you received a subpar education through no fault of your own (cue experiences of many urban or rural youth with poor public schools and no family or teacher who helped them catch up)
you are intelligent
you are reading extensively and have made other attempts to expand your education
you are ready to join the formal education system at age of 22 - assessment by CC advisors, etc
you have high long term goals, including graduate school
you have diverse interests, including physics
I think the Smith program is just an example of a program that is interested in bringing up people just like you …
Also - you should be working with the non-traditional students forum …
You do need to have a thick skin … and maybe moderate your message a bit …
I’d replace “I should go to Caltech because I am an untraditional thinker” with “I am willing to work really hard to prove myself and work towards a BS (or BA, might be better if you can slam dunk the liberal arts) and then will move on to graduate school where I will make a big splash in Physics or maybe a related field”.
Apply to Caltech, but I think a non-traditional thinker there is someone who has come up with a reinterpretation of Einstein’s equations and is working on a unified theory. But that’s just my guess.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek
I agree that it was educational neglect. But I had to explain it as homeschooling because I can’t just say I had dropped out in the fourth grade- there are many kids who have experienced similar issues in homeschooling, and while they aren’t the majority, there is a problem with saying that all homeschooling is good homeschooling. Experiences are varied and in my case, it was terrible. Like I said, I might have transcripts somewhere; they either aren’t worth passing to a university or they don’t exist. What I experienced was homeschooling in a very, very poor environment.
I agree that I need to talk to an advisor; because I won’t be going until next fall, the advisors at my CC won’t give me ANY information until I’ve taken a placement test. But I didn’t want to wait a whole year without having at least some sort of idea of what I can do.
I have no major problems with going to an average school. I plan to apply to both average and excellent schools because I don’t understand the mentality of settling when I might have a chance to go somewhere else as well. It doesn’t hurt to try.
Also, financially speaking, I’m poverty level. It’s bad enough to where I usually have a week at the end of the month where all I have are a few canned goods left from a food bank/food stamps because I have to pay rent. I can’t really do loans because of my credit, so I need scholarships or need-based grants that will cover a meal plan and housing.
Why are you not trying to register for this fall ? Go for it ! I think community colleges serve the poverty level community and they may be able to find you work study opportunities at school that will allow you to begin your academic journey, at whatever level you need. There are likely multiple community colleges in your area or even state, some may have housing and other perks.
Take those placement tests now, at minimum. It will also really clarify the road you have to take. And maybe you can take one or two classes, whether the remedial versions or a “physics for non-majors” type seminar that will really inspire you. You may not even have to pay tuition.
Homeschooling can be an excuse for either anti-intellectualism or radical religious thinking or just plain ignorance. Sorry, that’s a bad place to be, but honestly, you seem to have come out at a place where you can succeed long-term. If you get a STEM or other degree at say even 30, you will be making good money in a good career for 40+ years.
If you translate those SAT scores into community college placements, in math, english, writing, you may really impress them with your potential and open up a lot of opportunities that you are not aware of.
Sadly the main reason I can’t go until next year is that I was denied financial aid because a small federal loan I had was in default. I have to pay it first. I have so many problems now that I see it all written out.
Thank you @PickOne1. I’ll take my GED next month if I can, then work up to the SAT. I might be able to go as early as spring semester if I can pay my loan while attending.
@CaliCash You are really barking up the wrong tree. You got into Northwestern with a 1900-something SAT score after a helluva lot better education, so please quit sounding so high-and-mighty. For being such a good writer, I’m surprised your reading comprehension isn’t better. OP is trying to figure out college on sooo many levels coming from a very screwed up background and we are trying to support her, give her some guidance, and cheer her on. Caltech is a several year off dream that OP knows perfectly well may never come true. She isn’t fixated on Caltech - I don’t know why you are.
@Donutholez, were you already enrolled in a college-level program for which you got a federal student loan, now in default? Be aware that you will need to send transcripts of any previous college attendance. You won’t be able to get away with not reporting previous college enrollment.
Even though women’s colleges aren’t appealing to you, keep them in mind since they’re used to your set of life and financial circumstances. The elite ones have full financial aid and help in ways most other colleges don’t/won’t, including jobs.
Do you know Khan Academy? It’s a free websIote, it’s very well done, clear, designed for people who need to catch up, review, or get ahead. They start with middle school math and keep going through linear algebra, plus they have chemistry, physics… For social sciences and humanities, type “crash course”+" history", “psychology”, etc.
