@thumper1 : TAP for UCLA is not available at all community colleges but OP states their CC participates.
Check the list: UCLA Transfer Alliance Program | UCLA Undergraduate Admission
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I disagree with this approach. I think you should be researching schools that meet need, regardless of if they are need blind or aware.
If you do well junior year, you have a solid chance at acceptance. However, most of these schools are privates and will most likely accept fewer DE/AP credits. But if you’re fully funded, how much does that matter to you? That’s more time for undergrad research and exploration and building relationships with faculty that will help with your apps to PhD.
Just food for thought.
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Can’t delete posts on mobile so have this instead
Yee, at the end of the day I’m going to just go for whatever uni is cheapest once acceptances come in.
Are you saying your grandfather will not pay because tuition is too high or because he’s offended you think he can’t afford it, or some other reason I’m not able to draw from what you said?
You are getting a lot of pushback. People here have a deep understanding of how college apps work. I have learned so much being here. They are telling you why your current priorities are misaligned with getting into the best college for you. They have seen a lot of mistakes and are telling you how to avoid them. You are early in this process and you are clearly very smart. You have the makings of a success story here. Please spend some time reading different topics to get an idea of how college apps and financial aid/scholarships work. It is incredibly complex. It is unfair that you may not be recognized and rewarded for your brilliance and the way you are doing things right now, but the people here are telling you how to get that recognition and reward using what they know colleges are looking for.
Gaming the system in any way is unlikely to work. Do you really think you’ve figured out a loophole no one else has figured out? Approaching college apps looking for hacks (skip 2 years because you have DE, mom not working on purpose) is a bad idea. Circumstances change. What colleges say today and what they do tomorrow changes.
Also I know you are a teen and online communication is informal. You may be a strong writer for homework. I just want to say please make sure you are honing your writing skills because what we’re seeing here does not demonstrate your potential.
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It’s not a matter of tuition since if it was my gramps wouldn’t have also refused to pay for some of the CSUs that I’ve told him about and even then a lot of unis only use parental income so when I told him that Harvard is free for me since my ma doesn’t make 85k per year he refused to pay anything related to Harvard and basically just yelled at me to say that I should not even think about money when applying for university.
So either he’s to prideful or he wants me to apply to institutions that I like without worrying about money (I did admit that I am not actually that big of a fan for most of HYPSM lol).
A true story.
A friend of mine is a skilled violin teacher. She has an excellent reputation and has taught some kids who have gone on to great success in the music world. Every year she has parents who want her to teach their child, so they come in for her to meet and assess the kid. Every year she turns students away.
Why? The kid is now 8 years old. The parent insists the kid is ready for “intermediate” studies, because the kid started with Suzuki at age 3. My friend explains that the kid has zero technique. Holds a bow the wrong way. Neck is in the wrong position. Can’t really read music- doesn’t understand the basics of composition. Fingers are all over the place. So while the parent may think the kid is a musical prodigy because he or she can grind out a piece of music, the kid isn’t ready for “intermediate” anything, because learning to play the violin at any level of proficiency is MORE than grinding out a piece of music. It requires technique (holding the bow, arm, neck, fingers correctly) AND a base of knowledge (reading music proficiently, understanding the core elements of a composition, what tempo means and what a composer was trying to achieve) etc.
The parents leave-- angry-- and promising to find a teacher who is 'better able to recognize my child’s gifts".
You understand where I’m going, right? Once in a generation, a musical prodigy emerges who doesn’t hold the bow correctly, has such a refined ear that he or she doesn’t need to learn composition in the conventional manner.
For everyone else- start at the beginning and build from there.
You are already planning on a PhD in math- without having completed the traditional and conventional HS math sequence. You have already figured out how to circumvent financial aid, university credit policies, etc. let alone figured out how you are going to prove that you and your mom survive on 15K per year in an expensive part of the country, show that you have health insurance, etc.
You are at a HS with IB. What does your college counselor say about your plan to skip two years of college AND end up with a BS in math?
Start there.
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I cannot speak for your grandfather but it may be difficult for you to figure him out because he’s also frustrated with your process, just like the people who earlier tried to explain things to you. I’m sure it seems like we’re not listening, but we are. You are having trouble hearing others who really do know more than you and are trying to help.
Your grandfather knows the value of money - he’s the one with some at his disposal. He probably has a lot to teach you if you ask him how he sees this whole process. Even if he has no specific knowledge, he will know when something doesn’t make sense.
Seriously, slow down. You have a lot of time to learn the process but colleges like to see you taking the hardest courses offered at your high school. They want you making the best of what’s in front of you. That makes sense, right? Because if they accept you, they want you to make the best of what they offer you instead of you looking for a way out.
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My councilor was actually the one that suggested this idea and to be honest I don’t really plan on doing anything in terms of “proving”, colleges don’t look at income for households for some reason and while I did originally have plans on reporting household income I think that’d get me in more trouble than if I had to explain that no, my mother is indeed not surviving off of 15k per year she’s just a mooch lol. Not really any place to explain that on any application so the financial aid office is just going to need to directly ask me what’s going on. I am definitely expecting this to happen at some point in the future now that I’ve heard that they update FAFSA lol.
Main reason why I’m planning out a PHD this early is more because there really isn’t that much else I’m interested in. Like I’m pretty much only taking comp sci and physics courses at my CC because they’re higher than any level of stats I could take and involve a lot more complicated math than something like stats or accounting. Tbh I’m not actually all that thrilled about entering anything other than maths. Only reason why I want to get a 2nd bachelors is in case I decide I want to get out and into the job market since pure maths, while it isn’t a bad looking degree, definitely isn’t as good looking as something like Physics or Comp Sci
And that’s fine, I’m just saying how I really can’t be out here considering cost as a factor.
