Hello, I am a senior in high school that is nearing the end of college admissions process. Here are my results:
Syracuse-Admitted to Business School
Babson College-Admitted
Temple University- Admitted to Business School (9k Scholarship w/ 3k grants)
Indiana University-Admitted
University of Minnesota- Admitted
Michigan State- Admitted for Spring 2016 (There are too many students for Fall 2015) (Instate)
University of Michigan- Denied (Instate)
University of Texas Austin- Denied
While I am very fortunate to have been admitted to the majority of the universities I applied to, I feel my options are both slim and slightly undesirable. First and foremost, I have to disregard both Babson and Syracuse because I didn’t get the aid I wanted, and attending either university would simply cost too much. After that, I have eliminated Minnesota because I didn’t think it was great fit, which leaves me down to Temple and Indy.
While both schools are great, they have glaring issues from my perspective. Indiana has a fantastic business school, but playing 45k a year is insane. Temple has a pretty good business school, but my mom is a bit worried about the area around it. It also is kind of far from home.
With no options that really appeal to me a ton, I began to think about going to community college and transferring at a later time. After thinking about things, I feel like I present a good reason to go to CC for a short period of time and then transferring. Here are my reasons:
- As previously mentioned, I don't like my options. Michigan is by far my dream school, and I'm not going to lie, it sucked when I got denied. It made all the other schools a little less attractive to me. I would love to transfer there, even though it's hard. I talked to my college counselor, and she said that an admissions officer from Michigan told her that they don't take as many kids applying from other universities (even U of M Flint and Dearborn) as they do from CC. My end goal would be to attend Ross. I am also interested in some schools I didn't apply to, such as UVA and UNC.
- I received almost no financial aid from colleges because on paper, my family looks rich. In reality, however, my family has had a lot of turmoil after my dad passed away during Junior year. He was a lawyer and owned a law firm that employed my mother (not as an attorney). My mom does not have a college education and she isn't allowed to own the law firm because she isn't a lawyer (it's a law, I guess). While we have some property, we have been forced to sell some of it just to cut our losses. So far this year she has collected a whopping 6k in income. I'm hoping that later on I could get some money, although I think it's doubtful.
- I'm in a situation where I haven't been admitted to any instate school for fall of 2015, which mean out of state fees. While I have limited knowledge of transferring, I don't see why I would try to transfer to a school like Indiana for fall of Sophomore year. I would be able to get into business school while avoiding a 45k tuition to take required classes.
- My high school career was pretty interesting. My dad was fighting cancer since Freshmen year. He was mainly treated at University of Michigan's hospital, which is an hour away from my house. My mom drove there each day at 1 and wouldn't get home until around 8 or even later. This left me home alone with a lot of responsibilities. I wasn't able to do extracurriculars due to the fact that there was no way for me to get home without a bus. At the end of the day, I didn't have a ton of ECs. My grades also suffered a bit. My Freshmen year GPA was around a 3.2, and during Sophomore year after receiving a 2.9, I started to push myself harder. I ended up finishing the year with a 3.5, and during Junior year, even after my dad died the first week, I got a 3.9 the entire year. That said, I don't think I did a good job of explaining the situation in its entirety to them. I'm not blaming my denial on this, but I think I should've done some things like write a letter of interest and getting a letter of Rec from the doctor that operated on my dad, since he's from U of M's hospital. I will say that my 28 on the ACT might have been a little bit below average for this class, although I do know kids who have been accepted/waitlisted with a 28.
That’s the situation I am in right now. I really haven’t considered CC until today, so I don’t have a ton of knowledge. I was hoping I could get some opinions from someone with more knowledge about this stuff. I appreciate any advice, so thanks in advance!
Except for UVA and UNC, out-of-state public universities won’t offer much need-based financial aid to you. And these two are very competitive for out-of-state students to get admitted to.
Do you live in Ohio? If so, then the most common transfer targets if you start at a community college in Ohio would be Ohio public universities. At in-state public universities, you would get a lower starting price, and probably better financial aid than at out-of-state public universities.
Note that Michigan is expensive for out-of-state students, although it may offer good financial aid to the lowest income out-of-state students – check its net price calculator. Run the net price calculator on all of the four year schools you are considering applying to before you make your application list. Note that merit scholarships tend to be less common for transfer students.
