What are your GPA and SAT/ACT scores? Happykid was a lousy tester, and we couldn’t afford our family’s FAFSA EFC (let alone some private college’s EFC) so she truly had no other option than to go to our own local CC for the first two years and then transfer in-state. However that might not be your own situation if you have the right GPA and test scores. Read through these old lists for ideas:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/
As I wrote above, the people in the Financial Aid Forum may have more ideas as well. Would your parents flat-out refuse to feed and house you if you take a gap year? Will they refuse to file the FAFSA (and CSS Profile if you end up at a private college/university) with you if you come up with a different plan? That is what matters. There is no good reason for you to start college this fall and spend all that money (both yours and theirs) if better options exist.
Your parents feel bad about the divorce, and they want you do do whatever you would have done if their marriage hadn’t broken up. Try to get them to see that that doesn’t matter.
Ok well this is just frustutating. “Go to a CC in the state of the school you want to transfer to” “It isn’t logical to go to an out of state CC.”
Whatever, thanks for replying to the thread everyone
Here’s the deal: Most state Us have formal articulation (guaranteed transfer) programs with the public CCs in their own state. Many privates also have that kind of arrangement for CCs in their state. It is much easier for students to make sure they have the right classes, and the transfer advisors at the CCs have all the information right at their fingertips. When you are transferring from a CC in State1 to a college/university in State2 it is just plain harder for you to get everything lined up. You have a lot more work to do. You need to communicate with the transfer admissions offices at your potential targets and find out which classes at your CC are likely to transfer and which probably won’t. Sometimes that information isn’t even available until you have been admitted and are enrolled. You have to ask each place separately.
To help determine if courses are possibly equivalent, you need a copy of the syllabus of the class that you want to replace. Sometimes that is easy to find by Googling ClassX at UniversityY SemesterZ YearW. Sometimes there is no way to get the syllabus without having a friend who is currently taking that class. Again, each of these has to be handled on a course-by-course basis.
In your situation, money looks to be your biggest limit. So starting at your local CC, and doing your best to pull down a 4.0 and to get excellent letters of recommendation may well be your only decent option. If that is so, then that is the reality you will need to deal with. Just keep in mind that the money may not be there for some OOS places, and that your short-list for transfer applications may end up being your home-state publics and one or two OOS publics and privates that do offer the aid you need.
Wishing you all the best!
This is really tough.
What are your stats?
Unless you have act 32+/SAT 1450, here’s an idea:
If you can go to cc for free, go there and kick butt, get as close to a 4.0 as possible, join PTK, take on leadership in a club.
Once you know where your dad has settled, if its a state with good public universities such as Virginia or North Carolina transfer to a community college in that state and get a driver’s license + voter registration in that state (since he’ll have lived a year there you should qualify for instate tuition). Then from that college transfer to the State’s flagship.
Do you think you can do very well at the cc? If you can, then find out about joining PTK as soon as you get there, and apply as soon as you’re eligible. It’s the academic honor society for community colleges. The main advantage to you to joining is that you’ll then start getting scholarship offers which are significant offers, and only available to PTK students. That can include things like getting the in-state tuition rate at certain out-of-state public colleges, and so on.
In addition, find out what the rules are for getting in-state tuition in the states that each parent settles in. These rules vary. Although normally, in most states, you have to do things like move there and take a gap year while you establish residency, that’s not true in all states. So check. And if in question, ask the school directly.
You also want to read this thread here, as it may help you pick schools where you have the max chance at aid. Although some of the info is old, it will help get you started:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/transfer-students/983014-merit-scholarships-transfer-students.html
I’ll look into it. I am positive I will get a 4.0 in CC. I will get laughed at for joining a CC fraternity but they offer scholarships to good schools?
@RoaringMice
Ok well I looked at the schools are they’re all tier 3 schools. Thanks anyways
It’s an academic honor society, not a “frat” in the “Animal House” sense, so no, no one will laugh at you.
PTK is NOT fraternity 
:)
It’s an old (ancient and respectable) academic national organization. Emphasis on ACADEMIC.
PBK is the 4-year equivalent and getting that offer is a BIG DEAL. Most colleges aren’t even allowed to have a chapter.
Those two have Greek letters because back when they were founded, students learned Latin and Greek, so it was away to indicate respectable scholarship.
The social fraternities, which are now better known as “Greek life” unrelated to knowing anything about Sophocles, “trolled” the academic organizations by using the same code but for an entirely different purpose
@MYOS1634 I might as well join it. They’re some decent scholarships but most of them require you to be instate. I love it when money is a barrier to a happy and successful life am I right?