Finding a College

College Search & Selection
1

Hello! So I am currently trying to find schools to apply to. First, some info about me though: so I graduated high school in June and am currently taking a gap year. I went through the application process last year and got into some pretty good schools (more on that in a second), and after deciding I would attend USC, my dad told me he was no longer willing to pay for college, and since I didn’t really want to graduate with $200k, I withdrew from USC and decided to take a gap year. Thus, this time around, while I would still like to go to a very reputable school, I would also like to be able to afford college - whether that is through merit scholarship, exceptional fin aid, or a great work-study program.

So last year the schools I was admitted to: USC, Univ. of Toronto, Univ. of Michigan, Tulane, NYU, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, and McGill.
I was rejected from: Yale, Princeton, Georgetown, and Univ. of Virginia.

So my stats:

Objective:
• SAT I (breakdown): I don’t plan on sending, but it’s a 1300
• ACT (breakdown): 31, 32 (superscored)
◦ English 32
◦ Math 32
◦ Reading 34
◦ Science 28

• SAT II (place score in parentheses): M2: 700, Bio: 670, Lit: 650 (I know not great, but I didn’t study for any of them!)

• Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.53
◦ Weighted (out of 5.0): 3.93 - it’s probably important to note that I had a VERY strong upward trend. My senior year grades were straight As and I got a 4.63 senior year.
• Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): n/a
• AP (place score in parentheses): I don’t plan on submitting, but her are the APs I’ve taken: US History, Euro History, Lit, Lang, Bio, Comp Sci Principles, Stats, Calc AB, Psych

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parentheses):
Former top swimmer (I fell off the radar a little bit)-as a freshman in high school I was #1 in the country in a couple events, so with this I’ve been Utah High School Athlete of the Year twice, I hold multiple state records in my high school division, and some other stuff I guess.
I also do science olympiad: I got 6th at state in cell biology, and 12th at state in disease analysis (last year).
I am working with some peers to create our own cafe (through an organization). I mostly help with creating the website and some of the manual labor, but we also have to design the space, interview people for jobs, and create a financial plan.
This year I am a co-head editor for my schools Literary Magazine. Our lit mag is highly regarded and has one dozens of awards, often being called one of the top 10 high school literary magazines in the country.
I am president of our schools LGBTQ club. Most notably, last year we petitioned to get a gender neutral bathroom in our school and change graduation robes all to one color (rather than segregating by gender) to help make transgender students feel more welcome.
I played piano for 10years (stopping when I was 15) and went to competitions state-wide
I’m planning on doing an immersion program in Madrid come January. I will be there for 6months.

Job/Work Experience: n/a
Volunteer/Community Service:
This past summer I’ve been interning at an architecture firm for about 36hrs/week. I am now working at Starbucks part time for about 20hrs/week.
For the last two summers Ive been a 1st grade teachers assistant. I worked about 20hrs a week in the summers?
I used to work at the rape recovery center, volunteering about 12hrs a week, only for a year though.
Over summers I taught swim lessons to disadvantaged children.

Summer Activities: swimming, volunteering, eating

Essays: My Common App essay was about not feeling I fit in anywhere (being gay, mixed race, Buddhist, and in a divorced family) and how after my sister dropped out of high school I felt the need to be perfect. It was very well written and many people loved it.

Other:
• State (if domestic applicant): Utah (becoming a CA resident at the moment)
• Country (if international applicant):
• School Type: Private School - very well known. We are consistently a top10 debate program in the country, ski program in the world, and lit mag is well renouned. Additionally, my school is often known for deflating grades. I have had teachers in the past who will curve a test down.
• Ethnicity: white/asian (japanese)/pacific islander (malaysian, singaporean)
• Gender: male.
• Income Bracket: my parents are divorced. Mom is ~60k, dad is wealthy, 250k+

So far, the schools I’m planning on applying to are:

University of Utah (safety)
UCLA (I have no idea whether I’m considered in-state or OOS at the moment, so I have no idea)
UC Berkeley (again, the same thing)
Brown (reach)
Columbia (reach)

I’m hoping to get suggestions on where to apply? I’m hoping to get into a school with very good fin aid (I still qualify because of my mom), or where I can get a merit scholarship.

