Is NYC worth giving up a full ride?

College Search & Lists
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<p>You can’t count on financial aid as a transfer. So at best that would be a possibility – and of course you couldn’t even count on being admitted to Barnard again as a transfer.</p>

<p>I think you need to spend some thinking about your goals and which school would best foster them – and also think about how flexible you are. (Perhaps your goals will change after you are in college? Do you really want a career as an accountant? Or perhaps that is your idea now because it just seems practical ?). Barnard might be better if you are more concerned about academics - it’s a strong academic program, you would be surrounded by students who plan to attend graduate school, either for professional degrees or to pursue Master’s or Ph.D’s. But as noted - it wouldn’t get you anywhere near qualifying to become a CPA.</p>

<p>But again… is that what you really want? </p>

<p>Coming back to your other questions:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Is NYC worth it? NO. If you go to Barnard, go for the academic environment – not the city. If you think that there are more opportunities for your career aspirations in NYC than in California- then you can move to NY after college and get a job there. Then you’ll be able to focus on work and career while getting paid. </p></li>
<li><p>You wrote:

</p></li>
</ol>

<p>If working while you are in school is unappealing – then you are probably not going to be happy at Barnard – because it is a given that the cost for your first year is $8000 – and usually the expected student contribution goes up somewhat in later years.</p>

<p>I am glad my daughter went to Barnard and I very much encouraged her to go – but she WORKED. She took a retail job the summer before college to earn money, she consistently worked 2 or 3 jobs during the school year-- and I think she was juggling 5 or 6 part time jobs at once during her final semester. She even works two jobs now while attending grad school in the evening – she has a full time day job, she has a little business on the side for herself that brings in a few hundred dollars a month – plus those evening classes. </p>

<p>My daughter used to be a dancer but she really didn’t have time for dance in college or since - I think she occasionally takes a dance class these days, but my point is that there really wasn’t time in her life to continue a serious commitment toward dance. </p>

<ol>
<li> You also wrote:

Do you want this to be the LAST time in your life that can afford to take a low-paid but fulfilling, community service oriented job? Or do you want the freedom during your summers and after you graduate to continue to focus on that big part of yourself? Because the debt you take on may determine the choices you have as a college graduate. Listen to your heart - and pursue the education that you need for the job that you really want, not for a job that you think you will need just for the money to reach your true goals. (I mean – maybe you should study dance and look for a job with a nonprofit working with kids – you could actually do that with debt, as long as you limit yourself to federally subsidized loans that are eligible for income-based repayment down the line – but that’s a different set of priorities than what you have been writing about when you talk about the potential benefits of going to NY.)</li>
</ol>

42

<p>First of all, let me point out that to make 8000$/year as a full time student is not easy in NYC or anywhere, it is almost 2 hours a day at $15/hour. It is about twice as many hours if you get paid minimum wage. In addition, living cost is high in NYC and that $8000 on paper will turn into some thing like $12,000 in a hart beat, especially the classmates in Barnard are mostly from higher income families. Peer pressure will make you spend more money and there will be little control.
Secondly, if you want to be a CPA and working while going to school that will leave you no time for Dancing, I am not even sure if Barnard has a CPA program, but the CPA program I had experienced is very intensive, you won’t have too much spare time after studying. You have to think twice about being a Dance Major or in a CPA program. I think your hart is at Dancing Major but you want to be practical, so choose Econ as minor. There is no problem in that line of thoughts, but you won’t be a GREAT dancer by working on Wall Street. You won’t be on the Broadway or be apart of NY Ballet by doing Dancing part time.
I know several great musicians personally from Juilet, they dedicated their life into music, they have no second thoughts of being some thing else and do music part time. Dancing will be the same thing.</p>

<p>So what is the difference does it make if you go to Barnard but you cannot be the top Dancers? Then the question becomes, if you take out Dancing, which school would you choose.</p>

43

<p>I think that’s a good plan to go to UCLA for the first two years, and there’s a good chance you may end up loving it and not want to transfer. </p>

