@Reckless - I interpreted differently. I saw:
“P.S. Non-UCs are out of the question for me, since my parents would like me to focus on UCs mainly, unless I am able to convince them that, for example, a specific CalState will be a better fit”
- which led me to think that only schools in CA were in play. There is a sentence I removed:
“(excluding private schools; I have a chance of going to a private if I somehow manage to lower the tuition cost)” But I interpreted that as privates in CA - not out of state. I could easily be incorrect - @currin - are you trying to stay in CA?
Meaning ABSOLUTELY NO DISRESPECT to @Reckless - who gave a very nice list of helpful information, one of my main pet peeves of the CC world (more prevalent on things like Parent’s Forum than here) is when someone will say "I’m looking for schools in the Northeast " and posters will answer back with things like “you should check out Tulane”.
But only the OP knows what the parameters are - so it seems like we would need more info to be helpful