Go TO USC or Go To Penn State?

Before anything, I’ll give some basic info about my family’s income and how I am doing in school.

My mother is unemployed while my father gets 58K from working at the Post Office, but he works overtime every day so his income doubles to about 100K. With this, my family is quite middle-class and we live in Philadelphia.

I have a 3.97 weighted GPA, 3.75 unweighted and I am waiting on my scores from my SAT. My class rank (if it matters) is #18 in my graduating class. I plan on taking 3 AP classes during my senior year, I only took one in my junior year because that was the only one that was offered since I did not have the balls to take AP Calculus, considering I am bad at math.

So now onto my dilemma: I dream about USC. It’s the dream school for me and if I go there, I plan to major in Communications, specifically Digital Social Media. Not only would I love to go to school in California, but I believe in my heart that I would love and cherish my experiences there more than staying in Philadelphia and going to school here. Only problem is that my parents are under the impression that I will be going to Penn State Abington for two years for my general courses and then to Penn State Main Campus. The main reason for this plan is because of our income, we are in a weird spot where colleges will see that we can spend money on tuition but obviously to my parents, we don’t want to pay that much money.

The more unfortunate part is that USC is need-blind, so I have to work extra hard to get some kind of scholarship from USC, which seems pretty much impossible. But with Penn State, I feel almost a guarantee that I will get in with a scholarship. I have so many thoughts going on inside my head about what to do. Should I be selfish and go to USC or stay in Philadelphia with my family but sacrifice my happiness and be financially stable?

I’ve gotten a couple of responses. Other people in my family have told me to go to USC, because my parents wouldn’t want to hold me back or for me to hold myself back. My therapist told me that going to California will be risky but at least I will have the choice to come home, rather than being stuck where I am at forever and regretting taking the chance. My counselors and teachers have told me that I should try to aim lower because my stats are not that impressive and it’s not worth the debt. And most importantly, my parents believe that I don’t need to go that far to get the job that I want in the future.

I’m unsure about where to go with this and I’m just looking for some advice, because I know that there is no definite answer.

Here is my “possible colleges” list, just in case you guys think that I am a person of extremes (which I kind of am):

USC
UCLA
UC, Berkeley
USCB
USCD
uPenn
Temple University
Penn State Main Campus/Penn State Abington
Community College of Philadelphia

Thank you, I’m excited to hear what you guys have to say about this.

I can’t tell you much about USC, but you should know that Penn State provides minimal financial aid and very few merit scholarships. There are many in-state and OOS students who come to PSU with a 4.0+ GPA and high SAT scores who aren’t given any merit money whatsoever.

UCLA, UCB, UCSD and UCSB give little to no financial aid to OOS students so expect to pay full price at $65K/year to attend. UC’s are also need-blind so they do not care if you can pay for admission purposes. You would have a better chance at getting financial aid at USC. You need to run the Net Price Calculators on all schools of interest to better gauge your possible costs.

You can always go to an affordable school in your home state and come to California for a job post graduation.

Op, help me out here. Have you already been accepted to USC?

First question: How will you pay your fees for California schools???
Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of funding for these schools.

USC is roughly about $72k per year; even NM winners don’t receive that kind of aid there.

The UCs are public schools funded by California taxpayers so you would not receive a penny of public money to attend. The best aid comes directly from the colleges and since these are public universities, you would not be eligible for California state funding. The costs to your parents would be $65k per year. (OOS students are considered as “cash cows” since they pay full fees for the UCs.)

Your unweighted GPA won’t be competitive for most of those schools since OOS students need higher GPAs to compete with the California students.
What are your other affordable options? Safeties?

Op, I think you might be putting undue pressure on yourself and your college decision at this juncture. I’d recommend compiling a list of potential schools, roughly consisting of reaches, matches, and safeties. Moreover, as the above post notes, financing college is also a major consideration.

With regards to USC specifically, its admission rate this past cycle was 12.9%. To wit, unfortunately, admission is something of a reach for most applicants. This is also true for Cal and UCLA. This is NOT meant to discourage you from applying to these, and other CA schools. It is, however, a suggestion you also research some safety schools and consider applying to them as well.

Your grades are IMO excellent, and your future is bright. Many applicants to the schools you listed in your op also have excellent grades and test scores. I’m sure you’ll learn more about college search and selection over time on this and numerous other threads on cc. Love the fact that USC is your dream school and no matter what, Fight On!

If you graduate with a degree from Penn State, or if you graduate with a degree from USC, either way people are going to say “good school”. Neither is Harvard or Stanford, but both are very good and respected.

Given you financial situation, you are going to need to take the cost of education into account. Going from 58k to 100k by working overtime is a LOT of overtime and a lot of work, but it is still not enough money to make 70,000 per year affordable.

I would be very surprised if any of UCLA, UC Berkeley, USCB, or USCD end up being affordable. Otherwise I would run the NPC on the rest of the schools on your list and see what it says.

I agree with @USCWolverine that you have good grades up to this point and that you are very likely to have a good future regardless of whether you attend USC, Penn State, Temple, or a different university.

