Late to the game- Looking for reccomendations

College Search & Lists
1

Concurrent Enrollment student who procrastinated getting ready for colleges whatsoever till now.
SAT completed first time 11/4/17, I’ll have results online by the 20th? Can update this post then.
K-12 Homeschool program GPA: 4.0
Hartnell CC GPA: 3.5, 3.75 when I finish this semester with A’s
EC’s: Not many, to be frank. Tutored for a few semesters at Hartnell, attended some of the science related workshops as well. Other than that, I’m currently writing a book but nothing spectacular.
Financial Aid: Yes, required. My family is middle class but there are in total nine kids partially or fully supported by my parents, some of which are already in college, some still at home, so we’ve discussed it and I would need almost full financial aid from the school or merit scholarships. Can expect $1-2k a year per year.

I suppose I should add the classes I’ve taken at my CC…
Algebra, Trig, Pre-Calc, Calc 1/2
Intro Chem, Gen Chem 1/2
General Physics
Currently taking: Calc 3, Physics Electricity/Magnetism, and Fundamental Biology.

My current list of schools includes:
UCLA- Reach.

Caltech and Stanford- HIGH reach (really just have been my dream schools since I was young so want to say I applied).

UCSD- Either reach bordering on match or match bordering on reach? Or just reach, not sure.

University of Washington- Match? Would be OOS though so maybe not. Have heard it’s a great med school and a good undergrad pre-med degree.

John Hopkins- Reach.

Georgia Tech- ???

So, as you can see I have a fair amount of reaches. I can drop Caltech/Stanford as I’m fairly certain I won’t be accepted into them if this looks like too much. What I’m looking for is my chances with the UC’s I mentioned, the other couple of OOS options, and then what would be good match/safety schools to add. As I mentioned above I am pre-med (Biology at Hartnell as they don’t offer pre-med) major, so schools that are STEM oriented are preferred.

One more thing before I go, I, stupidly, did not receive all A’s at Hartnell and I’m wondering how much that will cost me in my applications. Anyway thank you for any help you can provide!

2

Something I forgot to mention. I understand I have less than a month for the UC’s due to my procrastination, but regarding letters of recommendation, will colleges dislike using CC professors?

3

You have not picked any schools that you can get a full ride at. You cannot predict reach or match until you have SAT scores.

4

You can use CC professors. You have to if you are homeschooled.

5

If your budget is zero, it may make sense to just stay at your community college until you complete a transfer degree, Forget out of state public schools with your budget.

Where are your older siblings in school? The places they were able to attend for 1-2 K per year might be your best bets.

6

I’ll update this post when my SAT’s are released. If it helps, I’m fairly certain I scored above a 1450, only a select few problems were challenging. Not sure about the essay however. But this will be the 20th and applications are due just ten days after that… as mentioned in the title I know I procrastinated too much, just trying to do what I can to remedy it.

I mean, I have resigned myself to the fact that I will have to take out loans. Of course, I want to attend med school which will require a significant amount of borrowing, but I think taking out some for my undergrad degree will be unavoidable with my level of EC’s and GPA.

My siblings are currently at UCSC and USF (half-sibling from Florida), but they really have no idea what they plan on doing and I do, so I’m not sure how applicable that would be. Especially not my half-sibling as I am a California resident.

7

I was looking heavily at UCSD, I understand my CC GPA is a bit low for it but if it’s possible to get accepted and then I guess get financial aid, it seems like a very strong STEM school. Maybe it’s not worth the cost, though.

8

You can only take out $5500 as a Freshman, $6500 as a sophomore, $7500 as a junior and senior. You can’t take more.

9

Are your parents paying only 1-2K for them, or how are they attending? I was wondering where they got in for your very low budget. You can prepare for medical school at any reasonably solid university.

While you’re waiting for your test scores, here are some things to do:

Go file your FAFSA and see if you qualify for a Pell grant. Let us know your EFC so we can better guess schools where you might qualify for financial aid.

Run the net price calculators on your state system colleges you’re currently considering and see what they say.

Make an appointment with an academic advisor at Hartnell and see where they suggest you apply.

10

Yes, as in I can expect about $1-2k a year from my parents. I’ll see what I can do about completing everything you mentioned this week.

I didn’t know I was only allowed such a limited sum. Is that $5500 just financial aid accessible to anyone and I can, if conditions are met, withdraw more under the FAFSA?

11

^You as a student can only take that much, Stafford loans. But I think if your parents try to take a Parent loan and are denied therm you can take another 4k @thumper1 ???

