<p>Hello everyone. This was posted on the transfer thread but they suggested to come here for help :)</p>
<p>I'm currently attending a California CC and I was wondering where I should look to transfer for Chemical Engineering. I attended UC Berkeley for one year and withdrew my second semester due to mental health issues and suicidal tendencies. Honestly, my main concern is that UCB was a top top top ranked ChemE program, and I don't know how well ranked other ChemE programs are in California. I'm worried about job and graduate school placement if I go to a "less prestigious" school. Does the prestige of undergraduate school matter? I don't know if I want to go straight into industry or go on to grad school. Personally, I love the research environment which is why I would go to grad school, which is why I'm wondering how good my undergraduate school needs to be to go to a good grad school. Also, I'm picking ChemE because it seems more versatile than a Chem degree, where the chem degree I would need to go to grad school for better job placement while Chem E has better job prospects.</p>
<p>Pretty much, I'm wondering what schools I should shoot for that are in the LA area. For me, I would prefer to stay away from the UC system because my experience with UCB was absolutely horrible. I know UCLA is probably different than UCB, but I'm worried about the financial aid situation which is one big reason I had to leave UCB and one big factor that lead to my mental health issues.</p>
<p>So, CSULB, UCLA, USC, Occidental (for pure chemistry), Cal poly pomona. What should I shoot for?</p>
<p>If you had a financial aid situation, you should shoot for the schools which you can afford to go to. Financial aid for transfer students is much less generous than for freshmen. So if you were worried about the financial aid situation as a freshman at Berkeley, you will probably not be able to afford, say, USC as a transfer.</p>
<p>As for your other concerns. Prestige isn’t a huge concern with engineering; you can get a pretty good education basically anywhere with an ABET accredited program, and employers know this. It’s more relevant if you plan to go to grad school, but it’s still nothing that you can’t make up for by getting a higher GPA and possibly some research experience. (And don’t think you can’t go to grad school with a chemE degree.)</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply. So I’m guessing that even though CSULB isn’t a top ranked school, because it’s ABET accredited, I’m fine? My choice of CSULB is pretty much I can graduate faster because they are a little less intensive and close by. USC is also closer. For Cal Poly Pomona, I would have to dorm there which is another cost. And I did research in high school with the Aerospace corporation so I’ll probably go back next summer if I can. And ChemE has MS degrees, and I’ve talked to quite a few ChemE undergrads who are going to grad school for Chem.</p>
<p>Whatever you do, don’t transfer out of state. My friend just transferred out of state and he is now paying super-high “out of state tuition prices”. That’s something most college counselors don’t tell you about.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m definitely not thinking of going out of state. See, my family’s in a bad situation which is why I want to live at home and commute or stay close to home to help out and stuff, hence that short list all local to the LA area.</p>
<p>You may want to run the net price calculators at each school to see what you can expect after financial aid at each school. CSUs are cheaper than UCs at list price, but you are more interested in net price after non-loan financial aid.</p>
<p>The nearby colleges with ABET accredited chemical engineering degree programs are:</p>
<p>Caltech
Cal Poly Pomona
CSU Long Beach
UC Irvine
UCLA
UC Riverside
USC</p>
<p>I will run financial aid calculators. However, I don’t know what to put for my parents income. Although I can live with them, they are not paying any of my college expenses, but I still have to list their income. So, then I would not be eligible for aid? Is that correct? I don’t quite understand how to account for parents not paying or am I just going to be screwed by the system?</p>
<p>Yeah, if your parents aren’t paying, you’re screwed by the system. You may still be eligible for some need-based financial aid, but it won’t cover the portion your parents are expected to pay, and that doesn’t change just because they won’t pay.</p>
<p>You’ll need to find a place that will offer you large merit scholarships, and somehow scrape up the money for the rest of the cost. (To this end, you might want to see if your parents would be willing to cosign some loans for you; it’ll be very difficult to scrape up enough money otherwise.)</p>
<p>Yes, your parents’ income will count against you for financial aid purposes unless you are age 24, a military veteran, or married. However, if they have low enough income, that would not really be a problem for you with respect to financial aid. The worst financial aid situation is to have high income parents who are not able or willing to contribute what the colleges expect them to contribute.</p>
<p>That’s were Im at now. My dads income is pretty high, but he refuses to help pay for college. And he was already holding it over me for cosigning a loan to pay for that first year at berkeley. All he did was get really abusive and tell me how much a waste of money I was even though the loan is in my name, he was a cosigner.</p>