I would hope you’d get out again and see more schools.
Chapman just seems like such a better fit for you.
But you can’t really ED until you are 100% sure about a school. Initially you said Southern California - so I’m having a hard time with - but now SCU.
Whenever someone wavers so often, as you sort of are, there tends to be - oh an uh oh moment later - like I rushed, I applied, got in - but don’t want to go there. You don’t want that to be you. SCU is great - but make sure it’s the 100% top school and I’m not hearing that AT ALL. I’m hearing that for a split second after a lot of wavering and there will be more.
Take your time - virtual visits aren’t enough to form an ED opinion - and really vet things properly. Ask to speak to kids on campus (ambassadors, etc). Dig into curriculums, etc.
Chapman is well known in the area of communications but even that’s not enough - if you want to ED, you need to dig into campus life, into other things and because you have the resources, you need to go visit.
While I think the question of value (as measured by amount paid and job options later) is certainly part of the equation, I don’t think it’s the whole story. I’m old fashioned in that I was a history major and feel like the skills I learned—writing, research, synthesis, analysis, critical thinking—has helped me in my work even though my job isn’t related to history (although I still love the subject). In other words, the education has intrinsic value, even if it’s unclear at this moment what kind of job you’ll get.
A lot of students change their major (or as in my D’s case, add a double major or minor) so being at a school that offers the option to explore and the academic and social environment you’re looking for—in other words, the “fit”—is what’s important, assuming it’s also affordable.
I wouldn’t try to say that private schools are a great deal; they’re very expensive. But if you’re at a school where you’re really able to take advantage of what’s being offered academically and otherwise, it might be that the price tag is worth it to you and your family (as it has been for us).
My D has several friends at LMU, Chapman, USD and SCU (where she attends) and while there is overlap, there are also some significant differences in terms of vibe and even the type of students who attend. I would definitely try to visit if you can, especially if you plan to ED.
I don’t know bout the other schools….but if you are accepted, SCU does a very good job with accepted student days (disclaimer…my daughter helped organize these when she was there).
My kid actually didn’t have a good accepted student day visit at another of these CA schools…and it was immediately removed from consideration.
I would also check again that your parents are willing to spend well over $300,000 on your undergrad education…and add to that travel back and forth. We loved SCU and had no problem with the cost. This is a family decision…just make sure your parents are on board.
What does this even mean? Your GPA is a mathematical average of your grades; how would your school “switch” it to drop from 3.47 to 3.34?
You say you want to major in communications. The entire thrust of this field is conveying both information and perception - managing how you come across and what people take from the information you have presented to them. So, let me approach your thread from this perspective, if I may.
I’m not taking from your posts that you are particularly serious about the educational aspect of going to college. My impression is that college is a vehicle to get you to a fun life in a faraway state that you believe you will like better than where you’re from.
If I’m wrong about this, it would be fairly easy to correct by, for example, showing tangible interest in the actual academic programs of the various schools that appeal to you, or by giving thoughtful responses to the various questions you’ve been asked about your academic interests and your criteria for choosing a college.
The thing is, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a great adventure in a faraway place, or with being uninspired about the actual “school” aspect of college. I’m not saying these things to criticize.
But you’re proposing an incredibly expensive adventure. Santa Clara U costs 82K/year and rising, and there’s no way they’re giving a 3.34GPA student any merit aid, if you get in at all. Do you have a sense of how much money this is? It comes out to over $200 for every hour of class you attend (and that’s if you attend them all!).
I agree with Thumper that a strong school like Santa Clara can provide enough value to justify that cost if the student is truly invested and takes full advantage of the opportunities provided. But it sets a very high bar for academic and extracurricular investment, and also for staying on track and graduating on time.
