tuition. Your $15,000 a year from your dad should cover most of the additional costs…room, and board. Plus you could,take the $5500 Direct Loan.
You and your twin are asking your parents to take on a staggering amount of debt. Staggering.