Please give suggestions!

2

Have you moved to California with your parents? If so, when? Attending a CA High school?

3

@Gumbymom So I completed high school in Utah. My parents are divorced - my mom in Utah and my dad lives in California (Los Angeles). After graduation I moved out to CA to live with my dad. My internship this past summer was in LA, and I am now working as a barista in LA. I also just recently got a CA drivers license - though I haven’t registered my car yet.

4

So your father was the custodial parent? That will pretty much make you ineligible for need based aid. How much will your parents pay for college?

5

So you are taking a Gap year and will use your Dad’s CA residency to establish your in-state residency? You have to be in CA 366 days before applying for CA residency, so will you meet that deadline by the time you start in one of the CA public universities?

Have you calculated your UC GPA for UCLA/UCB? Since you have graduated and have Senior year grades, those will be included in the UC GPA calculation. Only 9th grades will not be used. Do you have all the a-g courses completed for the UC’s?

https://rogerhub.com/gpa-calculator-uc/

6

@Gumbymom Rogerhub says I have 3.76 UW, 4.3 Weighted, 3.97 Weighted and Capped for UC schools. I do have all a-g courses completed. And yes, I will have established residency by the time school roles around next year.

@TomSrOfBoston My mother was the custodial parent. Excluding right now I haven’t lived with my father since I was 9. My mom would help me pay for college if she could, but unfortunately she can’t. My dad is paying for nothing. I do have about $120k saved up in my 529 though. So really, I just need a school that is around 30k tuition + room/board. Basically, I’m paying for my entire college tuition, so it’d be nice if my 529 could cover most of it so I don’t have to graduate with too much student debt - especially since I would like to go to grad school.

7

You have very good EC’s and your ACT score is on target but your capped weighted UC GPA is a bit low for UCB and UCLA. Definitely worth an application especially since you did get acceptances at several selective schools last year.

Consider UCLA/UCB a Reach due to the low acceptance rate and I would apply broadly to the UC’s besides these top 2 schools. Consider UC Davis, Irvine, Santa Barbara and San Diego. I also see no safety school, but Santa Cruz, Riverside or San Diego State would fit the bill.

Freshman admit rates for UC GPA (capped weighted) of 3.80-4.19:

UCB: 14%
UCLA: 14%
UCSD: 44%
UCSB: 54%
UCD: 58%
UCI: 65%
UCSC: 85%
UCR: 94%
UCM: 96%

8

“I do have about $120k saved up in my 529 though”

This will help.

I noticed that you have McGill and Toronto on your list of schools that you applied to last year. These are among the most expensive universities in Canada for international students (along with UBC and Queen’s). There are a lot of very good universities in Canada which would cost about C$30,000 per year for an international student, which is a bit less than US$30,000. Noting that you have large schools on your list, you might for example want to take a look at the U of Victoria, Simon Fraser, or Calgary in the west or Dalhousie in the east. Alberta is also very good but will be a bit cold in the winter. For smaller schools there are some very good ones in the east which are also affordable with this budget (eg, Mount Allison, Acadia, St Francis Xavier, Bishop’s).

9

@Gumbymom Thank you! That is very helpful. Do you know if the UCs give a legacy advantage at all? I forgot to mention my sister graduated from UCLA in 2014. Would you have any recommendations for schools outside of CA?

10

@DadTwoGirls I actually probably could have afforded Toronto - I got a lot of merit aid through Trinity College, but unfortunately I was actually worried about the class sizes at Toronto. I definitely will look into those other universities you mentioned; though, I’m not quite sure about going to Canada. I’d really like some sort of liberal arts education since I’m not really sure what I want to do in life - and I know international schools aren’t always the best when it comes to that.

11

“I was actually worried about the class sizes at Toronto”
“I’d really like some sort of liberal arts education since I’m not really sure what I want to do in life”

You might want to take a good look at the small schools that I mentioned. We visited all four and were very impressed. The one issue is that coming from the west coast they would be very far away and require flying. Acadia has the advantage over the other three that it is only about an hour from a major airport (Halifax), whereas the other ones are either further from a major airport or would require flying to smaller airports, which probably adds an additional short flight.

