Impaction for majors means that there are more qualified applicants than spots available. Impacted campuses are Cal states such as San Diego State, Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Fullerton, Cal Poly SLO in which all their majors are impacted and require a much higher Eligibility index to get an acceptance. Nursing is impacted at all Cal States.
http://www.calstate.edu/sas/impaction-campus-info.shtml
A Non-impacted CSU campus means that the majority of majors available to in-coming Freshman students are more easily available and with a minimum Eligibility index of 2900 for the SAT and 694 for the ACT will get you an acceptance.
https://www.calstate.edu/sas/documents/impactedprogramsmatrix.pdf
@akirakun
Couple of points.
- Do you have to pay to apply to these colleges? If so, I would not do it "just for fun" if it cost me $100 a pop and you aren't well off. ($application fee plus $Test score transfer fee plus $common ap fee.
Maybe you get fee waivers, but I'd look into this more carefully and think hard on where to use them, as they are typically limited in number. Do not waste money just to see if you can get accepted someplace you can't afford anyway. Run your net price calculators and then decide where to apply.
- I have a foster son who won Gates Mill. in 2015. They did not offer Gates at all in 2017 and are restructuring it as far as I know. To my knowledge, applications will open in late August, with applications due by mid January. You are wise to keep an eye on when the application opens and work on it early. The questions were many, answers required were long. You also needed to have a recommender who also had to provide lengthy answers. Finally, the competition was fierce, 57,000 applicants, just 1,000 winners.
I don't know if it will be the same # of winners but you can bet the applicant pool will still be huge.
This is not a fly by the seat of your pants application. If you haven't already, make sure you are doing volunteer work over the summer.
Most scholarships open in the early fall and close by January, if not sooner. Look into them this summer and sketch out your essays. Get a friend who is a good writer to take a look and help earlier rather than later. It will pay off!
Good for you for thinking about this so early!
@NJRoadie sorry to reply so late but I’ve checked into the scholarship and I couldn’t find any prompt to the essays. About the recommender, They have to answer long essays too? Are you sure about that? I though they just had to submit a rec letter and that’s it. Atleast, that’s what I read.
Did not notice this thread until now.
You are lucky to be in California, since in state financial aid at public universities is better than in many other states. Try the net price calculator on the web site of each UC and CSU that you are considering. Also, the pathway of starting at a community college and then transferring to a UC or CSU is better than in many other states.
Applying to multiple UC or CSU campuses costs a fee for each, but you need to send one set of test scores for each system (one for all UCs and one for all CSUs ).
Intended majors?
@ucbalumnus International Studies or Microbiology
Fortunately, those tend to be less impacted than CS or engineering majors, but you need to check each campus to see.
Here are some net price calculators:
UCD: https://financialaid.ucdavis.edu/AidEstimator/
UCSC: http://www2.ucsc.edu/finaidcalc/
UCR: http://vcsaweb.ucr.edu/finaidmanualcalculator/
UCM: http://finaidcalc.ucmerced.edu/
all CSUs: https://www.csumentor.edu/FinAid/pais/ is where it used to be; it seems to be gone now
@akirakun The application for the “new” Gates scholarship is not yet open, but as a heads up, it will open July 15 and close Sept 15th according to the website.
https://www.thegatesscholarship.org/scholarship
Only 300 winners, so while applying if you are Pell eligible and a minority may be worthwhile, it should not be the only egg in your basket. I highly doubt this very valuable scholarship will be a “just apply” - I would expect there to be essays, at the very least.
Good luck, and keep reading this Financial Aid forum, tons to learn and people who can help!
Thanks.