On these forums, someone will probably suggest taking a gap year (of no school at all) and reapplying as a frosh to a new list of colleges aimed at affordability (either with need-based aid as shown on the net price calculator, or large enough merit scholarships). The most common type of gap year in practice would likely be working to earn and save money for college, although upper income people on these forums often talk about other types of structured gap year programs that cost money.
You have a good head on your shoulders to be considering CC at this point. A lot of kids in similar positions (not completely similar though) would scoff at the notion. Unfortunately, no matter what, you will financially suffer under the burden of loans if you go to any of these schools. Next year, since your finances would be glaringly different during the next year as the new FAFSA rolls over, your FA package may be a lot better by any of those schools IF you chose to enroll in one of them this fall.
It’s good to see that you have a firm idea about what is ridiculous tuition-wise. 45K for one year IS ridiculous and no prestige or alumni/job connections is worth that much. What did Minnesota give you by chance? I know you said it wasn’t a great fit but could you possibly explain more why you eliminated it? Temple is a good school as well but your mom has a reason to be worried; its area is pretty bad. Of course, in general, any city is bad and Philadelphia is no different. However, THAT area of Philly in particular isn’t good. I was going to apply to Temple–I really liked the school and its academics; however I was told by numerous people that it was unsafe and that you shouldn’t walk around at all after dark.
If you are a male, then you may have less of a reason to worry. However either way, safety is safety. You have two options from here to consider.
A.) Suck it up, take out some loans and go to one of the schools you have been accepted to.
This would mean heavy loans and having Mom cosign even though her financial situation isn’t the most stable either right now. This is not a recommended situation generally but if you want to do this, that’s your decision.
B.) Go to CC, take your required/general courses, save some money, and possibly work to help Mom etc.
This is a very viable option and if both you and Mom are okay with this, then I would say do it. I’m sorry that you’ve had to have such a rough high school career but you definitely seem stronger from it. You appear like a wise person who can see beyond the glimmering shine and understand the chains of student debt. Whatever you do, I wish you the best of luck!
Hey,
Going to college is an investment into your future. You need to make sure the investment you are making is something you can stand behind 100% of the time. If you do not feel comfortable/do not like the options of schools you have at the moment then do not spend the money/take out loans to go to a school where you aren’t happy. Reading over your statement it seems that you have had a really really difficult high school situation that one of my close friends was in. Her family makes about $120,000 per year. However, they don’t ever really get to see that much money due to taxes and bills they have to pay (medical, etc). They probably see about $30,000 of that. According to the state, she is considered “upper middle class” and doesn’t get any financial aid from the government. Her dream school was a smaller school in the north that cost about $32,000 a year. (not including books, etc) She went to the financial aid office and explained her situation in great detail. Unfortunately this is one of the flaws in the educational system as far as a student’s EFC (Estimated Family Contribution) that you have to file on for the FAFSA. The school understood and increased her funding greatly since the state could not do that. It’s hard to say this can happen for a state school, since her’s was a private, but just know that you are not the only one out there with this issue. She now ends up paying $2,000 out of pocket (she has an on-campus job to help her pay for that portion) Now, back to your CC question. Going to a CC is a gambling risk that you must take. If you go to a CC and don’t do well, regardless of your family troubles, you will have no other option but to stay or transfer to a school you don’t like. If you go to a CC and do extremely well then the options are endless. You just have to make that commitment to yourself that regardless of what is happening, you have to do extremely well. One of the downsides to going to a CC is having the “EC” portion of your resume. You have to go above and beyond to find organizations since they aren’t as prominent at CC campuses. So to summarize this lengthy paragraph, here is my advice:
- Explain your situation about your family income (just as you have above) to the counselor. Just because your mom makes X, Y, and Z doesn't mean that YOU have access to that X,Y, and Z. They will understand, trust me.
- Going to a CC is GREAT and opens up doors if you do EXTREMELY WELL. (I'm talking like a 3.8+)
- You have a pretty good ACT score - see if you can take it again and get it up to the "30" range. If you can, you'll open even more doors for college acceptances.
