Please look over my college list. High School Class of 2027 [CA resident, 2.8 GPA, 1110 SAT, little/no parent contribution]

Yes, that would be nice

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The highest aid will generally be from: instate publics, non competitive out of state publics (these would probably mostly be in areas/states that you don’t want to be in) and well endowed privates, which unfortunately your stats are low for.

Am I reading correctly that the bulk of your courses are hons/AP/DE? I’m a little surprised that the wgpa is not higher than it is vs the unweighted if this is the case, but I guess that may depend on how the school weights it. Do you have the UC/CSU calculated gpa/wgpa? (Apologies if I missed this somewhere)

That is always possible. You can pick an OOS private. Like Trinity or Connecticut College. Have them fill out the NPC - I linked an easier meets need school below - easier but not easy.

See if the # given works. But even if it does, statistically it’s a very high reach. And even if it wasn’t, if you need too much, it’s possible they’d turn you down for that reason $, not academics).

But aid is based on how a school interprets your finances, not how you do.

College is a consumable in many ways, like eating out or buying a car, so it is an expense, but sometimes with assistance.

https://conncoll.clearcostcalculator.com/student/default/netpricecalculator/survey

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I only listed the honors/AP/DE courses, I have a good amount of regular courses but I didn’t get good grades sophomore and junior year.

I don’t actually

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The public universities in your list first and foremost have an obligation to provide aid to their instate residents (whose parents pay taxes to support these colleges. Just like your family does in CA). It is highly unlikely any of them will provide you with significant institutional aid (money from the college or state) to support you as an OOS college student. Plus, add in travel costs, and health insurance and you have a big bill.

You could get significant aid at the most generous colleges…but both your GPA and SAT score would likely be barriers to acceptance at these colleges.

Please look at your end goal…which is to get a college degree. As noted, your annual budget to pay for college must be considered.

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I’ll check it out. Thanks

You can calculate it here - works for CSUs too. They look at 10th-11th only (other than cal poly slo but your stats unfortunately are not competitive there). Non impacted CSUs/courses will admit an instate student with a 2.5 GPA. Impacted campuses or courses would need higher GPAs, note that some campuses (like cal poly Pomona) are not impacted overall but have some courses that are impacted.

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But note, room and board, even at a Bakersfield, as an example, are near $16k - so if you live near a non impacted campus, it may be your best bet.

But talk to mom and dad about college costs - some schools are $100k a year. A CC may be free or low cost as many be other in state publics. But out of state, the NC promise schools may be the lowest at mid 20s. And other regionals like C Michigan $30k or so.

You also have WUE - schools like E New Mexico, Dickinson State, Minot State, Weber State and Utah Tech will be mid 20s assuming admissibility but they don’t remotely meet the kind of school you’d like.

A UN Reno or Portland State meet the city part but aren’t on the coast you’d like. They’d be $30-$35k ish.

Can they afford that x 4 plus transport.

So that’s what you need to find out - what can they truly cost.

Life is long.

You can move away later. It sounds like you may not love hs. But college won’t necessarily be a repeat socially - even locally.

Good luck

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Just to add, looking back at your potential majors, psychology is impacted at I think all CSU campuses (or at least at most of them),but the others generally are not at those campuses that are not impacted overall. You can see the colleges and majors that are impacted here:

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Thank you soo much :heart:

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And here is the NPC page for CSUs (you will have to go into it and then go campus by campus). This should help you see which ones may be affordable. (With a caution that it may not be exact and that it would likely change slightly for next year.)

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So this is more or less my UC/CSU GPA’s(from a calculator so may be a little inaccurate)

UC Capped Weighted: 2.655

UC Full Weighted: 2.825

UC Unweighted: 2.379

CSU: 2.722

CSU Poly SLO: 2.870 (w 9th grade)

It sounds as if you don’t feel that it is possible to continue living at home, but your current grades and scores are not going to lead to admission at a school that will give you enough financial or merit aid to attend. Even if you were able to get a very high score on a retake, that’s not going to change things enough to get you an admit with the massive aid that you need.

You need to decide between college while living at home (community college to CSU route), or getting a job, moving out (probably into a shared house/apt with other young adults), and deferring further education. I don’t know where in CA you live, but it’s very, very hard, financially, in most areas of CA, for a young adult to support themselves independently, even in a group living situation.

If it’s at all possible for you, I’d be looking at community college certifications that would enable you to earn a living as quickly as possible. This is usually going to be in the trades or in ancillary health care. If you can manage to live at home long enough to get certified in one of these areas, then you’d be able to secure a decent-paying job and move out, in 2-3 years.

You are asking for a way out by going away to college, with massive aid, but it’s extremely unlikely, even if you were to achieve a very high standardized test score. Best to either plan for college while living at home, or figure out other ways of moving out and supporting yourself. But I don’t think that it’s at all realistic to think that you’re going to be able to find a college that will give you the massive aid package that you need to be able to move away to attend college.

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Just a quick warning: Getting a C in pre-calculus suggests that calculus is likely to be very difficult. Calculus is something that depends a LOT on its prerequisites. On the other hand, I am not sure whether or not calculus is needed for any of your majors (psychology is one I wonder about) so you might be able to skip it.

