Son accepted! 1550 SAT 4.5 weighted GPA; IB candidate; White male; no hooks; OOS - East Coast (public school)
Accepted: Brown, Northwestern, UVA (Echols) UCLA, Cal, UCSD
Waitlisted: Stanford, Harvard, Cornell, Penn
Rejected: Yale, Princeton, Columbia and UC Santa Barbara(?)
Congrats to all!
@musiciangoaler where did you see that they could rescind you for this? I certainly donât want to give you incorrect information, but I do know that my son is a current UCB freshman, decided not to take one of his AP Exams and it was not an issue at all. I believe itâs your choice as it only serves to benefit you should you obtain a high enough score.
@Nhatrang - For Financial Aid, it all comes down to how much money your parents make per year if theyâre claiming you on their taxes cuz parents are expected to contribute to their childrenâs college education⊠even if they wonât, like mine.
@Nhatrang Unfortunately I have the exact same tuition per year $65,514. Itâs really worrying me as if it wasnât for the tuition I wouldâve sealed my decision to go, but thinking about all the debt that puts my parents in, I donât know if I really can enter my dream college. Worst of all, they only offered me $5,500 in loans and $4000 in work-study!! My parents tell me to not consider the tuition, but I donât think I can completely disregard it. Any advice?? It really is my dream college, and my parents told me to not consider cost, but itâs still holding me back a bit.
@Nhatrang: Since your costs are showing $65K+/year, you must be OOS. California public universities offer little to no financial aid to OOS students since they are funded by California resident taxes. Also the UCâs will get good nĂ©ed based aid to California residents only. UCâs offer little in the form of merit aid also. It should not be a surprise if you ran the Net Price calculator before applying.
@Sushi121212: I personally think that no education is worth $260K/4 years. UCB is an excellent school but I am sure if you were able to get an acceptance at UCB that you have equally good offers from less expensive schools.
@musiciangoaler just write a email to Admissions and/or your Admissions Counselor about any discrepancies wrt AP tests. (Donât mention the reason that you told us, use some other reason. You donât want to raise any red flags). Chances are the nag on your portal will remain for a few months asking you to send in your score (they are due July 15) but you can ignore that. There shouldnât be any problems after that.
@Sushi121212 I think a way of looking at it is that just about any elite private school, if they donât offer any merit or financial aid, will cost even more, $72K+.
@cricketfan I think itâs doable but it would be pretty hard since Theater and Psychology are in different schools. Both have different requirements that you would have to satisfy, not as much overlap as a traditional double major where both majors are in the same school. The net result might be that you would have to spend maybe an extra year or so to do the double. Perhaps, maybe more maybe less.
@WilliamCollege when you take your AP tests in May, specify UC-Berkeley on any of your tests, and all of your scores, past and present, will be sent to UCB. You donât need to send it in separately, that would be nothing but a waste of money. UCB will receive the test scores in the second week of July, just before the July 15 deadline.
Just an advanced warning - it is remotely possible that silly things may occur that might delay your scores on one (or more) of your exams. Things like a missing student or proctor signature. If you go thru the AP exam threads last July youâll see dozens of these issues. Anyhow donât panic if it goes past July 15 and it still hasnât been received. Itâs ok. You probably do want to send a note to your Admissions Counselor stating that there is a delay because of ____. It might also be a good idea to find out in advance who the AP Coordinator is and their summer contact info.
@Sushi121212 @Nhatrang I think that you will need to sit down with your families and have a very frank conversation about this. I am an OOS parent and these are VERY big numbers. As @Gumbymom stated, Berkeley will give you a great education but 5-10 years after graduation will it have been worth it.
One thing to look at is becoming a UGSI, Calâs version of a TA. They get tuition remission but are very difficult positions to secure. There is the odd sophmore but most of the UGSIâs are juniors and seniors.
Some comments on tuition that will save some money: I donât recommend at all what I am about to say if most of your classes will be STEM classes, but do note that whether you take 13 units all the way up to 21 units a semester, the cost is the same. So rather than taking the traditional 4 classes a semester (most classes are 4 units), you could do 5. Over 2 years, thatâs one semester of savings, so you could graduate in 3.5 years.
If you have boatloads of AP and/or DE credit (and Iâm sure all of you do), that will help a lot with being able to graduate early also. However depending on the major, chances are some of your AP credits will be not so useful. As an example, my kid brought in 81 semester units worth of credits into Berkeley (41 community college, 40 AP) and he was technically a senior starting this semester, in his first year at the school. But because of all the requirements of his major, the earliest he could graduate is 2.5 years. Heâs double majoring and it will take 3 years, which is still big cost savings for me.
I think most kids would want to enjoy four years in college, but just was stating some ways to save money. Also, off campus housing will be cheaper than dorms so that will save some in the future as well.
@Sushi121212 I see from your other replies that you were accepted to UT. This school is on par with Berkeley (both have pluses and minuses, of course) and would be much more cost efficient if you are in state there. You can always look broader for grad school.
The more I think about it, the more I lean towards in-state. It also depends on how much my parents have save for my college so far. Iâm going to talk it over with my parents (they really want me to go to Berkeley) and we can talk out the tuition plan for each school and decide from there, but I think tuition comes first. Any advice will be helpful!!
Everyone talking about Dream Schools but this is only for your Bachelorâs degree. Donât spend a bunch of money for a Bachelorâs.
It doesnât matter where you do your Undergrad from. What matters to employerâs is where you get your Masterâs from.
Save money on your undergrad, then go to a Dream school for your Masterâs.
If Out-of-State people say their emails told them their tuition is $65,000, then can someone In-State tell us what their email tuition says?
Not what you âhearâ it is, but what your actual email says. In-State only
For in-state, the tuition is $36,522 for living in on campus dorms.
Why does UC Berkeleyâs website say tuition is $14,000 if theyâre sending out $36,000 emails?
Tuition is around 14 for instate, dorm is around 18, and there are other fees.
@NonTradtional: For OOS students, there is an additional $28992 tuition cost which brings the total closer to $65K/year for tuition, room/board, Health insurance, books etcâŠ
@NonTradtional Tuition for in-state is $14,184 and housing & food is $19,134. The remainder of the costs are for books, supplies, transportation, Personal expenses, and loan fees. Total: $36,522