<p>I’m a senior from Utah, I’ve recently given the thought to going to school in California (I really want UT Austin though).</p>
<p>I have no idea where to start or what part of the state to live in.</p>
<p>My gpa is a 3.65, I’m in the top 24th percentile of my school (currently 100 out of 412) and I’m taking some college classes right now.</p>
<p>I’m taking algebra 2
Computer technology
(concurrent)
Forensics 2
Spanish 2
Political science (concurrent)
Ap gov
English 12
Physics</p>
<p>I want to major in philosophy or political science and go to law school.</p>
<p>I’m afraid it might boil down to finances.but consider Santa Clara, Occidental.</p>
<p>To make it easier to answer my ideal “sticker price” is 33,000 or lower</p>
<p>$33, 000, all in? Room and board too. That’s going to be tough. Maybe a CSU? I’m notsposture which ones have those majors, but there’s a current Cal Poly Pomona thread that lists them, and a 2013 ranking. Maybe some Christian schools in that price range.</p>
<p>No. 33,000 tuition sorry wasn’t clear on that</p>
<p>1) Don’t rule any school out based upon sticker price alone. You can do that after you’ve been accepted/denied and have a financial aid package to look at.</p>
<p>2) If you want to go to law school, a good thing to do is look at where top law schools get most of their students. Look at Yale, Stanford, Harvard, NYU, etc. and see which schools send the most students to them. The answers may surprise you.</p>
<p>3) Your class rank hurts and you’ll have to find other ways to compensate for it.</p>
<p>4) If you want to go to law school, you might want to look at schools that have top debate teams, in which case UT Austin is a good choice. Other choices would be Cal and USC. Point Loma in San Diego also has a very good debate team and gives scholarships. Cal doesn’t but USC does as well. The Claremont Colleges would also be a good choice to explore.</p>
<p>5) Really need your SAT score to see where you fit in. 3.65 is a good GPA but depends on whether or not that’s weighted.</p>
<p>6) Might also want to look at majors in political economy and philosophy, politics, and economics (“PPE”) or ethics, politics, and economics. The latter two are somewhat rare (Claremont and Yale offer it) but were highly recommended by friends of mine who went to law school. It’s been a popular post-grad choice for Rhodes Scholars at Oxford who’d planned on going to law school and pursuing careers in politics.</p>
<p>I would agree about not ruling out based on sticker price, but it seems reasonable to consider cost and stats if you really want to end up with a California school or two among your choices . Most of the schools are going to be $55K all in, but quite a bit of that is room and board. 33k for tuition would cover ANY school. Ooops; Pitzer’s tuition is $38.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.pitzer.edu/about/quickfacts.asp[/url]”>http://www.pitzer.edu/about/quickfacts.asp</a></p>
<p>You haven’t mentioned SAT’s, but better than average, but not phenomanal stats should mean looking at Santa Clara, Occidental, Loyola Marymount, Pitzer ( a Claremont) and UC’s like Davis and Santa Barbara. A great UC GPA, and all the UC A-G requirments might mean Cal, UCLA and UCSD too, but those schools are a reach even in state, without a pretty spectatcular (4.1 and up) GPA.</p>
<p>For UCLA, anything below a 4.) has a less than 5% admit rate. Cal doesn’t publish their info like that, but I think it is similar.
<a href=“http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_fr/Frosh_Prof12.htm[/url]”>http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_fr/Frosh_Prof12.htm</a></p>
<p>Of course, there is more to it than GPA, but GPA seems more important than spectacular SAT’s at UC’s.</p>
<p>I think of getting into the Claremont Pomona, as hard as getting into Stanford and Yale, but I don’t know anyone who has tried, so take that for what it is worh. Oh wait; I know someone who tried to get into Stanford. She just graduated from Santa Clara. I think Clarmemont McKenna is great for political stuff; hard to know the real story there, but certainly in the extremely competitive catagory; and Harvey Mudd, also a Claremont, engineering admits have average Math SAT’s around 750- 800. </p>
<p>But of course, there is more to it than stats.</p>
<p>Too late to edit the above, but it looks like tuitiona at California privates are in the $38K range this year, but probably not at Point Loma.</p>
<p>$33,000 all-in list price would cover the CSUs at out-of-state price. $33,000 tuition-only would cover more schools, but then the all-in price could be over $50,000.</p>
<p>Run the net price calculators on each school’s web site to check what kind of need-based financial aid each school is likely to give. If not sufficient, look for merit scholarships at the schools in question and realize that your reach/match/safety assessment would be for the merit scholarships, not admission.</p>
<p>If you intend to go to expensive law school, consider keeping costs as low as possible, so that you have more money for law school. Remember that GPA and LSAT score are of huge importance in getting into a top law school (and lawyer employment is strongly law-school-prestige-conscious).</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I’m still 100, it might have gone up since then. </p>
<p>I’m taking the act, I’m disabled and need more test time. Unfortunately, Utah is an act state and my school for some reason wasn’t qualified to request help for me. I’ve been studying a lot though.</p>
<p>Right now, I have all a’s</p>
<p>Will you take it once? Have you checked out the A-G requirements for the publics?</p>
<p>Well UT Austin needs it by December 31st, so that would be it for them, if I don’t like the score and still have time for the other colleges I’m applying to, I’ll retake it.</p>
<p>I believe my gpa is weighted</p>
<p>No I’m not, but I’ll check these out, thanks!!!</p>
<p>One other thing you might want to keep in the back of your head while applying to schools, is that the snobbier the school, not only the less likely will you be accepted, but the less likely would you get a decent financial aid package if you are accepted.</p>
<p>I second the recommendation for Santa Clara University. I would also like to throw out a recommendation for the University of the Pacific. As long as you don’t mind living in Stockton for a few years, the upside is that UOP has a gorgeous campus with a small, personable feel to it. It also has small class sizes – something that you wouldn’t get at a UC. Just bring a car, and make sure it doesn’t have any features that might make it a target for theft.</p>