Again, sorry you’re in this position. I can kind of understand your parents’ view, too, since the fact is that you do have excellent education available to you locally, at very low cost. If they are immigrants from Taiwan, I wouldn’t be surprised if they grew up in economically difficult circumstances, and maybe college was free for them in Taiwan. Sometimes that leads to parents whose attitude is, “No one spent money on me - you can manage, just as I did.” They don’t understand that college is far from free here in the US. Interestingly, there are other parents who grew up with their parents helping them a ton, to the greatest extent that they were able, and yet they don’t want to spend a penny on helping their kids. And then there are those whose attitude is that they want value for their money, to help their kid along the path to financial independence and self-sufficiency, and they feel that does not include helping them to a degree in music, when they feel that it will not equip them to earn a living.
I was wondering who was paying for apps to that long list of schools. Now that I know that you are, you really must pare it down to be realistic.
Will your parents allow you to live at home and commute, provide you with room and board and transportation and health insurance while you are living at home, attending college? Can you commute to a nearby community college that has a transfer agreement to UCB? I’m assuming that UCB is commutable from your home - is that so? Is there any other UC or CSU that is commutable from your home?
Estimated cost of attendance at Cal State Long Beach is almost 29K, and you’ll have to travel back and forth at least twice a year, so add another thousand for that, possibly. You wind up with about 120K total cost for 4 yrs. How would you find the missing 90K if your parents have said that they’ll give you 30K, max? And can you be sure that they will even give you that? Are they willing to submit a FAFSA so that you can at least borrow the 27K total ($5500 the first year) unsubsidized federal loan that you can borrow without them cosigning?
Do you see where this is leading? You won’t qualify for fin aid. You’re unlikely to qualify for merit money based upon your music, although you might qualify for “merit money for B students” at a school with a conservatory or school of music, with relatively low academic standards, that would want you if you were to apply saying that you were planning on also majoring in an academic discipline, such as econ, fin, or maybe business. But you would essentially need a full tuition scholarship. Go on the music thread and ask for help from families that know more there - I know that there are kids with very high achievement in music (which, through no fault of your own, you do NOT have) who sometimes are offered very big merit scholarships - but they’d essentially have to offer you a full tuition scholarship for you to come anywhere close to being able to financially swing it, and that’s only if your parents don’t pull the financial rug out from under you.
Honestly, unless there’s someplace that’s giving out full tuition scholarships to academically high achieving students who want a BM and are self taught musicians with only recent classical instruction, who have potential but are an 18 year old strings player who is 5th chair in the local youth symphony, you really have no option other than the local community college to UCB path, all while commuting from home. I outlined for you how you can do this and get to UCB with junior standing in Sept '25. You don’t have to drop music - you can continue to study with your teacher. You don’t have to give up the idea of studying music - UCB has a music dep’t with several violin teachers, so you can double major in music and fin/econ/business/whatever.
Without a full tuition scholarship somewhere else, this is really your only option, as I see it.