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<p>If this were me, I would go to Barnard for the first year, get to experience NYC because it’s your dream. If things don’t work out, transfer to USC or CC(then to UCLA or UCB), with the low income, parents living in poverty, I think you probably gets the tuition free anyway. USC has accounting and finance and probably better dance studios.
As for summer plan, you can make decent money, you may have to make tradeoffs, giving up the tutoring or NYC, you can’t have both, I know in LA, my daughter made $5K one summer between sophomore and junior for 8-week internship.</p>

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<p>I understand that it wont be guarantee that Barnard will take me back as a transfer but the chances are very high. Also, like I said before, accounting is the job I am aiming for right now but are you going to believe in a high school senior who plans her future like it’s one linear path? Haha, I might end up with another major but all I know is that I will be helping low-income communities no matter what my job is. And I am not sure if I can cope with the idea of giving up music or dance. It is just a big part of me and I can’t imagine giving that up. This is a great point that you brought up, the freedom of doing anything I want without the thoughts of loans lingering and tying me down is exactly what I want.</p>

<p>I could go to Barnard for the first year but then I would still be in debt and unable to really enjoy the city. Plus, my scholarship from UCLA wont be waiting for me if I ever transfer back. </p>

<p>If dancing was out of the equation, I would still go to Barnard. Hands down.</p>

46

<p>If you go to UCLA, you will lose all scholarships to Barnard. There’s very little for transfers and the scholarships you got will not be available again. I assume you got into the special summer prep program, too? </p>

<p>Take the work-study and work 5-6hours a week. Seriously, it’s very manageable and it’ll provide you with some financial leeway.</p>

47

<p>Barnard does not provide scholarships and any grants given is 100% need base. As long as I don’t strike rich anytime soon, I will have the same financial package as a transfer. Actually, I am a part of a community service program this summer so no prep programs for me hahaha</p>

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<p>It seems like financial issues are a major concern for you. With that being said, I think UCLA is the no-brainer here. I was very cash-strapped throughout college and believe me, it was no fun. Do not underestimate the stress it will put on you. I had to agonize over whether to spend a dollar on a soda, which was made even more difficult by being surrounded by kids who called home to tell the maid to tell their father to put more money in their account. The financial freedom of UCLA will give you the flexibility that it looks like you are looking for. And although $32,000 in debt is not a lot, $32,000 is still a lot of money to repay. If grad school is in the picture, well, you will most likely be adding to that. With UCLA, you will be starting your adult life with a real advantage: no debt. Truly, that gives you the freedom to make choices that you could not make otherwise. Just my 2 cents (which fortunately I can now spare!)</p>

49

<p>Actually, the two schools are a toss off to me as far as Econ concerned. So pick the one you like the best.</p>

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<p>thuanphung: Barnard only meets need for freshmen. Regardless of how much you need to attend, they won’t provide it, they’ll provide what’s leftover from giving financial aid to freshman and how much they feel like, which may be nothing. Scholarships/grants, ie, not loans, are mostly given to freshmen. Transfers rarely get financial aid, need-based or merit-based, beside the federal loans they’re entitled to ($6,500 sophomore year).
It’s true Barnard grads can leverage alumna relationships for networking and internships. It’s hard to tell you how much UCLA grads can leverage their affiliation. Part of it for Barnard is the very tight relationships between women’s colleges alumnae. But UCLA is a huge school - lots of alumni; it’s prestigious on the West coast. It may not be the traditional educational grounds for the West Coast elite’s children the way Barnard is for NYC’s daughters, but the UC brand is strong, too. I don’t know how “tight” alumni are with their current school, but you should definitely post on the Barnard and UCLA threads on this forum, and ask questions.
Grad school: if you mean law school or med school, you’ll have to get loans because there’s no financial aid. However if you mean academic grad school, PHD students typically have their tuition covered and receive a stipend to boot. Enough to live frugally, not as a princess, but enough. So it depends what you’d be doing.
Am I right to say your passion is dance, but you don’t think you can make a career out of it so you’re looking for a major with immediate payoff? Barnard grads can major in anything and get into internships, provided they get high grades. Obviously if you intend to work in finance, you’d have an easier path by majoring in math. Can you do that? Math or CS or quantitative economics would open lots of doors, from Barnard or UCLA. For Wall Street obviously Barnard would be better - as far as I know, UCLA isn’t a target and Barnard is semi - but if your goal is to work in banking, lots of different majors and both colleges would work.
I also understand your choice of NYC as a dancer’s choice and a dancer’s passion is hard to counterbalance with points like “a free ride is a no brainer”. You have to think carefully about your reasons.
I agree that if you choose Barnard, you’ll have to work over the summer, and if you’re committed to that volunteer work (sounds great and perfectly in synch with your career/interests), you’ll have to add work to that to earn money. In addition, didn’t you get the summer program at Barnard, meaning you’d have to arrive in late July and would spend 5 weeks discovering the city, etc?</p>