I really don’t think I have that much of an opportunity to slow down right now. I really don’t want to close out any doors for reaches and I think if I were to take anything less than this I’m going to be actually locked out of the reach institutions rather than now where I have a sliver of a chance lol.
Lastly, I’m taking the hardest courses offered at my high school. Most high schools (including mine) don’t really offer courses that go beyond the IBDP in terms of difficulty. It’s just that I’m going above and beyond that lol. I think if I were to just stick to IBDP courses I’d die of boredom + my GPA would be in the gutter. At least now I have an opportunity to bring it to a higher level before ED1 admissions and if I apply to unis during the RD cycle and EDII then I have an opportunity to make my GPA a 3.8+ which is something that is significantly more preferable than what I’d have available if I were to just settle with what my HS offers
The grandfather sounds as if he is vaguely aware that Harvard and other high-reach colleges don’t need his money. They will give the OP a virtual free-ride based completely on his parents’ FAFSA and EFC. On this point, the grandfather is correct.
Yeee but won’t I still need to find out a way to pay for textbooks and food and other stuff? Gramps is refusing to pay for that so that’s not helping any reason why I’m applying to those unis lol.
Granted idk how much a part time job would pay so maybe it’d actually pay enough to pay off all those worries? Meh I’ll figure it out
One last time: your grandfather’s money is a complete red-herring. Tell us what kind of college you’re looking for!
one more thing, for T.U. Munich and ETH Zurich German C1/C2 certificate is obligatory, don’t know about Yonsei and University of Amsterdam though
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Yea that’s the reason why I don’t plan on applying to all of those at the same time. I don’t want to be caught needing to learn German, Dutch (UVA requires a C1/C2 Certificate), and Korean (although Yonsei doesn’t require any certificates) all at the same time
I have strange tastes lol. Just give me an institution that’s full of nerds or full of party goers. If you look at all of the unis I’ve marked with “my beloved” it’s mostly institutions in one of those 2 categories. Beyond that, the closer the uni is to a major city the better and that’s pretty much all I’m looking for. Size used to be a factor (where I prefered larger unis to smaller ones) but as long as the other 2 categories are met I think I’ll be happy.
Then I’ll just look and determine if I think I’ll enjoy it more than ASU to decide if I want to apply there. If not then I’m prolly not applying there. How I determine this even I don’t know I just sort of do some research and look at different things and then just go off of what my gut tells me lol
Are you only counting hardest in math? Hardest in every subject is what they want to see. Hardest you can go to your ability, and if your ability is beyond what’s available at your school, then it makes sense to go outside. Also no selective college is interested in your math ability only. They want to see you can write, that you understand history, etc etc. If you’re adhering to the “spike” theory of college apps, that’s for kids who already mastered every other subject and had the spike to differentiate them from all the other perfect score and solving world hunger types.
In many schools, AP courses are harder than DE. In our school, for example, DE gets no GPA bump. Our flagship university gives 1 point weight to AP and IB but not DE. DE is certainly great for saving money if you plan to go to an in state school that accepts them. But DE in general does not say all by themselves that you challenged yourself. They could, when you’ve exhausted the hardest courses at your HS, like for Math in your case, but not for Econ which you say you’re trying to get out of the AP by DE’ing.
Transfer credits are also notorious for ending up not transferring. Again, in state is much more direct. Out of state is a crap shoot. My daughter was asked to provide a syllabus for a DE course so the school could evaluate the course, which took many emails and weeks, trying different people in the department, until she finally got a copy from her DE professor. Guess what the course was. Calc 1. Also consider that it is not in the interest of schools to accept transfer credits when they can charge you money to take their course in house. They will make it hard even when so clearly Calc 1 should not transfer over as Math Elective 1XXX. She is not even at a private selective school that was sniffing its nose at some public university credit. (Pro tip - save copies of all your syllabi! Hers was on Canvas so inaccessible after she completed the course.)
I’m just taking the hardest courses I can in general. IB Math AA HL is generally considered to be more difficult than AP Calc BC since it goes over the same amount of calculus + more calculus + stats (about the same as AP stats) + like 3 other units. My other IB HL courses are also generally considered to be more difficult than AP courses and receive credits fairly often.
As for the DE courses, I’m in a weird circumstances where a bunch of them are designated as Honors courses so I’m not certain if they’re getting properly weighted or nah. But I’m definitely taking courses that are harder than the average HS course. As for Econ I’m trying to get out of it mostly so I’d be able to take an optics course by having a free period. Yes I know this is a huge risk and if the schedule doesn’t actually clear out in a way where I’d be able to do this I’ll just take macro like my school is trying to get me to take since I’m taking micro econ rn.
Most of the unis I’m applying to are in-state so that’s why I don’t feel particularly worried but we’ll see ig. I definitely am expecting a bunch of my stragler courses to not transfer but I’ll probably try my best to see if my Diff Eq, Linear Algebra, and Calc III courses at the very least end up transfering
Also thank you for telling me about the syllabi thing, I’m currently saving all of it as we speak since my syllabi are also on Canvas
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See, if it were me, I would just change the subject line to “Looking for Matches to ASU”. Otherwise, you’re just going to wind up with a bunch of false positives (like Vassar and Wesleyan) 
This is a strange consideration. There are international options where classes are given in English. (I’m most familiar with The Netherlands options as we have family there and my D did a semester abroad.) Do these schools all offer classes in English?
Are you considering unis where that is not the case? (Referring to your comment on learning new languages.) That is not realistic if so.
Setting all that aside, one is still left with the affordability factor. It’s unclear how you plan to pay for these schools so I don’t understand why they are in consideration. Perhaps I’ve missed that explanation?
Good applications take time. So make the best use of that time with a realistic list.
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