12

There are limits to how much you can borrow on you own in federal loans- $5,500 your freshman year {https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/loans/subsidized-unsubsidized#subsidized-vs-unsubsidized} . Are your parents going to cosign a loan with you? If you want to go to med school, you should really borrow as little as possible for undergrad.

Your current list does not look promising from a financial standpoint. Cross out University of Washington. They have a sticker price of $49,986 and little to no chance of aid. But, you need to go through every school’s Net Price Calculator to determine your options.

Are you planning on majoring in Biology? “Pre-med” is generally not a major, but a pre-professional program.

You might want to look into some less “glamorous” options. Consider the California Community College to transfer route, which could save you some money {http://college.usatoday.com/2014/05/23/from-community-college-to-the-uc-system-california-students-reflect/}. You should also look into these schools - http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/.

Good luck!

Disclaimer- I am a high school senior as well, so I’m not an expert by any means.

13

Yes, Biology. I just mentioned pre-med to give you an idea of the route I plan on taking.

14

So I just spent the last couple of hours on a long over-due read through of financial aid and the FAFSA, and I keep coming back to the same question. If cost of attendance is so high and financial aid so minimal, how do people attend college in the first place? It seems that you either need to have parents willing to pay sums of nearly $20k per year at minimum or achieve a merit scholarship, but that simply can’t be the majority of students.

15

Since you are a California student, you may be able to apply for CalGrants. That’s how many low income residents of California have part of their college fees paid:
http://www.csac.ca.gov/doc.asp?id=906
Get all of your documentation in before March 2nd.

The FAFSA (Free application for Federal Student Aid) is an application that gets sent to the schools. It is not a financial agency nor money. It gives information to the schools.

16

Forget uwash. They won’t give an oos student the aid needed…and you’d never get into their med school either as a calif resident.

Apply to all the lower UCs, especially UCR, UCM, and UCSC.

Once you have your test scores, we can give more info.

What is your GPA

What is the EFC of your college siblings?

Who/what is paying for your siblings’ college costs?

17

Financial aid isn’t necessarily so minimal. About 60 colleges claim to cover 100% of demonstrated financial need (https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2017-09-21/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need). At Colby College for example, about 40% of freshmen entering in 2015-16 received need-based aid; their average need-based grant was over $43K. Almost all of these ~60 colleges are selective private schools and each of them decides what “demonstrated financial need” means. The best way to estimate how much you might get is to run their online net price calculators.

Many good students who don’t qualify for enough need-based aid do pursue merit scholarships.
Check out these pages to identify possibilities:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/
(For some of them, time is of the essence to meet merit scholarship application deadlines.)

If you don’t qualify for enough need-based or merit aid, you can try to minimize costs by commuting to a local community college or directional state university. Some families do take large private loans (but your parents would have to qualify and be willing to sign). I’d consider private loans a last resort, at best, especially if you’re serious about med school.

18

4.0 HS, 3.5 CC… if I’m looking at this right the tuition cost at something like UCSD and UCSC is very similar, is the reason for applying to UCSC as they will be more willing to financial aid or more likely to accept me?

And yes I am serious about medical school, and so I’m really fine attending any UC but schools that have their own medical school open up the chance for more EC’s, which raises chances of medical school qualifications. Let me know if I’m wrong. But of course if I can’t pay for any of it no point.

19

I see that your ultimate goal is medical school. If so note that GPA and MCAT scores are king when it comes to med school admissions. So pick a school where you can be at the top of your class academically.

Going to a UC where you’re competing with thousands of other pre-meds won’t necessarily be a good thing. You can still get some decent ECs at a college that doesn’t have its own med school.

Also note that your CC grades will be used to compute your AMCAS GPA. So do everything you can to get higher grades. A 3.5 GPA simply won’t cut it for applying to med schools.

You might consider applying to some small liberal arts colleges where you could get substantial amount of aid.

20

Yeah, I understand I messed up by getting the B’s, and by not taking as many EC’s as I should have. This semester I’ll net my three A’s and then next another three which should bring it up to ~3.8. So, I guess now that I know no OOS options are really worth it, I’m looking at the UC system. Like I said, UCSC a “less prestigious” school costs the same as UCSD or UCLA. I’m wondering what the benefit is. I’ll fill out FAFSA today and talk to a guidance counselor.

I’m wondering how SAT will really even matter. I mean, if I can’t pay for it I can’t pay for it.