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<p>Hi! My passion is dance but I am choosing not to pursue it because it just isn’t realistic and I just feel that I would be just as happy giving low-income kids the chance to pursue it. Actually, I have been thinking about majoring in applied mathematics, I’m more of a math person. But who knows?</p>

<p>I did get into the summer program but have decided not to take it. Also, a Barnard admission officer has told me that as a transfer, I will most likely receive the same financial aid package.</p>

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<p>MYOS1634 … stop badmouthing UCLA.</p>

<p>I know your 6,000+ posts has given you some sort of self-importance, but lay off the spiel that has made the rounds on this board, and try to think critically for yourself and try to stay on topic. </p>

<p>You stated in another thread, sounding like mom2collegekids, and said, that a UCLA student didn’t gain acceptance to med school because he couldn’t obtain letters of recommendation – which is false, which was shot down when it was told he gained acceptance to UCSD’s and Dartmouth’s med schools. Again, UCLA med’s admissions undoutbtedly thought the CSULB student was a better candidate.</p>

<p>Here, you’re going off into deep tangents, to badmouth UCLA. </p>

<p>The reason why UCLA isn’t a target for the “West Coast elite’s children” is because it has far too high standards to allow high percentages from any school just because it educates the elite.</p>

<p>You mention med school, law school, but the OP has no desire to attend these grad programs and effectively stated such previously by their total non-inclusion.</p>

<p>You mention with authority that Wall Street would possibly target Barnard grads but not target UCLA’s. This may be somewhat true, but with what authority do you speak?</p>

<p>There are two alumni who made a 13-15 most influential list in business, who are big on Wall Street who graduated graduated from UCLA, one an MBA, and the other with a bac and MBA degree from the University.</p>

<p>You sound more and more like so many others on this board, and just spew forth information that you’ve read. </p>

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<p>I think you should take the free ride at UCLA. I find it kind of amazing that people dismiss $32K as though it were nothing much. Unless you’re going into a very lucrative career, that’s a lot of money to pay off, and you say you only want to work as an accountant in order to save money to fund your dream of opening a dance school for low-income kids. That means that a $32K debt will put you several years, at least, further back in realizing that dream.</p>

<p>Go to college for free in LA, and you can move to NYC as soon as you graduate and work for as little money as will pay your rent and groceries if that’s what you want to do. Or you can take a job making more money and save up for your dance school. But the point is, you’ll be debt-free and that means you’ll have options. Honestly, how many people would consider a free ride at a school like UCLA to be their dream? Most people would not consider Barnard to be objectively a better school; it doesn’t make sense to pay $32K more just to be in NYC when you can just move there in 4 years. I also agree with whoever said that you shouldn’t go to Barnard to be in NYC; you should go to Barnard to go to Barnard.</p>

<p>Finally, those “brand-name” internships don’t grow on trees. I would imagine there’s a lot of competition for them, no matter what the people you met during your overnight visit told you. Imagine that you’re at Barnard and you don’t have the money to go to Broadway shows, and you have to pay tuition for outside dance classes as calmom said, and those JP Morgan Chase internships aren’t falling into your lap. Will you feel that the $32K was worth it?</p>

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<p>Hi, please, let’s stop the hostility. This is a simple post by a very confused teenager and that’s it.</p>

<p>Dustypig, yup! I agree with you whole heartedly. Like I said before, 8k is manageable but I just don’t think I’ll be truly enjoying myself. I might even end up being too busy to even focus on school and finding those internships. Also, I don’t plan on living in NYC which is why this is probably my only chance to do so and that is why this topic started.</p>

<p>What do you think about my plan to transfer?</p>

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<p>I think you should wait and see how you feel during your sophomore year at UCLA. You’ll have a whole set of new experiences and you may be very happy and settled in-- or there may be new and different opportunities that will make Barnard seem like a very distant memory. </p>

