I guess the position of @Capecodder2014 is exactly what I was pointing out to begin with. #57
Sorry couldn’t disagree more @capecodder2014. Going to Orange County or San Joaquin is not the same as going to Iowa or Greenwich. I grew up until 17 in Greenwich and then moved to cali. Political leanings do not constitute culture. California most assuredly does NOT have it all.
Thank you! @Jliu32472
I almost gave up.
I guess my original point was to encourage those experiencing rising costs and rejections instate to look “outside the box”
Somehow that offends some people.
Oh, California…
As has been pointed out to you, most California students do not have the academic credentials to get into good-financial-aid private schools like Duke and Vanderbilt, or earn large merit scholarships at other schools that they may consider more desirable than UCs or CSUs that they can get into, and that the “upper middle class white kids” that you claim to be speaking about in #45 are only a small slice of California high school graduates.
I’m in CA. My friends are sending their kids to all kinds of places:
One kid went to Ohio State, which was cheaper with merit money than UC. Except that it’s going to take him five years to finish, so maybe about the same cost.
One kid went to U Kansas, which was much cheaper than staying in state. Only down side is that there aren’t a lot of visits home because of distance and cost of flights, but still working out fine.
Another kid (grew up in California, moved to the midwest during high school) accepted to UCLA but loves Tulane (family has no cost constraints). Lots of love for Tulane in general from here.
Another kid from a very well-off family that could afford to send the kid anywhere is going to a nice quiet CSU.
Going out of state to a school that offers generous financial aid can save some families money. Full pay families are going to save money sending their kid to a UC or CSU instead of a private, OOS or not.
Excellent idea! It really is helpful for folks to hear this message.
Well, when accompanied by comments about the problems with UCs and CSUs, the provincial attitude of Californians, etc etc etc, people might get a wee bit defensive.
Well, I assumed the tongue-in-cheek nature of my post at #57 would be obvious…I was wrong. Whatever the intent of the original post, the California bashing exhibited by the claim that it’s impossible to graduate in CA in 4 yrs severely undermined the credibility of the post…for me.
My anecdote of kids going out of state is that multiple friends of my oldest left CA. for other parts and are now back home and going to Sac State. None of them lasted the year, so it isn’t nirvana for everyone. I can paint with a broad brush too.
I question the premise. Many of D’s classmates went out of state. Many who didn’t stayed in-state for good reasons: like getting into Stanford or being sure they would make the team in their sport at Berkeley.
dragonmom, we would be full pay everywhere and my kid picked UC Berkeley over a top LAC although we were able and willing to pay. Now she is finishing grad school, and at some point when she is ready, we will use the $120,000 plus that we would have spent on private school to help her buy a house in our very expensive area of California. That’s what I call a win/win situation. We feel so fortunate to have the the UC’s as an option. And yes, she graduated in four years without any problem at all.
I will add, our daughter was accepted to Cal Poly slo and it is by far our least expensive option. She was also accepted to several private schools in the Northeast, some with enough merit to be doable, some not. Those with great merit offers for her stats are still considerably more expensive than Cal Poly as well as lower rated, those higher rated didn’t give enough money. Not sure what she’ll do yet, but honestly the smart move is Cal Poly. Our son had lower stats than his sister, the California schools he could get into with the programs he wanted were largely commuter schools and he wasn’t impressed. WUE schools ended up being just the ticket for him. Could they each have founded highly rated schools in the midwest or south for less? I have no idea, but I don’t really think so with their stats. It was a moot point anyway, because neither of them was willing to look there.
The original premise was “most” not all and 19% average 4 yr grad rate at the state level is not so good.
Of course there are many, many exceptions.
We are on College Confidential, after all.
Once again, I guess I am surprised by the attitude that many here referenced that 29 states and their citizens are backward, racist, xenophobic and therefore just not worthy of consideration. And this is not the only place I hear it.
I am a native CA and went to college here.
More opportunities, though, for the CA kids who want to venture out and bring geographic diversity to those places.
That’s all. :-h
With the current political climate though, can you blame kids for thinking “that 29 states and their citizens are backward, racist, xenophobic and therefore just not worthy of consideration”? Especially minority kids? They’re not getting these perceptions from thin air. We are living in a time where there’s been a cultural shift in this country and people are afraid. I’m not saying it’s totally rational, but their fears can’t be discounted either. Apart from fears of actual discrimination, hatred, and violence, I do think many California kids doubt they can find their “tribe” in the midwest and south, and so they don’t look at schools there.
I really wanted to sign off on this thread, but I can’t resist pointing out that lately most of the intolerance and violence is coming from the liberals and their campus cohorts.
And the role of the left leaning media in fueling these “fears” should be pointed out by teachers and parents who are guiding these young people into critically thinking adults-hopefully.
There.
I’m done.
I suspect that last post is what @dragonmom3 really wanted to say all along.
@dragonmom3 said “I am surprised by the attitude that many here referenced that 29 states and their citizens are backward, racist, xenophobic and therefore just not worthy of consideration.” Don’t miss the point that a few of us who alluded to that were saying our kids thought that. We can’t help what our kids think. Some of their egocentric notions need education, maturity, and experience to be modified. Have you seen the thread about impressions after visits? Kids are funny.
Please don’t confuse me with @dragonmom3 Really. Seriously.
Sorry. Fixed.
dragonmom mea colpa. Sorry about that.
@dragonmom at least you weren’t confused with @MotherOfDragons ! 
I applied mostly public because my family is on paper well off enough to not get financial aid, but in actuality, are too poor to afford a private. I’m also in the CA top 9% which guarantees me a spot at a UC school. Then, you add on that UC schools are some of the best; UCLA, UCSD, and Cal are all considered to be public Ivy’s. Then you factor in that their application is really dynamic. When you add on top that there’s a little known trick (take all your AP classes as a sophomore and junior like AP Lit and APGOPO) to getting into UCs that most others don’t know, and if you know it, you have a major advantage, then it’s pretty easy to see why I chose to apply mostly UC.
SAT - 1920 (old) 1360 (new) – UC Weighted GPA - 4.48 – Standard GPA 4.2 – Volunteer/Extra-Curricular hours a week - 25+
Accepted: UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, UCR (Invited to do Honors), Cal Poly SLO, SDSU Honors, Simmons Honors, USF
Waitlisted: Case Western Reserve
Waiting: Stanford, Cal
It may be more of a concern to “those kids” (the ones who see themselves as members of visible minority groups that were campaigned against by politicians who won those states), compared to the “upper middle class white kids” you said that you were speaking about in [reply #45](California kids mostly only consider states, UC's and some out of state publics (AZ, OR, WA) - #46 by dragonmom3 - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums).
While the actual situation is certainly more nuanced than broad brush strokes and opinions would make it (particularly due to local differences, and that college student populations tend to be more accepting), you may be underestimating the concern of students who, unlike “upper middle class white kids”, consider the possibility of encountering both more frequent petty racism as well as perceived to be hostile attitudes and policies toward their race/ethnicity from both the national government and state governments of many of those states. I do not agree with the broad brush on this matter, but I understand that such concerns exist. You should not be surprised that such attitudes exist, even if you do not agree with them.
Indeed, race/ethnicity was probably already a common unstated factor in college choices, even before racism became a significantly greater factor in politics recently. How many non-black high stat merit scholarship seeking students are willing to go to schools like Howard, Tuskegee, Florida A&M, North Carolina Central, or Prairie View A&M, for example?