Per naviance my daughter is more likely to be admitted to UCI than UCSB, I don’t know why that is. UCI is not a great campus, you’re right. If she gets into Davis it could be a contender. I’m hoping for Cal Poly slo, but she may go with an out of state private, she has some good scholarship offers.
@socalmom007 Many good engineer students apply to Cal Poly slo for their engineer program. I would rank UCs as follows:
UCB
UCLA
UCSD/UC Davis
UCSB/UC Irvine
Cal Poly slo: for engineering
UCSC
UC Merced/Riverside
Because these are all public colleges, Stanford as a large college has no equal in the Western part. The location is a huge advantage for Stanford; they also have money and LAND, lots of land. I didn’t know Stanford has one of largest campus in USA, over 8200 acres all connected – a lot of that undeveloped. They can keep growing because of these factors and because CA produces many smart kids.
I agree @websensation . As for community college, I’m afraid my daughter wouldn’t be interested. My son went the CC route, my daughter has worked so hard to have a cumulative 4.0, she would consider CC a failure. If not for the fact that she and her boyfriend want to go to school near each other, I think UCSC could be a viable option. Still holding out hope for Cal Poly Slo!
@socalmom007 Isn’t it a joke that with 4.0 gpa, it’s so hard for a CA resident student to go to one of top schools in CA? Ridiculous. A kid I know with near 4.0 unweighted gpa and 2350 SAT got rejected from both UCLA and UCB comp sci majors and only got into UCSD where he is getting close to 4.0 gpa. I also know one kid who went to Santa Monica for 2 years, got 3.3 gpa and managed to transfer to UCLA. Other Santa Monica kids who got 3.7+ gpa transferred to UCB. I even heard good demand for colleges like Chapman and Saddleback etc.
Yes, it’s sad. Near Ivy stats needed for our flagships. When they’re taking over 40% out of state applicants it makes natives a bit peeved.
UCs don’t even offer NM Finalist money. Lol I already heard of increasing class sizes at UCs. Not good.
I can understand the fear of >4 years. Oldest D is on the accidental 6 year plan (really 5 1/2 since she took a semester off). She changed majors a couple of times, took a bunch of classes required for PT school before she changed her mind about that… I’m glad she’s at an in-state public. We paid for one additional semester, but she had to take out loans after that. I’m not too worried about D17 though, as she’s a totally different animal. If she takes 5 years I’m pretty confident it will be due to co-op or a 4+1 masters program. :)>-
I am talking about 5 years of undergrad, a Masters and/or PhD program is a good possibility as well (hoping that would be funded but realizing that it might not be).
QOTD- We will only fund 4 years. Our kids know this and I don’t really see this being a problem.
@nw2this - I am aware of it. My son is planning to do medicine and that’s why I am saying that we are on hook for 8 years.
QOTD: I expect it will take about 4 1/2 years for DD14 and DS17 to graduate. That’s typical for engineering majors. Most engineering courses are sequential, so dropping and retaking a class could push graduation back a semester. Then you have to add minors, certificates, co-ops, internships, design or research projects, and it’s easy to push back graduation.
My DD14 has also been taking only 13 to 14 credits a semester, instead of the “planned” 15 or 16 (or 18) in the curriculum. Makes it a lot less stressful for her, when you take into account all of her leadership/ECs (things that show up on a resume) and such.***
Florida Bright Futures scholarship (pays up to 120 credit hours taken within 5 years), and Florida Pre-Paid (120 credit hours) both would still payout in a 5th year, up until she reaches 120 credits. If she gets an internship/co-op, the cost wouldn’t be much of a burden
***One of the advantages of going to an university that will accept AP/IB/AICE credits, is that it allows you to graduate earlier, or to take a few less credits a semester (like my DD14). If my DS17 goes to UF, he’ll have 30+ credits (closer to 40+), and even though many may not directly apply to an engineering curriculum, it still would cover most GA requirements. If he went to GT, I think he would only get 6 to 12 credits, while other schools may not allow any. It’s not uncommon for students at UF (outside of engineering) to graduate in 3 1/2 years, even with minors, etc. Then again, students at UF tend to switch majors a few times…
Physicians will at least have the ability to service a higher debt load. Try a kid looking to be a vet with a whole lot less ability to do so. Undergrad as cheap as possible (think free).
