Is applying out of state worth it for me? Georgia Resident

College Search & Lists
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GPA: 3.842 unweighted
SAT (New): 1320 total, 670 reading/writing, 650 math, 31 reading, perfect score on optional essay
SAT (converted to old): 1880 total
Class Rigor: will have 5 APs by graduation (including 2 for art), Gifted and Honors classes entirely, 2 years of French
Extracurriculars: Job, Unpaid Internship at an Advertising agency, Vice President of National Art Honors Society, Treasurer of Student Council, Beta/Key Club (community service), plenty more clubs that I’m not a leader of

I live in Georgia, so I’ve already applied to University of Georgia. There’s not very many other…good, public schools here (Georgia Tech, but I wouldn’t get in and am not interested in a technical degree so…). Should I apply to University of Ohio/Michigan/Florida as well? I would only attend an OOS school if I got a comparable scholarship, (considering the fact that I qualify for Zell Miller in Georgia (full tuition), it’d be rare) or if the education was vastly superior.

I am not sure what I want to do but I’m interested in either an artistic degree (illustrative stuff like storyboard art or character design, or graphic design), business degree (marketing), or double major, and a minor in French.

2

Nice choices! I’d say you have a decent shot at Ohio and Florida but Michigan is a bit of a reach. however you should still apply to those anyway. (Try and apply to at least 12)

Here are some (great) schools that offer Art, French, Graphic Design, and Finance majors.
Some UC’s
U Virginia
Michigan (one of your choices, great school)
U Wisconsin, Madison
Pennsylvania State
Ohio State
U Georgia (one of your choices, also a great school)
U Texas, Austin
Purdue (awesome school, I’ve heard)
Virginia Tech

UF offers French, Digital Arts & Sciences, and Interior Design. (not sure if you’re into those) but from my research they don’t have Graphic Design.

3

<<<
am not interested in a technical degree so…). Should I apply to University of Ohio/Michigan/Florida as well? I would only attend an OOS school if I got a comparable scholarship, (considering the fact that I qualify for Zell Miller in Georgia (full tuition), it’d be rare) or if the education was vastly superior.


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You won’t get comparable or even close merit to those schools except for maybe University of Ohio (did you really mean Ohio State Univ?).

What are your parents saying about how much they’ll pay each year?

4

You likely will not get much, if any, merit $$ at UF (though if you have a desire to apply go for it!). It is very competitive.

If you are willing to look at lesser known public universities in Florida - i.e., FAU and such - merit $$ might be more likely. You might even get some merit $$ from FSU. But I’m not sure there is anything in Florida that will beat what you have in GA (jmo).

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Georgia Tech doesn’t only award technical degrees, although that is the university’s focus. There are several different majors there besides engineering and science and technology. They have a couple of different business majors at a top 30 business school, Scheller, and they also have a minor in French. There’s also the BS in computational media, which may be close to what you want in the art space.

I wouldn’t necessarily apply to any other OOS public universities - you may be competitive for Ohio State and Florida, but as you pointed out you are unlikely to get financial aid comparable to what you could get at UGA. Same thing with pretty much all of the other publics listed - Purdue, Virginia, Wisconsin, Penn State, etc. Public universities reserve their best financial aid and such for residents of their own states.

But there may be some private universities that can offer you some financial aid, especially with your good GPA and test scores. University of Miami would be a match school for you. American University, in DC, would be a match to a safety, and might offer you some good scholarship aid. Right at home in Georgia, Oglethorpe University (a small liberal arts college) would be a safety and you could probably compete for their JEO scholarships. Southern Methodist might be a match for you might may offer some good aid, and they have good business programs. You may also be interested in Elon University (in NC) and Furman University (a small LAC in SC).

6

If your SAT was higher you’d have access to many other scholarships. Retake?

7

Feel free to try, but I don’t believe you will get close to a comparable scholarship at the OOS flagships.

8

UGA and Georgia Tech are both great options!

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UGA and GA Tech are excellent in-state options and it looks like you have UGA in your back pocket with the auto scholarship.

Since you have UGA as a solid safety, you might just try for some other schools and see what they offer.

Have you considered small schools that might give some need-based or merit aid? Aside from Oglethorpe, you might try Berry College. And Emory would be a bit reachy but it’s outstanding and might be worth a shot. You could also try to get into Oxford College to more easily get your foot in the door at Emory.

I’d look primarily at private schools for aid because it’s going to be hard to get much merit at OOS schools that are at or above UGA’s level. UVA, UMich and UNC are pretty good with need-based aid, but i’m not sure about merit, and they’d be as hard to get into as an OOS student, or harder, than even Emory.

I liked some of the ideas of other posters – just wanted to offer Berry College and Emory/Oxford as additional options.

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Think about some private schools that you would be > their 3rd quartile in terms of GPA/SAT scores

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I’m curious to know what’s spurring you to look out-of-state. Would you be unhappy at UGA? What sort of school size do you want, what sort of study body? There’s a number of private institutions in-state (I see someone mentioned Berry and Emory upthread, already) which might be a better fit, and in addition to the state money you’ll receive (not full tuition, but they do have a scale for what they’ll pay at private in-state schools) and various endowments, they may be affordable. At this stage you really have to apply based on what you want, not money. The money part may or may not figure in, depending on the offer you receive.