If you just want to be in “Cali” and be more laid back about school, there are definitely more affordable alternatives where it won’t be unusual or financially devastating to take your time and graduate in 5 years or more. For that matter, you could do California one better and go to the U of Hawaii, where you’d definitely get in, and where taking more than 4 years to finish is typical. (OOS cost without the western-states discount is pricey at 54K/year, but you could still spend 6 years there, for the price of four years at SCU. Communication - School of Communication and Information
If California is the dream, though… another option would be a structured gap year program where you could experience California, with a cohort of peers, while getting paid instead of spending $$$. City Year, for example, has several locations in CA, including a San Jose location that is right in the same area as SCU.
As others have said, Santa Clara is a big reach, even applying ED. In the most recent Common Data Set, only 14% of entering students had high school GPA’s below 3.5, and I’m willing to bet that most of those were recruited athletes or other kinds of “hooked” applicants.
OTOH, there are plenty of schools where your stats are typical, and they aren’t bad schools! Arizona State has already been suggested. U of Nevada, Reno, costs less than 38K/year for OOS students (less than half the cost of Santa Clara!!), and it’s only 15 miles from the California border - for the money saved, you could have a car and road-trip to the beach for every break, or stay close and go to Lake Tahoe or the various ski resorts nearby. It’s a fine school where your stats are right around median, and you’d meet tons of CA students there - 27% of undergrads are from California. They have a communication studies degree, https://www.unr.edu/communication-studies , but the various emphases within the journalism school might be a better fit for your interest in media studies and PR: https://www.unr.edu/journalism/degrees/undergraduate-emphases They also have a DII women’s rugby team unrwomensrugby | Instagram | Linktree and a Mock Trial team as well. This could be a great fit for a reasonable price; I know a number of CA students who were very happy with their experiences there.
Since you really like USD, I assume you don’t mind the core curriculum, but just in case, your 1st year at SCU is already set with 2 Writing classes, 2 foreign language classes (provided you’ve already taken 3 years in HS), 2 Global Cultures classes, 1 Theology/Religion class and 1 math class, plus 1-2 major pre-reqs. After that, there’s more space for your major-related classes but there’s still 1 Ethics class+2 Theology/Religions classes + usual distribution reqs in history, science, art, US diversity, social science…
I tend to think this is very good for most majors but some students discover the core curriculum after acceptance and don’t like it at all… so better safe than sorry.
Why SCU though? It’s NOT SoCal.
And why not Chapman?
It is much stronger for communication and seems like a better fit.
The core courses and theology courses can be spread out over all four years at SCU. You do not have to take all of these your freshman year. My kid was still taking core courses her last quarter at SCU. Those core courses brought some variety to her science and math heavy majors. And she liked this.
Can you check with your child - The general core curriculum&distribution reqs are designed to be taken over 4 years but it’s my understanding “Foundations” is the freshman core curriculum (which for A&S would mean Freshman Comp1&2, Foreign Language 2&3, Math depending on intended major, Theology&Religions1, Global cultures 1&2).
Which I think is a good thing, provides a common culture and solid background regardless of major - but is a bit different from the set up at a public university where it’s often hodge podge.
Well…while my SCU kid went in as a freshman undeclared, she intended to major in engineering which did not require a foreign language at all on the college level. She took two hard sciences full year, calculus full year, some English course, intro to engineering, orchestra, instrument lessons…and one core course each semester. She switched to college of engineering after her freshman year. IIRC the core was 8 courses.
I’m am pretty serious about my education. I know I want to spend the rest of my life in California, so I would be hoping to start my college career there as well. As for the gpas- they sent out a new calculation of it.
My CT DD who is a Santa Clara grad felt exactly the same way when she was in high school. She now lives in…CT.
But if you really like SCU…apply and see. Just have all the rest of your applications submitted as well. If you get an affordable acceptance to SCU, you can withdraw the other applications. If not, they will already be done!
The good news is - life is long and if you get into school in CA or out West, you can end up in CA (or not) after college.
And if you go to school in the midwest, south (you have Charleston on your list) or East, you can also end up in Callifornia.
So either way - if you later decide that California is where it’s at - you can end up there!!!
Today, with the internet and its communication channels , you can end up wherever you want.
