Is Berkeley OOS even worth applying to if I am applying to 10+ colleges?

College Search & Selection
21

I wouldn’t apply to UCB. Your odds of getting in as an OOS applicant are low to start with, and your GPA will be a sticking factor & make it even less likely. PLUS it sounds like you can’t afford it, which makes it a wasted application fee, IMO. Nowadays, with the glut of Super Smart And Awesome kids all going to Super Awesome Colleges, many with business degrees, there’s just not promise of getting a job, let alone a great job, let alone one that will pay you enough to pay off loans. Undergraduate business degrees are a crapshoot in terms of guaranteeing you a lucrative job post-grad. If you’re really interested in business, the far smarter plan is to major in something else at a school you can attend debt-free, then apply to a competitive MBA program and hope to get accepted to one that throws money at you.

It’s also hard to accurately chance you because I think your predictions, while they may come true, are edging on the side of over-confident. You assume you’ll be able to get a 2300 on your SATs b/c your family tests well. That’s awesome! But you never know. Ditto, predicting your GPA… I guess I’m skeptical that you can bring it up to a 3.9 from a 3.6 between now and senior year. That’s a huge jump. I would make your application plans based on the 3.6 GPA and of course hope for the best (upward trends can only work in your favor!). And of course, once your real stats roll in, repost on CC so you can be more accurately chanced.

Your list doesn’t have any real safeties, IMO… I don’t think of Penn as a safety for most people! Are they likely to offer you money? I would find some schools with 50% or higher admit rates + are known for merit aid. You want to find places where your stats are better than the average/top 25% admitted, so you’re competitive for merit aid. The figure skating thing is really cool and will make for interesting essays, but I don’t think it would make you an auto-admit at any hyper competitive school. I think you’ve in NoVA too, which makes it even more competitive if you plan to stay on the East Coast. You’re essentially competing against your regional peers, who are nationally known for being insanely smart/having perfect GPAs/perfect SATs, etc. So I would take off UCB and find at least one true safety–where financial obligation factors into making the school “safe”–your parents can either afford to pay for it, or they are likely to offer you a lot of money. And nail down a figure with your parents of what they can really afford–what’s the most they can contribute per year? Do not go to any school where you have to take out more than, say, 30K loans over four years… but take out NO loans if you can. Loan repayments are no joke, and suck up a huge chunk of your income for years, sometimes decades.

I’m sorry to be a downer! I do think you’ll have a very interesting application, actually, and any school that considers applicants holistically you’ll have a shot. But the trick with a lot of schools is you still have to meet their minimum profile threshold to be considered holistically, so at schools where you’re competing with 50% of the applicants having 4.0 GPAs, etc… you’ll have to fight harder to get to the essay evaluation round. But at less competitive schools, you’ll have greater odds of consideration + standing out (and getting merit aid). Your instinct is right to find schools that consider applicants holistically. Good luck!

22

@albert69 tbh I havent actually finalized what safety is best for me. I am a VA resident, and all the good “safety” business schools are below average except VT. But I can’t go to VT because there is no figure skating club, and not only that, but there isn’t even an ice rink within 1 hour so I couldn’t even drive to a rink if I wanted. I was also considering ohio state, but thats farther away and the ice rink is not as good as penn. During senior year I will talk about it with my parents for sure.

I meant that a more prestigious business school/college would cost more money than lets say a safety b-school/college. in most cases, a well known college lets me experience a better college life than the safety, and also increases my salary. So a better college-> higher debt -> $$$ job PLUS a better college life, whereas, a safety/lesser known college -> little to no debt -> $-$$ job and most likely not as good of a college life, so basically in the end I still end up having the same amount I have to pay in both schools, if that makes sense?

@bodangles yes, if you read my op, it says that the 3.6 will hopefully be my overall GPA. It may seem far fetched to you, but I have learned from my previous lessons by picking out/requesting certain teachers for certain subjects, taking 2 easy AP’s, 3 regular classes, and only 1 HN this time, which will get me at least a 3.85 gpa (and colleges like to see a signif. upward trend with increasing APs).