12

UC’s do not consider legacy sorry.
For schools outside California and your budget, I would look at the WUE schools. You pay reduced OOS tuition for the schools in the exchange but some majors are limited. Here is the links:

http://wue.wiche.edu/search_results.jsp?searchType=all

Also look at some of the other competitive Cal states like San Luis Obispo and Long Beach. In-state Privates such as Claremont consortium (Pitzer, Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd), Occidental and Santa Clara.

Make sure you run the Net Price calculators for all schools of interest, especially the privates.

13

Legacy won’t help at the UCs at all (I wish it did!). A parent employed by a UC might.

I think you have a great shot at the mid-tier and up UCs. Those would be affordable for you and fit your interests.

14

If you are worried about large class size forget the UC’s.

15

Maybe try McGill again - tuition varies by college/major and some are actually pretty affordable. U of U is a great deal if you maintain residency but sounds like you prefer CA.

You got into some really good schools last year - did any of those offer enough merit to fit your budget. If so revisit those but hard to say if they will admit 2nd time around.

Final comment - that is a healthy 529 account - if your dad was the main contributor to that kudos to him. While he may not want to pay more, he certainly stepped up if he was the source of funds.

16

Agree with @TomSrOfBoston. My middle dd had a bio class with 500 kids at Davis. Would you be okay with that?

17

@Gumbymom Thank you! I will certainly look into some of those privates. I actually did a recruiting trip for swimming last year to Pomona and CMC but was not a huge fan of them. As weird as it is, I think I wanted a higher stress environment. All the students at the consortium were so relaxed and it made me a little hectic. Lol. I will definitely look at some of the other schools you mentioned though as well.

@stardustmom That’s unfortunate about legacy. Hopefully though, my sister got in as OOS with lower stats than me, so hopefully that means I can get in with in-state and higher stats.

@TomSrOfBoston @“aunt bea” I definitely go back and forth on class sizes. I understand if I want to do something like pre-med that my beginning classes are going to be large, but I think just the fact that the school was HUGE freaked me out as well. Plus, I’d preferably like to go to a school where most people live on or near campus, and I think UToronto didn’t give me quite that. Plus, it’s hella cold up there. I visited in January and that was a HUGE mistake. Lol. Knowing me, I could probably handle a large school, but I do love discussion based classes.

@my2caligirls I will certainly look at McGill again. I really loved it when I went. Do you by chance know which programs are on the cheaper side? There were a couple schools that offered me decent fin aid, but I still would have graduated in debt wherever I went - simply because my dad skews my fin aid. I could have afforded UToronto but was a little too scared about going there. As well, Cornell had decent aid, I think with aid and all the work-study and federal loans the net cost went down from 70k to about 37k if I am correct. Tulane was pretty similar to that - around 35k I believe. Michigan wasn’t bad either - considering I’m OOS the cost ended up being around 40k total. NYU was the worst though. They offered me a total of 1k in grants, and below that it said “you can get 72k in loans!” So we’ll see. As for the 529, that is mostly me actually. I started babysitting at around 13 and have never spent any money on anything I didn’t need - I put it all in my 529. As well, for birthdays and for Christmas, I asked all my family members never to give me presents and just donate money for my 529. My dad definitely contributed a bit, but my mom and my grandparents are the main contributors to my 529 since I asked them to simply donate to my 529 for bdays and xmas. I think they were generous too since they thought I was being really responsible and that the money wasn’t going to go to waste.

18

@CatBoyTW Have a look here for McGill tuition:

http://www.mcgill.ca/student-accounts/tuition-charges/fallwinter-term-tuition-and-fees/undergraduate-fees

As an example, Arts is $19k, Commerce $44k, Arts and Science $20k. Varies quite a bit by college. Some are a very good value for international. Good luck.

19

^^ Canadian $'s

20

@my2caligirls Oh wow! I will have to look into that. $19k CAD is great! I know last year I got into their chemical engineering program and that was a little over $40k I think? I might be wrong though. Granted - I have no idea why I applied for chemical engineering considering I have no idea what the heck I want to do with my life. But thank you for that info - I will definitely look into McGill more again.