A few kids from my D’s class went to Sonoma State and all of them had a wonderful time! They’re all doing quite well in their careers from what I hear. Every kid our school has sent there (and we have a few kids who attend each year) has graduated in 4 years and had a wonderful experience!
What about looking at other inexpensive schools in California such as CSU Chico and CSU Sacramento? You would have to factor in room and board and these schools.
Also, Western Washington U and Southern Oregon U are both affordable thanks to WUE! But, you would have to factor in travel costs and room and board.
Thanks for the additional ideas @natty1988 - Sacramento does not appeal to S at all and neither does Chico. He’s a little more introverted (not a partier at all). We do have Humboldt on his list and he will still apply to SFSU and CSEB.
But when my husband asked him what he liked best about Sonoma, it was the location that was the first thing S mentioned. He likes that it is fairly close to us but far enough away to feel like he is away. He will still look at Reno and will apply to Oregon State as he knows 2 close friends who are targeting that school.
We can look at the some of the other directionals but I think he will want to be closer to home unless it’s to go to Oregon State with his buddies.
He has zeroed in on communications as a degree and liked that the Sonoma degree was a combined communications and media degree. UC Merced has nothing in communications so that will likely be coming off the list.
I also just discovered that Sonoma has its own merit scholarships available to students with a GPA of 3.0 or higher and only requires one 2 page essay. S just finished AP Lang with a B and is a pretty decent writer and has a 3.66 GPA so hoping he might be competitive for that (ranges from $500-$5K). I haven’t seen actual school merit scholarships like that at other Cal States. They almost always require some type of need.
We will keep visiting (going to CSEB tomorrow), but S is the kind of kid that makes up his mind quickly and doesn’t tend to look back.
@thedreamydaisy gotcha! Sounds like Sonoma would be a great place for him!
Does anyone know if @HisGraceFillsMe is still active on College Confidential? I know she was a treasure trove of information on Sonoma State! Are you here @HisGraceFillsMe ?
as many others have captured - that’s not a reasonable commute. At this point, I"d encourage him to apply to a bunch of CSUs - Sac, Chico, Sonoma, LB, SDSU among them, and perhaps a UC or two (UCM, UCR and maybe UCSC) and explore them a little at a time. His taste is likely to change as he sees more campuses. I’d add UNR, which has cheap tuition (via WUE) and, compared to the Bay Area, really cheap rent. The last time I looked, a 3.6+GPA, it was cheaper than Sac, Sonoma or Chico. (all the CSUs share an application so, it’s not time consuming to apply to several)
Another thought - most of the CSUs have Honors programs, which are worth exploring.
@NCalRent thanks for your input! We have definitely decided that SFSU is not commutable (thanks to this forum). S and I had a good chat today and he admitted he does not really want to go any further away from home than Reno (UNR is on our list already and we will be visiting later in the summer - he does need to get his SAT up about 150 points to qualify for their best WUE tuition rate). So we are sticking to the CSUs closer to us (SFSU, Sonoma and CSEB) plus UNR. He really liked Sonoma and I think he has pretty much made up his mind already, but we will see how it plays out. UC Merced was on his list, being our closest UC school, but they have zero degrees in communications and/or media.
UCB, UCD, and UCSC are all closer to Concord than UCM is, though admission difficulty could be an issue. http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-general/2127392-faq-uc-historical-frosh-admit-rates-by-hs-gpa-2018.html can help you assess chances at UCs.
@ucbalumnus right - I should have said the closest UC campus he could get into. His SAT currently sits at 1090 ( he is retaking it in August). He doesn’t really have a chance at UCB or UCD and isn’t interested in Santa Cruz at all.
if he’s never prepped before, it is definitely possible to gain 200+ points for SAT in a couple of months. In fact, I think Princeton Review Prep “guarantees” it if you sign up with them. Elite Prep is also really good, they have a location in San Ramon. Or you can do it yourself, there’s a lot of threads on this.
@ProfessorPlum168 he is actually taking a Kaplan prep course through his high school over the next 2 weeks (it only cost us $5). So we’ll see how he performs in August.
Average time to gain 200 points takes anywhere from 60-100 hours of practice.
Perhaps he can do some more time-efficient studying on his own by trying an old real SAT under test conditions (time limits) and then seeing which types of questions he made the most mistakes on. Then he can concentrate preparation on those types of questions.
I found that hiring a private tutor helps in increasing your SAT score.