I am having trouble deciding where to go.

College Search & Selection
1

Hello!
I just want to start off with, this is my first post here so if I am doing anything wrong please tell me. I usually go to Reddit with my problems, however, this site is more insightful and I believe will give me good answers.

I am a high school senior that applied to 30 colleges, yes thirty 3-0. I managed to cut it down a lot with the help of rejections of course. The reason I could apply to so many is that my family is low income (my EFC is 0 and I am classified as an independent).

While applying to colleges I have come to the realization that I am so so so much smarter than what my GPA and sat says. Throughout my three past years of high school, I managed to get a 3.06 GPA without paying attention and barely studying at all. I could only imagine what I could do if I tried. With this, I have three routes to consider and I will need your guy’s advice on what I should do.

-I want to major in Political Science, Philosophy, or Economics - With the intent to go to Law School. I am from Virginia

Expensive Route:
This is the one that is probably going to get shot down the most but it is one that I refuse to not consider. Out of the 15ish colleges, I got accepted into I came down to 6. Four being apart of this route: Clemson, Purdue, IU-Bloomington, Highpoint.
I am leaning towards the Indiana Colleges, especially IU. However, all four of these colleges are wayyyy out of my budget. The reason why I am still considering them is that I can see myself staying there for four years and excelling. Simply, I can’t afford these colleges out of pocket. I will have to get a ridiculous amount of loans - I managed to bring down IU’s tuition from 52,000ish to 36,000 due to federal aid. Nonetheless, I would really really like to attend these colleges due to their better programs, campus, etc but I don’t think going into thousands of dollars in debt is a bright idea.

Small-Cheap Colleges:
This is the route my family wants me to go down, I don’t like it. The two small colleges are Bridgewater College and Virginia Wesleyan University. Bridgewater, I would pay 3,000ish a year with all of my federal aid + merit, compared to, VWU I would pay maybe a thousand more. I am leaning towards VWU because of its area and campus, however, my sister goes to Bridgewater, cheaper, and has better programs for my majors. Nonetheless, I don’t want to attend a small college I just don’t feel like I would like the feel. My family wants to go to these schools because they believe that “I would do better at a smaller school” and “I don’t want you going far away for you to never see us”. If I did go to these colleges I would have the intent to transfer to a more prestigious one, rather it is a college with need-based aid or an in-state such as UVA or W&M. I would like to also point out that I won’t totally neglect the college that I go to. I read stories where someone attends a college and intends to transfer and they just stay in their dorm all day and not try to have a college experience, this would not me.

Community College:
This route my family does not, at all, want me to go to. I would go to well-regarded CC during the summer, fall, and spring semesters and transfer to an amazing university in the fall. I would go for free, with no loans at all. My federal grant would be able to cover the tuition. However, I would be sleeping on my grandma’s couch for what seems like a year and would have to deal with the social ridicule of saying I am going to a CC as the class president, someone that is supposed to be the best in the class.

Those are my options. Considering I applied to 30 colleges you can tell that I am extremely indecisive. Currently, I have found loans that I could get, furthermore, I am applying to tens of scholarships a day, but I have yet to receive one. Thank you for taking the time in reading about my story and my eventual future.

2

If your plan is to go to law school (which is very expensive), your best bet would be to get through your undergraduate degree with no debt. Graduating with $140K+ in debt for your undergraduate would likely make law school next to impossible. I’m not even sure how you can qualify for loans that size without a cosigner.

If you don’t want to go the CC/transfer route, then pick one of the smaller schools and cover the $3-4K cost with earnings from a summer job. You could pick a larger school for law school.

3

Go the community college route. It is the cheapest and will get you to your goal of law school just like all the others. As far as your point of being “ridiculed”, I never heard of anyone with 3.06 GPA being ridiculed for attending community college.

4

I agree that I would not go into huge debt before getting into law school. Are your parents signing for your loans?

5

Be cautious about your intention to transfer.
Other than Federal loans, Transfer students will not typically qualify for merit aid they might have gotten as freshman.
Even if you do a successful transfer to a more prestigious school, there’s no assurance that you’ll be able to afford it then.

I agree that if law school is on your horizon, then you’ll want to keep your undergrad costs as low as possible.

Check with both of your low cost options to see which has the better career and/or pre-professional advising department. Which has a better track record for getting their students into law school?

It sounds as if you’re an accomplished, smart student. That means that wherever you end up, you’re bound to do well.

Good luck.

6

@2plustrio I would most likely get them myself and have my grandmother or another family member co-sign on it

7

@NJCity It’s not necessarily being ridiculed because of my GPA, more along the lines that I have enormously high expectations from everyone.

8

@hop If I were to transfer it would be schools that have need-based aid (Ivy League, UNC, etc) or my State Schools that I, of course, did not get into for my Freshman Application. Any of these options are way more affordable to what I am looking at now.

9

@thedreamydaisy Well the main reason I am still hanging onto the big schools is that I feel like I would be missing out on a lot of opportunities if I were to go to the smaller schools for four years in case I cant transfer, nonetheless, missing out on my freshman year among many other things at whatever school I would go to if I were to transfer.

10

What others from high school think about if you got to CC won’t matter. You won’t likely see them nearly so often as you have and if they are in the CC, too, then what would they care if you are also there? I know it might feel people will judge you but most people spend 99% of the time thinking of themselves and if they do think of you, they will go back to thinking of themselves right after and forget about it. You are not living for other people but for yourself. You have to make the choices that are best for you. It sounds like you would want to consider CC if not for your concern about what others might think. I think a lot of people would think you are being smart financially and respect your choice, if that is what you choose. You don’t want to start down the road of making important life decisions out of worry what others will think but what is right for you. Good luck! You will have a lot better chance reaching your own high expectations if you don’t doom yourself financially by getting super in debt from the outset.

