Subtract scholarships from out-of-state costs to see if the remaining net price is affordable. If your parents contribute $0, then you need to come up with the amount, which can include up to $5,500 federal direct loans plus what you can earn from work earnings during the summer and part time in the school year.
thank you so much for your input !! i’m a little hesistant on U Missouri because of the region but i’ll consider it. I’ll definitely add Georgetown and GWU too.
My high school does send kids to Posse, I recently learned about this lol. One of my speech captains last year went to Dickinson College with it.
a previous comment mentioned Georgetown so I’ll look into that. NW, Oberlin, and Vassar are all QB partner schools so I’ll do some research into them. Northwestern sounds super cool. and NYU !! definitely putting that on my list since I love New York :] thank you so much for the input !
a little update or clarification lol. don’t know if anyone will ever actually see this. both my parents are college-educated but they went to school in China. anyways my dad is really, let’s say, hands on with this whole process. i think he’ll loosen up a bit when it comes to college app season but currently he’s pushing for me to score 1500+ on the SAT (retaking in August, I currently have a 1470) as if my life depends on it. i’m talking 2 hours (it was 3 last night) and i’m still 4 months out. he also have very strong opinions on where i should and should not apply. now i know i should not let him control so much, it’s not him going to college. but what do i do except listen to him and agree? he thinks i should avoid the midwest and south (probably the only point i agree on but unlike him, I’m open to suggestions) and that i should not even consider ANY “colleges” (as in, institutions that are only 4-year with no grad school. ex. Swarthmore, Amherst, Barnard, Haverford). He’s also strongly against me going to the Chicago area or anywhere near it (sorry, Northwestern). not only that but he doesn’t want me considering “lower” colleges (CSUs, ASU, etc). I obviously need a safety even if i don’t want to go to a CSU and just Merced is not gonna cut it. maybe around college app season he’ll loosen the reins a little bit but i highly doubt that he’s going to stop controlling or “giving his opinions so that i have a better future” anytime soon. i brought up the Swarthmore fly in the other day since I’ve looked into it and I really liked swarthmore (in part because it was the first “college junk mail” i got from CB and i was intrigued), but he flat out laughed at me and asked me “you’re not seriously considering it, right?”. as much as i don’t want to admit it, that hurt a bit. this is turning into a rant but i genuinely need some advice. y’all have been super helpful and i don’t want to trouble y’all any longer :(( but it would really be greatly appreciated for any advice.
2-3 hours per night over 4 months is an immense waste of time for 30 SAT points. Even if you wanted to try for the extra 30 SAT points, there should be far more efficient ways to do any needed additional preparation.
In China, university admission is based on a single standardized test that students study extensively for (and it covers more subject material, so there is more to study for). He may be projecting his own experience onto you, even though it is quite different in the US.
In other words, reach or bust. What will he say if you bust (get shut out)?
i agree… the average is at least 1 hr or 1 hr 30 min. this week has been an easy week for me in terms of schoolwork which is why i could have dedicated so much time to it in the first place. he believes i have the potential to get a perfect score which is why he’s pushing so hard. honestly it’s exhausting. i have a 1470 already, it’s not a terrible score, schools are going optional and my “main” schools (UCs) are going blind for my app cycle. the only part i would see an SAT score helping is with QB.
i’ve considered that… he puts a lot of weight on the SAT even though it’s being steadily phased out while I’m more concerned about my lack of good ECs. he couldn’t care less that i’ve woken up in a cold sweat about not having enough ECs. my parents taking away my involvement in ECs during sophomore year for a relationship really hurt the “dedication” aspect that i think colleges want to see and now I’m trying to cram 2 years of ECs and growth into 1.
probably won’t get shut out but just very heavy disappointment. he says “you’ll blame me if you don’t get into a good college” and he says this often. i want to aim for UCLA even though its statistically improbable but i also want to leave and go to the east coast. I’m not a bad student, I know this. but i still need a safety even if i don’t doubt that I’ll get into a good or even great college. I’m LGBTQ+ that’s closeted anyways, if he shuts me out it’ll probably be for that.
Being shut out is a REAL possibility for a student who’s ORM and low income.
And there’s nothing you can do to avoid that, because what matters to elite universities isn’t in your hands. You’re not ranked based on scores, but on various institutional priorities.
What IS in your hands is applying to affordable safeties and matches.
(In fact most elite universities have zero interest in a perfect score. It counts for university of Alabama and similar. BTW, a perfect ACT is relatively easier to get than a perfect SAT, so if that’s your father’s goal, take the ACT and as a bonus it’d give you a guaranteed full ride at UAlabama if you’re shut out and need to get out.
Just remember it’ll matter very little to elite universities. Vanderbilt cares but other than that… plus, if you apply through Questbridge, it’ll validate your general academic background. All Questbridge applicants are top students.
