I am a parent of a senior who is a B average student and 1150 SAT scores, who was accepted into some good private schools in the PNW (where we live) and a couple others in CA. It was a refreshing that these schools looked at her as a whole person and not just her numbers. She believes needs to get out of the PNW, so she is only looking at University of Redlands and SDSU, which are very different schools.
With every decision there are pros and cons, of course. I believe a smaller school environment may be a better fit for her, but I am concerned with the strings attached to her scholarship at U of R, ie. needing to maintain a B average (I know she expects to do this, but what if she has a bad semester which can be common for new college students) and having to possibly pay back Redlands if she decides to transfer. Are these common strings for scholarships at other schools?
For those who have attended or have kids that have attended SDSU, how hard is it really to finish in 4 years? I read one stat that only 34% of students do, but not exactly sure what the methodology was on that.
For those who have attended or have kids that have attended Redlands, how difficult is it? Since it’s not the highest rank school, and it has a 75% acceptance rate by some sites, my thought is maybe it’s not the hardest school to get through. Since my daughter is a B average student thus far, that could be a good place for her. I want her to be challenged but not surrounded by 4.0 students.
i wouldn’t worry about getting through SDSU in 4 years, I know several students who were able to graduate a semester early… in my experience, many people who stay at any CSU longer than 4 years are either working, taking a really tough major like CS and can’t pass 5 classes at once (or want to keep their GPA up for grad school), or have a really late major change.
Strings are attached to every scholarship, if she’s not comfortable with them, for whatever reason, she shouldn’t take the money. If one bad semester means she owes $50k or more back to the college - yikes! I wouldn’t touch that deal with a 10 foot pole.
My son is a current CS major at SDSU and will easily graduate in 4 years. He came in with a good amount of AP credit, so he was able to take a slightly reduced course load since CS is very project heavy in the upper division courses. I agree with @NCalRent, that any student can graduate in 4 years if they stay on track with the courses. Some do end up taking a class or two during summer session to make the 4 year graduation target.
Note that with any merit award, if a student does not maintain the required GPA to retain the merit-based scholarship, they may lose the money for future semesters/years. In other words, without the ‘good academic standing,’ the merit-based award may not be renewed. For Redlands, a 3.0 is required.
I have never seen an instance where a school requires an unsuccessful student
to pay back any portion of their scholarship.
The 4-year and 6-year graduation rates are standard stats that you can readily look up, e.g. at the US Dept. of Education’s “College Navigator” website. For SDSU, the current 4-year rate is 34%, while the 6-year rate is 73%. For Redlands, the 4-year rate is 65%, while the 6-year rate is 74%.
Low 4-year graduation rates are typical throughout the CSU system. For the system as a whole, the 4-year graduation rate was recently reported as 21%. At San Marcos (the other CSU in San Diego County), the 4-year graduation rate is only 14%. SDSU’s 34% rate is probably one of the highest in the CSU system. https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/07/1-in-5-csu-students-graduate-in-four-years/
Many CSU students are not traditional residential students; they are local commuters juggling school, work, and family, which can make it difficult to stay on track.
Redlands does have a much higher acceptance rate than SDSU (75% vs. 35%), but the difference in the enrolled student body is not that great, at least as measured by standardized test scores. For example, the 25%-75% SAT range for fall 2016 was 980-1190 at Redlands and 1000-1220 at SDSU. Most of the difference is in the Math SAT, which may reflect the fact that SDSU (but not Redlands) has large engineering and computer science programs.