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<p>@drax: I’m afraid you’re mistaken on my intentions. I was merely trying to figure out OP’s rationale and expectations of self and college. I am not “badmouthing” UCLA and in fact, for OP, I think based on the information here + the fact OP is unwilling to work + the fact OP won’t be doing the summer session (which, although “recommended”, is quite mandatory to start on a good foot, with actual research published to show its effects) UCLA is by far the best choice.
Re: the letters of recommendation, you have selective memory: the student was first announced as having a superb record and not getting into med school, hence the only unknown variable being letters of recommendation, and those have been known to be sometimes impersonal for some candidates who have not gone out of their way to establish a relationship with a professor. My hypothesis was not far fetched and wouldn’t qualify as “badmouthing” in my opinion. Since it was subsequently revealed the student was admitted to med school outside CA, the demonstration, I suppose, was meant to show how difficult it is to get into med school in CA and nothing else.
As for the “elite” comment - try to think of the socio-economic composition of USC and UCLA (financial “elite”) 25 years ago, or Stanford vs. UCLA. A school like Barnard is TRYING to increase its socioeconomic diversity due to its status as one of the 7sisters. In my opinion, the way the UCs continue to function as a public service of education for the brightest students of the State regardless of income or family is to the State’s Honor and a point of pride. </p>

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<p>Good enough, MYOS1634. Perhaps it was your wording, re med student, that seemed poorly reasoned and similar to another person who has a vendetta against UCLA. Sincerely apologize… :slight_smile: </p>

<p>Apologize for my rant against MYOS1634, OP, though I cannot get around correctly spelling your name. </p>

<p>I don’t think people are lining up and giving you a thumbs up on your transfer plan because it doesn’t run within the bounds of being ethical. I don’t think it is either, and I would feel the same way if you were proposing doing the same thing the other way around. </p>

<p>You have to think about how the scholarship money could be used: by someone who would really love to have the money to attend UCLA and who consider the U, his/her dream college. There are doubtlessly people who need the money even more than you. By your using the money for your own gain, means one person will not be able to obtain the scholarship and will need to find a way to fund his/her college education for those two years.</p>

<p>Similarly, I cringe when I see someone proposing to send their intentions to enroll at more than one college in order to defer deciding. I don’t think this practice should be done, but unfortunately fairly commonly.</p>

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<p>@thuanphung‌ - there is nothing “unethical” in a plan to transfer! I honestly don’t understand drax12’s post – please do NOT pay attention to that!</p>

<p>Your accepting a scholarship at UCLA does NOT oblige you to attend all 4 years. Any funds that you do not use will remain in UCLA’s financial budget and be available to other students down the line.</p>

<p>You are not taking anyone else’s money! UCLA offered you that scholarship because they feel you deserve it, and they want you to come. They’ve promised you the money for 4 years if you keep up your GPA – but they run their budget on an annual basis – so they have only actually allocated dollars for the coming fiscal year. </p>

<p>The problem with the transfer plan is simply that there are no guarantees, and you will be happier and better able to focus on your goals if you feel a sense of commitment to the school you are attending along with a desire to make it work. </p>

<p>But that doesn’t mean that you are stuck! There are many reasons that students transfer - and even when students do not transfer, they often do not attend school 4 years continuously. </p>

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<p>Barnard is more of a liberal arts school than a pre-finance school. You meet very few Barnard grads on Wall Street, in fact I can’t think I’ve met a single one. UCLA however is struggling with California cut-backs. One thing to keep in mind - what you want to do in life will probably change when you go to college, but graduating with no debt will give you a lot more flexibility in terms of what you want to do. I also think UCLA would look better if you went into finance. You would also have the New York/California option whereas I’m not sure Barnard would look as great on a resume if you were applying for a finance job in San Francisco</p>

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<p>OP, Attend UCLA and never look back. Congrats to you on receiving such a great opportunity from a globally recognized university. You will most likely receive better business contacts in LA via UCLA than you would from Barnard in NYC. NYC while a great city is very much like going to work everyday even as a student given the swarm of people. Some like it but there is something to be said for enjoying just being a student and taking advantage of campus life. </p>