Hello, senior in high school right here!
So, I’m having quite the dilemma in deciding on colleges. I’ve always been set on just attending an out of state college, but with college acceptances out and about now, and some more research, I’ve come down to three options. I’m planning on entering in as a biochemistry major (or perhaps some other STEM major, then I’ll just transfer or take the necessary courses) and entering grad school, pre-med, blahblah basically the path towards becoming a surgeon. HOWEVER, I have thought about dabbling in environmental science and law as well, so those open up more room for debate and uncertainty haha, but in general I’m set on the current step towards surgery.
- Accepted: CSLB, CSF, SDSU, CSPP, UCI, UCD, UCLA, UC Berkeley
- Waitlisted: UPenn, Brown
- Rejected: (sad life) Harvard, Columbia, Johns' Hopkins
In all honestly I’m just not sure as to what I should do. Accepting the waitlists seem like a risky task, and I feel like I’m just prolonging the inevitable rejections. I’m planning on appealing and such, but those typically don’t make that much of a difference. SIRs are due on May 1st and it seems like a load of time but that’s not taking into consideration how quickly housing runs out and such. My primary options now are UCLA and Berkeley. I live in OC so it’d be an hour drive from UCLA, and 6 hours from Berkeley. I’d have to essentially dorm at both of them, which is great for the experience, but terrible for me financially since my parents aren’t contributing but I put myself down as ‘dependent’ on FAFSA (which is really too late to change at this point).
When I only take into consideration tuition and dorming/housing, I’d have to pay roughly 3K for UCLA, and 6K for Berkeley. At one point I was extremely set on UCLA, but after some time I realized that I really wanted to move away from home - even if it’s not out of state. I really don’t want to give up my dream of always wanting to explore a place away from home, and Berkeley seems like the perfect place. Not only this, they have a great environmental program in case my mentality and focus ever change. No one I know of or am friendly with is going to Berkeley, which is a shame, and the majority of my friends are choosing LA over it. Please help.