My first thought upon reading your post was why aren’t you applying to SCAD? Expensive, but there are scholarships, and it seems more in line with your interests.

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You are not going to beat the Zell Miller pretty much anywhere without tippy top stats. When you say: “or the education is vastly superior.”, then that opens things up greatly. If you have a budget, that would be helpful.

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Okay, so you guys have been vastly helpful. Let’s just ditch the public OOS idea for now on the basis of it being too much money for no reason.

@yankeeinGA I am applying to SCAD actually, I just worry about going to an art school because it completely closes off my options if I change my mind and decide I want to go 100% business instead. I was also thinking of applying to MICA, Art Institute of Atlanta, SAIC, RISD, and/or Pratt, but funds are low so I want to narrow down that list. Have you heard anything about those places? Also, I’m only looking at OOS because I don’t know how much I trust a GA education. SCAD, Tech, and UGA are hyped here as like the Jesus holy grale of schools, but I feel like that might just be because I’m here. If I leave the state, do those names still hold their weight?

@prezbucky @juillet I just found out I got into Mercer with 18k scholarship (it’s the only school I’ve heard back from thus far, they haven’t told me about FASFA yet), so with that being said, do you think Oglethorpe/Berry/Insert-GA-private-school-here could compare to that academically? If results from all of those schools hypothetically would leave me into the same about of debt, which one would you recommend? Can y’all think of any other good private schools for me nationwide (because somehow when doing this I completely forgot they existed) (also I know there will be like COUNTLESS private school options, just, are there any that scream at you)?

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UGA is not a guaranteed safety (unless you are a val/sal). Stats are strong but its not an auto admit. . They like rigor and unless your school didnt offer many APs, taking 5, with 2 being in art, may not look rigorous for a strong student.Did you apply by Oct 15? You will hear by Dec so can decide if you choose to wait on other applications. That said, there are other options, with scholarships available at OOS privates.

15

SCAD, like most art schools, is pricey and doesn’t offer good financial aid to most students. If you were going to apply to art schools, I would limit that to the tippy top of them - RISD, Pratt, and maybe one other top art school depending on where you’d like to end up (MICA is a good choice). But if you aren’t 100% sure you want to go into art I wouldn’t really plan on going to art school.

Georgia Tech has a national reputation as an excellent place, so yes, that holds up. UGA has more of a strong regional reputation, but it’s still an excellent place and you could go anywhere and get a job with a UGA degree. I think SCAD is reasonably well-known in the art world, but there are better ones (RISD, Pratt, Parsons, CalArts, MICA, SVA).

Mercer, Berry, and Oglethorpe all have pretty similar student bodies - average to above-average kids who were mostly in the top quarter of their high school classes. Which one you choose will largely be about the kind of experience you want. My impression of Mercer was always kind of pre-professional, although I think in the last few years they’ve been striving to change that and make it a destination for traditional-aged freshmen as well. I think this is more about personal choice. Berry’s campus is beautiful; so is Oglethorpe’s, and as a college student I think I might personally prefer to be in Atlanta or even Rome to Macon.

I suggested some Southern privates in my post above, but some places that jump out:

Carnegie Mellon would probably be a bit of a reach, but that could be a good place to combine art and business. So would MIT. If you wanted a shot at those I’d retake the SAT and/or take the ACT to see if you can get your scores up a bit.

A more attainable match might be Bard College, in upstate New York. They have a great art program there but as a liberal arts college you could also study other areas. Syracuse, also in upstate New York, has a good art school and other fields as well that fall into business and traditional liberal arts areas.

Honestly, though, UGA will probably be your best option both financially and academically.

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GCSU is also a good little school to consider. They have a fine arts major.

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@mssunnymuffins I think @juillet said just about everything I was going to. If you’re not sure about art you’re definitely better off sticking with a non-specialized uni, for sure.

My deal with my kids was always: feel free to apply wherever you want – you never know how much aid you’ll be offered! – but it would be hard to beat Zell Miller at a public school in GA in terms of cost effectiveness. It just depends on what you can afford and what you want, but as was already said, GA Tech and UGA are both nationally-recognized schools. I’ve heard mixed this about Mercer, but congrats and I hope that’s just the start of a lot of wonderful options! :slight_smile:

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The OP could get a good scholarship at a lower tier school and pay about or less than what they would pay at UGA, etc. Zell covers tuition, not other expenses, R&B, etc so it still costs around $12-14k for GA (this is from memory) and she’d have to keep certain grades not to lose the Zell or be dropped to the HOPE (which at UGA covers about 85% of tuition or so).

Big Us are not for everyone. Neither of my s 's wanted to go to big schools. Back when they applied, HOPE was the full tuition scholarship (there was no Zell then) and they both qualified for it. Yet both went OOS to private schools. Younger s got a great (full tuition) scholarship to a very good school, and we paid about the same for that school as we would have for UGA. He did NOT want a big school and did not apply to UGA. He hated it when we visited.

And back when S#1 applied to colleges, Tech was his safety!! Times have changed!

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UF is significantly harder than average for OOS applicants. It is unlikely the OP will get any aid at UF as an OOS student.

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Uga is not a safety but a match - and make sure you apply to the honors college if you want a smaller environment.
Apply to agnes scott/ spelman if a girl?
Applying outside Georgia would provide you with more choices in case you don’t want a mega university or don’t get into uga /uga honors /your preferred major.