Penn St. is an excellent school, and extremely different from USC in myriad ways. PSU is a huge state school in the East, with an undergraduate enrollment exceeding 40,000. Penn State accepted about half its applicants a few years ago (don’t know how much that changed this past cycle) and might be a good “match” level school for op. I think op’s chances of admission there would be extremely high.

Thank you for your reply. As you can see from my list, if all else fails, I will either be attending Temple, Penn State or Community College. I know that there is not a chance that I will be able to get financial aid but I believe that college is not only about my academics but the experiences I have while I’m there, which leads me to feel obligated to give California UCS a shot since I know that it would be a great environment for me.

Thank you for your advice! I do believe that I could do well in Penn State, no doubt. However, as I stated, I feel like I would feel happier and more content working and studying in the West Coast as opposed to the East Coast, and that my college experience is worth the trip and the debt. What would you say is the best approach? Financially stable vs. good college experience?

Forget UCs.
However USC is a possible reach and may end up roughly the same cost as Penn State because 1) 100k is not considered much in California. Run the NC, you’ll be surprised. 2) Penn State is very stingy with aid. You’re unlikely to get any scholarships because they basically don’t have any, except if you get into Schreyer (and even that is only 5k).

So, you need a few more universities. We can help you! What do you like about those on your list?

Note that “need-blind” simply means that your financial need does not impact your admissions decision. USC is a private university and does provide need-based financial aid to many students, separate from merit scholarships. Run the Net Price Calculator on USC’s website to see an estimated financial aid package, to get an idea of whether USC might be affordable for your family.

However, do not waste your application fees on the UCs because you cannot afford to attend even if admitted - they are public universities and do not provide financial aid to out of state students.

Consider looking at other private universities in CA (and elsewhere) and run their Net Price Calculators as well. Check out schools like Santa Clara, U San Diego, LMU, Chapman. Note that schools asking for grades and test scores in the NPC might also include a merit estimate along with the financial aid estimate.

USC offers great need-based aid, so apply and see what happens. (USC loves high test scores, btw, so depending on how you do…)

The UC’s do not offer great aid to OOS applicants, so drop them from your list.

At a UC school, you will be faced with high out-of-state tuition and high housing costs, and you will get no financial aid. The total cost of attendance will be more than $60,000 per year (not including travel). You can see this, for example, at UCLA’s “2018-2019 Estimated Undergraduate Student Budget” table. Look at the bottom line, for “Total - Nonresidents”. No financial aid for non-residents, so that is your actual cost. Over four years, this is a quarter-million dollars.

Realistically, your family probably cannot afford to commit two-thirds of their annual income to your college expenses, or to take on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

Your best chance of finding an affordable private school in CA would be at privates, like USC or the others mentioned above. Their tuition may be just as high as the out-of-state tuition at a UC, but unlike a UC they will offer financial aid to non-residents. If you can get in, and are lucky with financial aid, the cost of attendance might possibly be competitive with Penn State or Pitt. The Penn State-Abington route will almost certainly be cheaper though.

The Annenberg School at USC does have a unique program in Digital Social Media. However, it’s an MS program – not something you major in as a undergraduate.
https://annenberg.usc.edu/communication/digital-social-media-ms

The average age of matriculating students in this program is 28, and they average 5-6 years of prior work experience. So get a good undergraduate degree with as little debt as possible, then get some relevant work experience, and save some money. At that point, the Digital Social Media program at USC may be a realistic option for you.
https://annenberg.usc.edu/sites/default/files/2017/09/28/master-of-digital-social-media-spring-class-profile.pdf

One thing adding to your confusion is the lack of a standardized test scores. Once received, I will recommend a variety of schools to you which are likely to offer you significant merit aid–assuming that you score high.

Your college list is too narrow & inappropriate as UCs are unrealistic for a couple of reasons including cost.

How many students in your graduating class ? If 18, then class rank is a problem; but if 180 or more, then class rank is a plus.

Forgot to post the link. It’s here:
http://www.admission.ucla.edu/Prospect/budget.htm

. You can only take out $5500 in loans the first year. Your parents would have to fund the rest and they may not qualify for a quarter of a million dollars to fund the UCs.

Two things you can do right now:

  • run the NPC on USC, Penn State, Temple, Chapman, Occidental, UPugetSound.
    List the results in your next post and comment on them.
  • make a plan to study for the sat or the Act. Use Khan academy, Erica Meltzer, pwn the sat math. Study for at least 2h Every day because your ability to leave depends on it and you need a top 5% score. Not easy to get (95% fill to do it, obviously). Today, write down your general 6-weel plan and a detailed 10-day plan ++ registe for the august and September tests.

Note that Penn State’s Bellisario school of communication and the IST major are both very strong.
(Oddly, Pitt’s offerings are surprisingly bad in comparison; in Pittsburgh there’s Point Park for a safety).
Starting right on Main campus is best for these majors, I think some even require it.
Temple has terrific majors in Media Studies and Production with a minor in Digital engagement, they sound tailor made for you.
Both universities have impressive honors colleges.

Also look at Penn (do you live IN Philadelphia? You could be one of the “majors admits” But obviously you’d need the kind of test scores that come from though understating and comprehence prep.)

^^^^ look at the privates in California.
They will have private funding that may qualify you for their funds but your stats have to be exceptional.