- Don't be afraid to take out loans. Debt is scary but if your career is worth it, then why not do it? You only get one chance to do it right. I don't mean loans like private loans where you need a co-signer (my friend's parents have bad credit so they couldn't) but the loans from the government or loans from the actual school.
- Apply for outside private scholarships
Sorry for the length but I’ve had multiple friends go through this problem so I tried to help in the best way that I can.
Good luck.
Thanks guys, I really appreciate the responses. They definitely helped, and I am definitely going to look even deeper into CC. I did forget to say that I do get social secruity from my dad until I graduate high school. All in all, I should have around 36k saved up in my college fund. It’s definitely nice to envision going to CC for a bit and then using that money to pay off the rest of the tuition at the University.
@BubblesMcGee I’ll definitely call Indiana and ask them what they could do for me. I know that there’s a few 3rd party scholarships around since he did have cancer, but money directly from the college would be nice. I really do need to look into the situation because as you mentioned there are tons of opportunities but I have to make sure I can commit myself.
@TheDidactic Yeah it’s a shame that Temple has that one flaw about it, because it is definitely an attractive school with the amount of scholarships they give out. With Minnesota I received a ton of loans. It turned out to be around 25k in loans which was nice because Indiana gave me about 5k.
@ucbalumnus I’m from Michigan so going to Michigan would’ve been amazing since it’s relatively (and I emphasize relatively) inexpensive.
I would go to Michigan State in the Spring of 2016. The Broad College of Business is excellent (no it is not Ross, which is elite, but still…). Indeed, Broad has one of the top 3 or 4 programs in supply chain management (my field). Also look into taking some CC courses that might transfer to MSU.
Happykid went to CC for two years, completed her AA degree, and then transferred to a state U that had a transfer agreement with her CC. All of her credits transferred exactly as the agreement had promised. She was really happy at the CC, and happy at her State U. When she graduated from her CC she thanked us for letting her stay home for two more years. It turns out that she hadn’t wanted to go away just yet, but we hadn’t known. In your case, you and your mom might like it if you can stay with her for a bit longer.
The Transfer Counselor at the CC that you would attend can help you find out about all of the transfer agreements between that CC and the 4-year colleges and universities. Some of that information might also be on the CCs website, or on the websites of the various colleges and universities in Michigan. Search them for “articulation agreement” or for “guaranteed transfer” or similar phrases.
Your CC might have some scholarship money to hand out. Check its website for that. Happykid’s CC has a number of different merit-based scholarships. She landed one that covered her tuition and fees for her whole AA program. All we had to pay for was her books and one remedial math class. The money we saved for those two years paid for a good chunk of her costs when she transferred.
If MSU’s price is affordable (with no more loans than the federal direct loans), consider going there.
Since you have spring admission, ask them if you can take community college courses during the fall and transfer them there for a low cost way to get some introductory level course work done. You can check transfer equivalency at https://transfer.msu.edu/Default.aspx to look up MSU courses that are listed for your major and general education requirements. If that is allowed, then you’ll earn an MSU degree with 7 semesters of MSU cost and 1 semester of community college cost.
Otherwise, your transfer targets if you go do CC would likely be the various state universities in Michigan (UM, MSU, etc.). UM does not have a very generous reputation for transfer credit; you may want to look up courses for your local CC(s) at http://www.ugadmiss.umich.edu/TCE/Public/CT_TCESearch.aspx . If UM does not accept the necessary courses for your major from your local CC(s), then your local CC(s) may not be good options to transfer to UM.
OP, you said you live approximately 1-hour From University of Michigan. What about attending one of the top Community College Feeder School for University of Michigan (Washtenaw Community College - M-POD), especially a CC that sends the most students to their Business School? Are any of these Community Colleges within commuting distance? Getting good grades from one of these Feeder Schools will increase your chances of getting into UM and possibly, Ross. You could do your first two years at one of the local Feeder CC and then transfer to UM.
@psata82 I’ve never really thought about that but that’s a great point. I was just going yo go to Oakland community college, which is 20 minutes away. However if there is a sizeable advantage to Washtenaw, it would definitely be worth the extra 20 minute drive each way.
I would suggest community college in the Fall, then MSU in the Spring semester. It’s easy to find classes than transfer.