Lots of Asian parents advocate test prep-> test scores so good scores are not even that distinguishing.
Here if you meet the threshold, +10, +30…doesn’t matter whereas in China +0.1 may make a difference!)
hi again :)) thank you for the advice. keeping this in mind i’ll be sure to make my essays extra good and to apply to safeties. i’m not too keen on a perfect score either since it really doesn’t matter to me (or most colleges), and I don’t think I’ll be taking the ACT. full ride sounds tempting but i don’t know about UAlabama… i think i’d rather go North.
Unfortunately, it seems like your father both does not understand college admissions in the USA while, at the same time, is certain that he understands them better than anybody else.
You can show him the fact that the percent of student from liberal arts colleges who do PhDs, or who end up working at top companies, is higher than for most of the universities that he considers to be so great. Talk about the low admission rates, show him the average SAT scores of the students who attend these colleges, as well as the fact that a far higher percent of students from these colleges do their PhD than from either UCLA or Berkeley. You can also show where the graduates of these colleges end up working, and show him that these are great colleges for helping you get a good job.
Why does he think that having a graduate school is a benefit for an undergrad? It just means that there are a lot of graduate students and that you are more likely to be taught by a graduate student than by a professor.
Also, the Claremont Colleges (Pomona, CMC, Pitzer, HMC, and Scripps) do have a graduate school, and a very good one at that.
He should also know that the crime rate around UCLA is FAR higher than around Northwestern.
Show him the Common Data Sets from the schools that he thinks are the best ones for you, where they write the factors which they consider in admissions. It may get him to understand that admissions are not just about GPA and SAT scores.
Also show him the news reports about how the UCs and other top colleges are going to be either test optional or test blind next year, you your SAT doesn’t matter at all.
Also show him some basic statistics - that your chances of being accepted into the universities which he thinks are appropriate are not that high, even though you have top grades and scores.
I’m sorry that you’re dealing with this - having parents who are at once super controlling and clueless is really difficult.
thank you so much :(( if i ever do decide to sit down and talk to my dad about this i will definitely bring these points up. i’ve never been one for confrontation so it’ll be a process, and i think qb will be super helpful for me to be a little more independent in college apps.
You sound like you could be a terrific candidate for this undergrad fellowship program at Claremont McKenna: About 1 — Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies (Not something you can apply to until you’re there, but just to give you an idea of the kind of opportunities that are available.) IR and poli sci are very strong at the Claremont Colleges, and the consortium-wide campus newspaper has launched some impressive journalism careers. Recent grads from just the past couple of years are working at the NYT, WSJ, and SF Chronicle. As MWolf pointed out, the 5C’s have a grad school - not that undergraduate-only should be a deal-breaker, but this might make the concept more palatable to your family. CMC, Scripps, and Pomona are all Questbridge partners. If applying outside of Questbridge, CMC heavily favors Early Decision applicants.
Make a spreadsheet of all the schools you’re looking at; run the NPC’s for all, and note your projected net cost for each. California is a pretty good state in terms of providing adequate aid for lower-income students at its public universities, but you may still find that your prospects for minimizing debt are better at private institutions. (Questbridge Match is the best case scenario, but odds of Matching are fairly long so that’s not to be counted upon.)
Most OOS publics won’t be practical financially, but a few do meet need: UVA, UNC Chapel Hill, and for low-income students, UMichigan. Run the NPC’s for these too.
Agree that Northwestern Medill is the proverbial brass ring for your interests - all students choose an academic concentration outside of journalism, which can be poli sci. UPenn is another one to look at - the undergrad Communication major is in Arts & Sciences, but administered and taught by Annenberg faculty - an optional concentration in Politics and Policy is offered within the Communication major.
Northeastern U could also be worth a look - you can do a combined degree in Journalism and Poli Sci there, with co-op placements that can really help to build a resume. Journalism and Political Science, BA < Northeastern University Again, run the NPC - they can be generous with some financial profiles and stingy with others.
You can tell your father that Reagan, Nancy Pelosi, Eileen Chao, Condoleezza Rice, and Hilary Clinton are or were all graduates of liberal arts colleges as are/were the founders of tech companies such as John McAfee (McAfee), Peter Norton (Norton), Larry Sanger (Wikipedia), and Tom Oreck (Oreck) and others, as well as the CEOs of dozens of companies, including Disney, Albertson’s, J.P. Morgan, Texas Instruments, GE and many many more.
hi !! sorry for such a late reply, for some reason i don’t think I saw this notification. Thank you for your recommendation of the CMC schools !! unfortunately I feel it is too close to home for me. I’m aware that they’re excellent schools but I really would not want to go to a school that is an hour drive away (i know im contradicting myself, UCLA is exactly that but its hard to explain). Northwestern is an interesting choice but I might pursue a solely poli sci major.