I don’t know much about senior year yet, but it doesn’t matter how many APs I will take, as long as I get at least a 3.9 UW (so maybe a few regular/HN core classes + 2-3 ap electives)

23

@proudterrier thanks for your input. Regarding the SATs, I will take it at least 3 times so I can get at least a 2250, ad regarding the GPA, please read above post that I sent to bodangles!

24

“and I have a 3.6, solid ecs…”
You don’t HAVE a 3.6. Pick your schools accordingly. I can say I’ll get a 4.0 for the rest of my engineering career. That doesn’t mean I’m actually going to be able to do it.

25

@bodangles oops, sorry about for the confusion, I guess I was trying to keep it short on accident because my OP was already really long and was afraid of people not reading it. But you could probably see the reasoning behind as to why I could most likely go from a 3.06-3.85?

And of course in a bad case scenario, once my overall gpa officially comes up and my GPA is lower than a 3.6, then I will definitely have to take out some colleges off my list, like upenn, cornell, etc. depending on how bad the scenario is. But my point is chancing me on what my gpa could be.

I know it is hard to chance based on predictions, but if it is difficult for people then they really don’t have to do it

26

@proudterrier @gmtplus7 @albert69 actually, I just remembered that my dad who works at gtown just got a certificate for working with them for 15 years, which also means that apparently I get more financial aid to other colleges

What do you guys think about the financial aid?

27

“Penn” ^= “Penn State”. “Penn” is short for the University of Pennsylvania.

Why would Wake Forest be your reach, when almost all the other colleges on your list are more selective? A “reach” is a desirable college that is not too likely to accept you. Almost every college on your list is a high reach (if not out of reach) for someone with a sophomore GPA of 3.09. At Berkeley and Chicago, for example, about 98% of entering freshmen graduated in the top 10% of their HS classes. At Wake Forest, the corresponding figure (for 2013-14) was 77%. I think Penn State is the only school on your list where less than 50% of entering freshmen were in the top 10%. At most of the others, that figure would be ~70%-95%.

Furthermore, some of them are not too appropriate if you’re interested in a business degree.
Chicago, Williams, Middlebury, and maybe a couple others do not have undergraduate business programs.
Have a look at the University of Richmond if you want a small college with strong business programs.
Richmond seems to be about as selective as WF (and much less so than Middlebury or Williams).

Have you run the online net price calculators for a few of these schools to estimate the Expected Family Contribution? If so, have you talked to your parents about whether they can cover the EFCs?

28

I assume u mean Penn State. “Penn” means UPenn.

You’ve already indicated that cost is an issue, so how can Penn State be a safety? You are a VA resident. You are OOS for Penn State, just like you’d be OOS for UCB. A safety has to be a FINANCIAL safety, too.

You have to get ADMITTED into Georgetown first. Do not underestimate the difficulty of that! You have a middling GPA and the kids who get into Gtown w a middling GPA have a big “hook” to balance it out (e.g. URM, recruited athlete, development case, famous parents, famous in their own right).

Just as probable a scenario is “more debt, lower salary”. Those startclass salaries you cited earlier are an AVERAGE. Than means some grads will have higher salaries & some will have lower salaries. Computer automation is wiping out a lot a solid paying white-collar jobs.

http://fortune.com/2015/02/25/5-jobs-that-robots-already-are-taking/

You seem to be counting your chickens in a big way…

29

I don’t get it. You still haven’t told us what you can pay for college. What are we supposed to think about financial aid if you can’t tell how much you need? Can your parents pay $0? $500? $5000? $10,000? Give us an idea. Are your parents fine with cosigning on major loans for you? You can only borrow $5500 as a freshman (and only slightly more as a junior and senior). And that won’t pay for Penn State. Like we keep telling you, you really don’t have safeties. You need to find safeties - financial and admission wise. Your GPA at this time isn’t even good enough to get some of the scholarships listed at the link posted upthread - a 3.6 would qualify you for some. Some say that a safety is a school where you are in the top 25% of students - are your stats really in the top 25% of students at Penn State?