If you have access to a public library, from and books such as " guns, germs and steel", “a hope in the unseen”, “the immortal life of Henrietta lacks”, but also novels such as b****d out of carolina, an abundance of Katherine s, counting by seven, orange is not the only fruit, Jane haddam’s Living Witness and Flowering Judas…
Yeah, it was an unaccredited school. The credits don’t transfer but I will send them a transcript from that school despite doing terribly; my essay will be somewhat explanatory on that end. I used that school to escape my household, them essentially became homeless due to the bipolar, etc. That’s something I plan to ask admissions offices about individually.
I just found out about the Rochester Institute of Technology- they have both a physics program AND a scientific imaging program heavily influenced by engineering and physics. Does anyone have an opinion of this school?
My daughter goes to RIT. She’s pre-med. Her boyfriend, a rising junior, recently changed his major from computer science in the engineering school to information technology. He’s doing a coop in the Rochester area next semester and will still graduate within 4 years.
Their cost of attendance is considerably lower than many other private schools–less than $50k vs $60k+ at many privates. But there’s no such thing as a free ride there. The cost was just a little higher than a SUNY school for us because she gets a NYS grant for $5000 (in addition to Pell grant and a need-based grant and a merit scholarship from RIT). And she has a 15-hour work-study job. But you will have to borrow a lot to attend. And you won’t be able to borrow anything until you take care of your defaulted federal loan.
I used their net cost calculator and it suggested I would pay around $9000 out of pocket. That might be possible for me by then. And it’s better than Pitt, which gave me a suggested 30k (or close to that) out of pocket should I not get a merit scholarship. Maybe if that ends up to be true, would you recommend I add the school to my list? They have a higher acceptance rate and it looks like they have a program for promoting women in science fields. My only issue would be that it’s in Rochester; but if I was able to survive an upper peninsula winter once, I could survive a Rochester one I think. It would help that I’d be working hard in school.
My daughter survived the winter 1) without warm boots and 2) without a really warm coat, lol. I would have bought them for her with pleasure.
There are tunnels connecting most of the dorms and connecting most of the academic buildings. Unfortunately a quarter-mile walk between the two, but if you go from the closest tunnel to the closest tunnel, it’s less.
It’s a suburban, enclosed campus, unlike U. of Rochester which is within the city. Right off campus are miles and miles of almost every brand name store you’ve ever heard of.
What I like most about it is that they are extremely focused on outcomes–that you’ll be able to get a job or acceptance into an appropriate graduate or professional program when you get out of school. My daughter (and everyone else I think) has an academic advisor and a career advisor within her college, plus there’s a pre-med advisor.
This sounds like it could be perfect for me. What I like is that they also have a fine arts photography program that my fiancé could attend. He had thought about SAIC if I got into UChicago, or we would both go to Pitt. This could be an added option. I could also double major in imaging and physics (Or major and minor, either is good for me) and that would prepare me really well for a grad program where I can focus on optics.
Are you sure you are reading the NPC correctly? When we investigated RIT last yr, I didn’t remember them being extremely generous with $$, so I just went in and plugged in very basic info like $5000 in income, $0 in savings, unsure of high school GPA, living on campus, and born in 1991. These are the results it spewed out:
That means the actual out of pocket costs are approx. $20,600/yr. The $8457 is what is known as being gapped. The $12,100 is student loan and a job, but the gapped $$ has to be paid.
Did you get different #s? If not, $80,000 in debt is definitely NOT worth it for an undergrad degree in physics.
Those are the numbers I got as well. I don’t care so much about the debt if I can come out with a high starting salary (most jobs I’ve looked at in my field require a masters and pay 80k+)
Though that is a lot to pay out of pocket when I have no help. Damn my problems.
That’s supposedly with a pell grant; I believe it also takes a year to become a resident of another state, or at least that was the case for me here in PA. It might be a good idea to keep RIT in mind for grad school; I would love to have a PHD in imaging science, with a BS in physics. That could end up being much more helpful than a PHD in physics considering what I want to do.
It is a lot to pay. Period. Schools like RIT are completely a pipe dream for our kids b/c they are totally out of reach financially. Getting a solid UG education with plans for grad school does not require that level of debt.
If that is the route you are planning, I’m sorry, but I am absolutely zero help from that direction. Our ds is going to UA b/c he earned full scholarship. He could have gone to much higher ranked schools for the level of debt you are describing, but from our POV there are students from UA’s physics dept attending top schools like Stanford for grad school. Accruing that kind of debt was just not a good choice.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek But I’m guessing that your son was an incoming freshman. There are a lot more large scholarships open to freshman then there are large transfer scholarships. Even if OP transfers to a state school, she is not likely to get a full tuition or full ride scholarship based merely on academics. She’ll have to get a lot of financial aid, which I think is what she is trying to sort out, and some debt may be inevitable unless the amount is low enough that she can work it off during college. Is it easier to get higher amounts of financial aid from public universities than private?