My son interviewed with 20 companies this Fall and I don’t think any (that I recall) were for jobs in his school state and only a few would have placed him in the region of his school or where he grew up.
So yes, find the right school but if CA doesn’t work out for school, it will have little to zero meaning on - where you ultimately are long term - so don’t worry about that.
That’s fair. A lot depends on your financial situation. A lot of people don’t end up establishing themselves in California (even if they went to college here) because breaking into the housing market is so prohibitively expensive. For some students, a better path to a long-term life in CA would be to choose an affordable college, and reallocate the extra 200K they would have spent to attend college in CA to a downpayment on their first home out here. But if you can manage both, that’s great!
In retrospect, I’m surprised we haven’t mentioned Emerson College yet. It’s a tippy-top school for Communications. Their main campus is in Boston, but they also have a campus in Los Angeles, and lots of great connections there. Emerson Los Angeles, Emerson College It would be a big reach for your stats, but still considerably less of a reach than its Boston neighbor, Northeastern. (From Prepscholar site, which could be slightly out of date but should be accurate for comparison purposes: Emerson median GPA 3.73; median SAT 1300; acceptance rate 35.6%. Northeastern median GPA 4.04; median SAT 1465; acceptance rate 18.1%) Both the ED acceptance rate and the transfer acceptance rate are significantly higher than the first-year RD rate. They have both ED1 and ED2.
IMHO, this could hit the sweet spot for you; a school close-but-not-too-close to home, that’s tops in your field of interest and could provide both time in LA during college, and top-notch connections there to get your career established. If I were you, I’d strongly consider taking an ED shot at Emerson, even if it’s ED2 after your favorite CA school. (Re: said CA school, I agree with others that Chapman looks like a better fit than SCU, not only in terms of admission chances, but in terms of program strength and connections/placement in the area and fields that interest you most.)
My concern is that you seem to know that you want to spend your life in California, but don’t seem familiar with daily living in California.
I’ve spent my life in California and there are some things I don’t like, costs of living here is a major issue, but it’s my home and I am used to it. I also, already own property, which is a huge advantage and a significant expense in everyone’s paychecks.
My neighbor’s daughter, whom I’ve know all of her life, had to moved to Arizona because she and her small family couldn’t find affordable housing. A lot of people of her age, are leaving the state because it is unaffordable.
Will your parents gift you the $200K for a down payment? Even that isn’t sufficient because everyone is looking for property and people are not selling.
The Tech people are the ones who are doing well financially, and are the ones buying up available properties. “Average” costs of an average home in SoCal is nearing $1 million. Bay Area housing is above that. These are not LUXURY homes. These are little homes or shacks that are selling for crazy rates.
So, before you make your life plans to live out here, look at your budget. Visit the schools that you want to apply to because you need to see the local community where you will live if you are admitted.
Apply to anywhere you would like to attend, but you should visit the schools because you will be there for 4 years and you want to be content with where you will live.
It is interesting - before my company moved from CA to TN in 2006, when we had region jobs open up (Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago), it was the young people that would apply in droves. They had more apps for those regional jobs due to expense vs. salary, etc.
There is no question, California is an awesome place to live. I did my middle and HS in San Diego and after college and east coast work, I moved back. Rancho Bernardo, where I grew up, just gorgeous.
But for a young person starting out, it’s very very difficult.
Of course, for all we know money is of zero concern to OP and they can self fund - that we don’t know.
But at 17/18 it’s a bit presumptuous to know one where one will actually be in 5 years - it’s nice to think about it but truly impossible for most anyone to know.
That would be an excellent reason to go to school in California though. It would be a kind of test drive of living there. The OP may end up not loving it. Or, may decide its the most important thing for her. In any case that way she won’t always wonder what it would be like.
I’m a huge fan of spreading your wings geographically while in college. It’s a nice and safe way to experience another part of the country, or a different type of town than where you grew up.
So…apply and see…if SCU is your top choice (although I thought you said this was the case because USD didn’t offer early admission options).
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