Northwestern vs. Occidental vs. UBC vs. UT Austin CAP - $$$ is the problem :/ HELP.

College Search & Lists
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<p>I was accepted into nine schools, but I’m only really considering four: Northwestern, Occidental College in LA, University of British Columbia, and doing the CAP program at the University of Texas (my in-state public school). My major is international studies/international relations. The problem is that Occidental/Northwestern offered my family enough to where we would have to pay our FAFSA EFC, which is around $27k/yr, which is still an exorbitant amount for us; we can pay around $17-19k/yr. My dad is the only one who works in our family, and he makes around ~$108k/yr. There are five kids in my family (including me) and I have a sister who is currently a sophomore in high school, so she’ll be in the college class of 2017, high school class of 2013. My mom is also in nursing school right now and she’ll hopefully graduate this summer.</p>

<p>If I were to go to Northwestern/Oxy, I’d have to take out roughly $10k in loans/year. My dad is really adamant about me NOT taking any loans apart from the $5k little federal ones, because he knows that for my field of study I absolutely have to go to grad school/law school and I’ll more than likely have to take out loans then. We appealed both Oxy and Northwestern but I really doubt we’ll get much at all.</p>

<p>Occidental has this partnership with Columbia Law School that if you have a competitive GPA and a high LSAT score, you can get into Columbia Law after junior year and graduate with a BA/BS and JD within 6 years, so I could take loans and be in debt but at least I would have a postgraduate degree that would HOPEFULLY get me a good job in order to pay it off.</p>

<p>Texas has this rule that if you’re in the top 8%, you get automatic admission to UT Austin, but unfortunately I’m not, so I was CAPped (meaning I go to another University of Texas campus for freshman year then transfer to Austin), but I really don’t want to have to move schools :confused: UT is still something like $22k/year though but UT is one of the best publics in the country.</p>

<p>Northwestern is my absolute dream school and I would love to go, but I can’t really justify putting my family through that kind of financial hardship.</p>

<p>UBC is BY FAR the cheapest option for my family, $18k/yr since I am a Canadian citizen (permanent resident of the US though). My parents are really against me going all the way to Vancouver because they don’t think I’ll be able to get into a respected US grad school if I have a Canadian degree.</p>

<p>I’M SORRY FOR THE NOVEL, but I really really need some advice. Thank you so much!</p>

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<p>In the states there are IMO three respected Canadian schools. Toronto, McGill and UBC. I really do NOT see a problem going to a good US grad school with a degree from UBC. I am not sure where that is coming from.</p>

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<p>PS: Oxy does not really belong in the conversation. Northwestern and Texas yes, Oxy is not on that level.</p>

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<p>My vote is for UBC. </p>

<p>Also,</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-british-columbia/910138-admissions-us-grad-schools-after-ubc-graduation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-british-columbia/910138-admissions-us-grad-schools-after-ubc-graduation.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>^I know tons of people getting into top grad schools from all over the world, let alone a top Canadian school like UBC.</p>

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<p>I forgot to to add that I agree with Sistokid; Oxy is not worth the money and the idea of gambling that money on getting into Columbia without any idea what your GPA or LSAT will be is not advised.</p>