11

What I mean is, your GPA is not that high, why would they expect you to go to a top school? Worry about what is best for you and save as much as you can for law school.

12

The kind of debt you are considering is just plain stupid. Don’t do that to yourself or to your potential co-signer(s). Choose one of the places that you can afford with either no federal loans, or only the bare minimum of federal loans.

I would recommend that you start at one of your 4-year options rather than the CC. If you do super well, you can always apply for transfer to the kinds of places that are currently on your application list coming from a CC.

Living with your grandma for a year or two while you complete your transfer requirements at the CC could be kind of fun. But it is risky in that you might end up with no truly affordable options after your transfer applications. Does the CC you are looking at have a formal articulation agreement with a public university in VA where your aid package would be guaranteed to be affordable for a student with an EFC of 0?

13

If law school is a possibility, don’t incur large undergrad debt. My understanding is that VA has good articulation agreements between CCs and their four year Us - a year or two of strong grades at CC saves you money and puts you in a good position to transfer to UVA, W&M, CNU, etc. to complete your degree.

VWU and Bridgewater are affordable. Just be sure the courses you take would be acceptable for transfer credit to preserve that option.

Have you looked at the transfer admission rates for Ivy League and UNC OOS? Those are very, very small.

14

You can’t go to the colleges that are wayyyyy out of your budget.

Ridicule for going to CC? Newflash: no one cares what you do when you’re out of high school. Your options are what they are because of the choices made by YOU. Your GPA is down to you and no one else. If your GPA had been higher, you would have had better choices. You made a choice to do the bare minimum. Go to CC, get amazing grades, and transfer into one of VA’s excellent public U’s. If you are as smart as you say you are, this should be easily done.

Do you mean everyone has enormously high expectations of you? Well, so what? The best route for you is the one that allows you to prove that you can meet those expectations. I’m guessing they wrongly thought you had a much higher GPA than you do have. Guess the time to have thought about that would have been back in 9th or 10th grade. Seems to me that someone full of ambition who wants to go to law school would be pretty smart to graduate with as little debt as possible.

As a person who took the CC to four year university route and did it in six years, I’m going to tell you unequivocally that my degree is worth exactly the same as the student who started at my university as a freshman and earned the degree in four years. In the job market, no one cares if you earned a degree in four years or six. It’s your work experience and who you are that matters.

15

You said you didn’t try hard or study much in HS. Studying, doing research and completing large reading and paper writing assignments takes discipline, and it doesn’t just fall out of the sky. Add this to your significant financial hardship challenge, and you should, IMO, start low and go slow— go to a CC with minimal cost and see if you can manage the academic demands of college.

Once you get your academic “sea legs” under you and get a strong GPA, you can explore transferring, but transferring to Ivys (as you entitled was a goal) is VERY hard as spots are very limited. Worry about transferring after you have at least a good solid successful academic year under your belt.

Many schools may be offering mostly if not completely online classes, so keep that in mind as you work on your study skills.

16

Can you expand on what you don’t like about VWU or Bridgewater? Those look like your only realistic options if you don’t want CC. Is there a reason you didn’t apply to say VCU, UMW or Longwood/Radford which are instate for you and likely affordable? You could always transfer to a Virginia state school after either a year at one of your small colleges or two years at CC. Or you could take a gap year and reapply. But help us understand why VWU doesn’t jibe with you.

EDIT: in general you seem to be hung up on prestige, like a sense of where you need/deserve to be to impress other people or yourself. This isn’t a helpful emotion and it’s clouded your decision making. Try to work past it.

17

@RelicAndType Personally I don’t like smaller schools, I feel like it won’t give me the most opportunities, the lack of large alumni compared to others, and in general, they are known for their educational programs compared to the other schools I wish to go to. Yes, prestige is a factor, it is not the only factor. I used the Ivy and UNC as examples of where I would wish to go if I do good as I am hoping. I have a whole list of amazing schools that I would love to go to if I were to transfer.

18

@jym626 Thank you for the advice. I am, at no means, saying CC will be easy for me. In fact, I recognize that it is a risk for me to go there. What if I stay the same? However, that’s not the question I am asking myself. I believe with an actual motivation, that I lacked in high school, and the resources my CC will provide for me it will allow me to excel near to my full potential. Like I said in my previous comment I was using the Ivy as an example, what is there not to like? If I do good as I am wishing I could potentially go to an amazing school along with their need-based aid my financial problems would be out the way, somewhat. If I were to do CC, I would go during the summer, fall, and spring and hopefully transfer in the Fall with a stellar GPA and a good story. I tend to push myself hard if I want to accomplish something, this is why I believe I can do it.

19

@Lindagaf Yes I am well aware of my lack of ambition throughout high school, you don’t have to shove it down my throat further. My main consideration of attending the OOS schools is because I would not have to go through CC or the smaller schools and still attend a good college in hopes of doing well.

20

@yaoponredux I have looked at the transfer rates at a whole list of prestigious schools for some time now. If I were to get denied by all the ridiculously prestigious ones I would still be happy to go to my In-state ones. Getting denied by all my in-state colleges I really wanted to go to was something that happened this application season, which lead me to here lol.