I know you may think that you’re too good for a state school in Virginia. But how do you know that the business schools in VA except for are “below average”? What does that mean?

30

@GMTplus7 please keep i mind that I said OTHER colleges, not georgetown. And I already said that I am still not quite sure what my safety is yet because It does not mater at the moment. once I am a senior then I will talk about it with parents

@tk21769 Again, I have already said this so I will just quote it

“yes, if you read my op, it says that the 3.6 will hopefully be my overall GPA. It may seem far fetched to you, but I have learned from my previous lessons by picking out/requesting certain teachers for certain subjects, taking 2 easy AP’s, 3 regular classes, and only 1 HN this time, which will get me at least a 3.85 gpa (and colleges like to see a signif. upward trend with increasing APs).”

I am a sophomore, obvously I wll not graduate with a 3.06.

31

Virginia has numerous good public universities. You need to look at them much more carefully. With your current GPA you need to seriously consider places like James Madison–whether you can skate there, I don’t know.

32

Given that what little information you have given indicates that your list is all reaches, your actual safety would be to attend a community college, do well there, and then transfer to a university (probably a VA public) to complete your bachelor’s degree.

33

@albert69 no, I don’t think I am “too good” for them. I was looking at the state schools *vcu, jmu, gmu, etc) and they are all below average b-school except maybe VT where like I said, I am unable to skate, so that would rule out all va schools.

my Parents can pay for ivy schools since they have the best fin aid, so I would say I can pay around 10-20 grand a year if that helps

@Hunt ^^

34

@ucbalumnus are you saying that I woudn’t have a good chance at penn state

35

D’Nile is not just a river in Africa

36

@gmtplus7 what am I denying…

my sister goes to columbia, and is graduating this year. we only have to pay 10-15k a year for her. Ivy leage schools have so much money that they don’t need to make people pay a ton of money for them if they can’t afford it. as long as you apply for fin aid and your income is <200k then you will be able to recieve FA, trust me I know this.

37

You need to have an honest sit down with your parents and go over what THEY can afford. Ivies, sure, have the best financial aid and some private places claim to meet full need, but the gray reality is that students can only take $5,500 in loans first year and that amount goes up 1K per year (so 6,500 sophomore year, 7,500 junior year etc.) Any extra money that needs to be taken out has to be taken out by Mom and Dad or withdrawn from any savings accounts.

It’s not worth it to apply to a school you can’t afford even if it is your dream school. Besides, based on your list, you don’t have many schools where you have a strong chance of getting in. Most of the schools on your list are reaches. You need some more instate, possibly public, schools where you can definitely afford, definitely get in, and DEFINITELY LOVE. You wouldn’t have a good chance at any OOS public mainly because you’re out of state. It may seem like a hook but really, a strong percentage of the student body will be from PA or CA or wherever.

There are some great schools in VA you can apply to, given they are affordable. UVA, URichmond, W&L, etc. Those aren’t safeties but you get my drift. Pull in the radius bubble a little and find yourself some REAL safeties closer to home whether that be in VA, DC, MD or NC…reel in the fishing rod just a tiny bit. I’m not being a downer…it doesn’t hurt to dream…but you have to be realistic about this whole process especially since finances are an issue.

38

@Didactic thanks for the tips. I was considering Urichmond, but i don’t think their bisness school is good, and I don’t even thing WL has one. Also I do not like UVA

39

@TheDidactic you think I would have a chance at UVA?

40

W&L has a strong business program actually. I had spoken with an alumni who was a business major and is now at a good business/accounting firm. And you possibly have a chance at UVA. Your GPA is a little low but if you get it up, you have a shot.