Hi. So I applied to UC San Diego (my dream school) and was accepted. I was super happy and blown away. But after all the celebrating, my parents and I looked more into it and it’s just not going to happen.
I come from a middle class family with an income of about $150,000 and I’m out of state. My calculated EFC was $38,000 with UCSD’s cost of attendance at $57,000. They gave me no grant/scholarship and the amount of aid I can get is $5000… It’s going to be around $50,000 a year.
We can’t do that ;((( So is there any advice or anything else that could help? Can anyone relate? I don’t know what to do. My dreams have been crushed. I worked really hard at school to get here and it’s crazy that all of it means nothing in an instant.
I wanted to go here because of my major. There is a school in my city that also has my major’s program, but I went on a tour and it just isn’t what I want. It’d be cheaper. I have scholarships there. But you know it’s the less expensive vs. prestigious college debate. “What’s the job turnout?” That stuff. I don’t know what to do now besides curl up in a fetal position and cry. Thoughts?
Starting this Fall, the UC’s will no longer offer FA for OOS students.
Did you run the Net Price Calculator before applying?? It would have given a pretty accurate picture of the aid you could have expected…
The UCs are accepting OOS student so that they will have to pay the high price and help fund the school.
Did you run the Net Price Calculator before you applied?
Even under the old OOS FA system, you would not have gotten any aid. The old system for OOS students was EFC plus $23k. So, even under the old system, your situation would have been $38k + $23k = $61k…so you still would not have gotten ANY aid except a $5500 loan.
With a $150,000 family income, you would have been expected to be full pay at any UC anyway. The expectation is you would pay your family EFC (which for you was probably in excess of $35,000 a year) PLUS the differential between in and out of state tuition ($24,000) PLUS a student contribution of several thousand dollars.
I’m sorry you didn’t realize this before you applied.
In addition to the link provided above, UC’s have never provided financial aid for the out of state tuition surcharge (of around $25K) for out of state students. Typically state public colleges do not provide financial aid to out of state students. When posters talk about scholarships for out of state students for in-state universities, they are typically referring to merit scholarships. The UC’s do not give out a lot of merit scholarships and the ones they do give out are very small in amount.
I am sorry that your “dreams” are crushed but UCSD makes the nature of their financial aid for out of state students pretty well known on their website as well as numerous previous posts here on cc. The fortunate thing is that you have your in-state school option and scholarships to cover it. My children attended public out of state colleges, but their merit scholarships made them cheaper than my children attending our UC’s. Good luck.
Not sure which state you are in, but if you have a special major look into this - http://www.wiche.edu/wue.
You aren’t stupid, your counselor or parents should have researched this information. EVERY kid from my older son’s year who went to a college that they didn’t especially want to, ended up happy. Some of the kids who got into top pick/ivy schools weren’t so happy.
(1) There’s nothing wrong with curling up in a fetal position and crying for a while. That’s probably what I would do.
(2) Once you’ve got that out of your system, get up, throw your sopping wet pillow case into the dryer, and, as @thumper1 said, start exploring your other college options.
If your only affordable option is the college in your home town that you do NOT want to attend, one thing you can do is take a year off, and do a new round of applications for the following year - and this time, focus on colleges that you know will be affordable. We’ll help you.
It sucks to be where you are right now, but if you achieved your goal of getting admitted to UCSD, it’s pretty clear that you’re going to be able to achieve lots of other things . . . even if you don’t know what they are yet. Don’t give up - this is just the beginning.
my son last year wanted to go to UCLA. we’re from the midwest and it sounded so perfect!
but we have a similar situation to yours - and found out about the costs between jr/sr years (thanks to this website) and he’s at our local state university now. Doing fine, too.
Sorry for the crushed expectations – Good Luck wherever you end up-- and save a ton of money for your own kids when they hit college ages.
My DD majored in bioengineering. Really…a bachelors in that gets you no place…you need a masters degree. So…look into what you would need to major in undergrad school. It doesn’t have to be bioengineering.
I can second what @thumper1 said. My DD is a mechanical engineering major and she said that all of her friends who came in as freshman biomed majors switched to other majors. Most students with an ME degree can get the jobs that involve biomed and it will give you more options if you don’t want to do biomed after you graduate. It doesn’t work the otherway around.
There are a lot of great colleges that offer biomed that are more affordable for you. As someone suggested, you might want to take a gap year and reapply to those kind of colleges. Even at full pay at some state flagships like Georgia Tech (which is great both in ME and BME) the full pay price would be close to your UCSD EFC of $38K and you may even get a little merit money to make that price less.
As @mom2collegekids suggested, throw an app to UAB to give you more options for this year.
Every year around May 1 the National Association of College Admissions Counselors post a list of colleges that still have space available and which ones still give out scholarships so that may be another options. Go and attend the admitted students day at the college in your city. You may get excited about it. You can always go to UCSD for graduate school. Good luck.