Whatever caused this drop-off in grades, you would be better off to not start college at all until you have found a way to fix it.

If needed you probably would be better off to wait until you are ready to put a strong effort in before you start college or university. Life is not a race. As one example, if you start off at community college intending to transfer to a university, when you apply to transfer they will look at all of the courses that you have taken when you were in college.

I do know someone who did no better than about a 2.8 in high school, went to university (starting at a low ranked university, and eventually transferring to a higher ranked public school), and who did VERY well in university. For some students this is possible. It did however take a huge effort on his part.

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I guess this is one of those situations where “some doors are closed so you can open the right one” type. If I don’t go to college, my parents will likely kick me out. They say community college is fine.

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I understand FULLY what you are saying and I know people make things work somehow, even if it takes much longer. I guess I just don’t see a way other than college, I never saw it coming like this and now I don’t know what to do.

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So they’re supportive of the CC route.

But the way you present this, do you want to go to college? Maybe you don’t.

Maybe you can make a compromise with them - take a few classes and work. You can also get a job at Starbucks - they cover tuition at Arizona State online. Target and others have programs like this too.

And it’s not going to be LGBTQ friendly, but there’s always the military as a way to raise funds for later college - and to give you skills that are marketable in the real world.

Starbucks College Achievement Plan | ASU Starbucks

Target | Education Benefits

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Hugs. You can figure this out. America is the land of second chances (and third and fourth and fifth) and the country is filled with people who did not get a Bachelor’s at age 22.

Does your HS have a social worker-- or maybe it will be someone at the district level? If so, ask your guidance counselor how to set up an appointment with that person. This will be someone well versed in all the in’s and out’s of “what next”. There are kids in your school system who are orphans; kids with Downs Syndrome; kids who have been emancipated because their parent or parents are abusive, etc. I’m not in any way comparing your situation to theirs- just pointing out that there are lots of reasons why “we are handing you $400K when you graduate HS so you can go across the country for college” is not typical for many HS kids. And that’s why the social workers are there- to help you (with the help of your guidance counselor) come up with a path, whatever that might be.

Independently, you can do some research on employers in your area that offer tuition benefits. That’s one way you can live at home, work, and pay for college one or two courses at a time. That is very popular where I live (urban Northeast) and because we have good public transportation, and because the community colleges and most of the state college campuses provide a discounted or free transit card, for some campuses, you don’t need the expense of a car, insurance, parking, etc. That may not be possible where you live- but something else to explore with a counselor.

Your guidance counselor likely has a good feel for which community colleges have a robust transfer program to a four year campus. That’s important because you don’t want to be taking the “wrong” courses if the goal is a BA. And if you need your Pell (assuming you are Pell eligible, you need your parent’s help to run the numbers) you don’t want to spend it on classes that don’t “count”.

You can do this!

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For 6 of the UC campuses, they offer TAG (transfer admission guarantee) which means if you meet the GPA and course requirements specified for each major and campus, then you are guaranteed admission to that campus. You can only TAG to 1 participating UC Campus and not all majors are eligible for TAG.

The participating campuses are UC Merced, Riverside, Santa Cruz, Irvine, Santa Barbara and Davis. I have linked the TAG matrix information for 2027 just note that UC Irvine is excluding more majors for Fall 2028 which I will list below. Every year TAG majors and GPA/course requirements are re-evaluated so the TAG information can change.

You are not required to apply for TAG but it does give you a likely/safety school for your list. You can always apply as a Regular transfer to any of the UC Campuses.

These are the major exclusions for UC Irvine TAG starting Fall 2028:
For fall 2028 admission:

Charlie Dunlop School of Biological Sciences: Biological Sciences, Biology/Education, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Claire Trevor School of the Arts: Art; Dance; Music, B.Mus

Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences: All majors

Henry Samueli School of Engineering: Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering

Paul Merage School of Business: Business Administration

Sue And Bill Gross School of Nursing: Nursing Science

School of Social Ecology: Psychology, B.A.

School of Social Sciences: Business Economics, Cognitive Sciences, Economics, Psychology, B.S., Quantitative Economics

For UCLA, they also offer TAP which gives your priority for transfer. UCLA Transfer Alliance Program | UCLA Undergraduate Admission

As a California CC transfer, you have priority for transfer to all the UC’s over other transfers such as UC to UC, CSU to UC, Private University to UC etc….

The CSU system has a similar guarantee which is the ADT which allows you to earn an Associates degree with a guaranteed admission to a CSU campus but unfortunately not a specific campus. If not admitted to your choice campus, then you will offered a spot in the campuses with open slots. I have linked more information about the ADT: https://www.calstate.edu/apply/transfer/pages/ccc-associate-degree-for-transfer.aspx

In general, most of the UC and CSU campuses require Junior level standing for transfer meaning 60 semester/90 quarter units. If you are considering a CCC to UC or CSU transfer, it is best to contact your local community college advisor and using the assist.org website for that CC, you can map out your course requirements needed for transfer. If you have any more questions, you can always message me.

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For CSU 4-year degree programs, which do you recommend in my case would be the best fit or financially sustainable?