@Gator88NE – I hear you - DS plans EE degree and CS double major or minor or some MS combo. Accepted to GTech and the AP credits seem generous to me (i thought I counted that he could get 30-36 credit hrs). GTech also allows a lot of the Gen Ed courses to be taken pass/fail - yippee!! But they require lots of credit hours and courses for EE - I started to create a comparison chart for the schools he has been accepted into. Seems GTech student take 6 courses for several semesters. DS wants to do ECs, loves orchestra, research and either study abroad or an internship or Co-op etc. - not set on GTech yet though anyway. One thing I am looking at is hours required to be full time and prereqs too so we can help him evaluate the overall load and ability to progress towards desired degree(s) without a crazy amount of stress.
Thank you everyone for the congrats!
It turns out Rutgers might have pre-maturely released some of the scholarship information. They have shutdown the site till they are ready to officially announce the awards. So hopefully what we saw earlier stays…
Finally I decided to fill out the FAFSA. It has a lot less fields to fill out than I originally thought. So I did it super fast… Unfortunately I did it too fast, the EFC shown after submit is crazily large (compare to what I manually calculated way back when). I must have made some mistakes. I suspect some of the IRA rollover $ was mistakenly counted as income. But I can’t seem to be able to go back and fix anything (reopen it). Hope after the status changes from processing to complete(?), it will reopen for correction.
Well, good news, Olin is showing her application as complete! She (and I) don’t think she’ll get in, but at least she got everything in. It says the stuff from the GC came in on the day of the deadline (after me sending some very angry emails to the GC and asking for a meeting). Lesson learned about roosting on the GC’s head for next year with D18 if I need to.
Just signed her up for her last AP exams, cha ching. This year D18 did not take any AP classes, so I only had to worry about one kid. Last year I think I paid for 10 ap tests and three IB tests between the two of them, ouch.
H and his dad are headed off to the Falcons playoff game today. **Rise up!/b ).
@CA1543 I should have said that most of DS17 credits would be from Cambridge AICE (think IB) program, which is common in Florida, but not in Georgia. I really don’t know how may credits GT would award, but I’m thinking few if any (unlike my DS17 AP credits).
Getting a minor (and a certificate or two) is a popular option at Tech.
GT doesn’t offer “double majors”, but they call it a “second undergraduate degree”. It’s 36 hour requirement will definitely add time to graduation! ***
Your DS may want to think about the joint BS/MS program in EE. It’s one of those options they start thinking about as sophomores/juniors. GT offers great research opportunities, which would work well with the BS/MS program.
https://www.ece.gatech.edu/current-students/undergraduate/joint-bsms
***As an example how other schools would have different requirements for double majors within Engineering. UF would likely not approve a double major within the college of engineering (like EE/CIS), with the exception of the Aero/Mechanical double major, which only requires 9 additional credits (but UF would recommend the BS/MS 4+1 program, which is much like GT’s joint BS/MS program, before the double major…).
QOTD: x years?
I just checked D’17’s financial safety, and if she were to attend, she could get 67 hours of AP credit. I have no idea if it all would be usable, I doubt it, but it should allow time for some exploration and some fun. If she chooses some other options, as little as 12 hours might be applied to graduation.
The official policy is 4 years help, but if she selects a 5 five year Masters that gives her a lot of scholarship help, I would secretly like to fund her to finish the MOT with 0 debt. Things would have to work out about perfectly, though.
We plan, the universe laughs.
Credits that can actually be used varies by college. But its typically a lot less than you have. My son was a junior by credits when he started college (became a senior by credits after first semester). He could graduate in 3 years if he wanted to but there are some scheduling issues (in terms of the availability of classes in given sequences). Biggest benefit from what I can see is ability to get a minor without adding to graduation time. Other option would be getting a masters at the same time in 4 years total. That decision will be made in junior year as that is when the scheduling options become available.
Colleges justify it in terms of needing verify ability (we need to know you can do our level of chemistry, math, etc.). May be true to a degree but I think a big part of it is revenue protection. Kids that graduate early pay less tuition.
@whataboutcollege, when the FAFSA processes (student should get notification email) in a few days, you can go in and do corrections.
The IRA rollovers have been a bit of a problem in the past. Now there is supposed be a way to note somewhere on the FAFSA the amount that was from a rollover.
But you might also contact the schools to ask how they deal with rollovers.
I’m curious how credits will transfer as well, my daughter has 6 community college classes completed dual credit, about 20 hours, plus a few AP’s.