Thank you. Feels good to be halfway there.
One thing to consider if you are OOS and looking at Honors courses the UCâs donât give a boost to GPA for honors courses. They only Give boost for AP courses. Something to keep in mind since you have UCLA and UVSD in your list.
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Congrats since this is one his top choice and he got in thatâs great. Good luck with SLO also. Any idea when that will come out?
I wouldnât overload junior OR senior year. Junior year is so important but burnout (especially for these kids who have already had two full TRYING years of high school) is real. My D23 is on the fence with AP Euro right now - sheâs waiting to see if her favorite teacher is going to teach it. Otherwise, sheâs planning:
AP Gov
AP Research
AP Stats
MAYBE AP Enviro or Forensics
AP Lit
Newspaper
Athletics
Still a lot of AP courses, but at this point looking at senior year, itâs more about the friends she has in all those classes than trying to get more credits.
Iâve told D24 she has to take at least 3 AP and sheâs certain of two: AP Studio Art and AP Calc. Weâre negotiating the rest. See, above, burnout and friends. 
D24 took PreACT yesterday, and thought it was easier than the PSAT. Will see how she scores before deciding which test to focus on.
Thanks for a detailed explanation! Weâre OOS for all those colleges. Weâre from Midwest. You think UCSD is little easier for OOS students than CA? Is Sixth college is not the main campus?
I know but this reasoning proves that she is still a baby. They provide a baby doll for AP Psychology class at our school. She likes that. As itâs an easy course, that the main reason for her to take it.
I do think the same. Most colleges donât give credit for both Comp and Lit. In our school, there is a talk that one regular Eng 4 teacher purposely makes it harder than AP Lit and the other teacher is fine but it depends on who she gets. Thatâs the reason my D21 did Eng 4 in Community College during Summer but she is in STEM. I was wondering if my D24 can do the same. I am little concerned as she is going for Humanities (Eco/Pol. Sci/IR). Do the colleges look differently? I donât want her to get too stressed out in senior year with all the applications.
The worst part of our school is they donât offer many useful non-AP/Honors courses after 10th grade.
They give out a baby doll in AP Psychology at your school? Wow. My S22 is taking that course right now and, no, no baby. His teacher is rigorous and the content is interesting to my S who is considering psychology as a major. My S22 has taken AP lang and AP lit (currently) - Lit is the more difficult of the two (it is one of the most difficult AP exams with a low pass rate - I think only 5% scored a 5 last year).
@s318830 , Congrats! I heard itâs a very good school in CA.
Regarding UCSD or any of the UCâs and being an OOS applicant. Acceptance rates in General for the UCâs are higher for OOS vs In-state since the OOS matriculation rate is much lower. This is due to the costs, since OOS applicants receive little to no financial aid so expect to pay full fees which are currently around $67K/year (Tuition/Room/Board).
UCSD has a residential college system (all on campus) with different GE requirements and campus locations. When you apply, you rank the colleges based on your preference. Sixth college is one of the 7 UCSD residential colleges.
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D24âs AP English Language teacher told the students last week that the Lang AP exam is easier to pass than the Lit test. I noticed at UofA, for example, the university gives the same credit for AP Lang and AP Lit. In other words, if you score a 4 or 5 on both of those AP exams, you donât get credit at UofA for extra classes. However, that is not the case all across the board for other colleges. Thereâs variation of what youâd get college credit for.
@sbinaz , I think itâs the same with most of the colleges.
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@Gumbymom , thanks for that information!
Is it because tuition costs, the enrollment is low?
OOS costs are a major factor, so the # of enrolled OOS students is much lower than the # accepted.
For 2021, 18% of UCSD applicants were OOS. They admitted around 59% of these applicants and only 16% enrolled.
There is also a cap on the # of OOS for each campus which is 18%.
UCâs offer little financial aid (usually only Federal aid if eligible) as an OOS student and extremely competitive merit aid so many top students will have more affordable options elsewhere. Just giving you a heads up since I see many OOS/International students posting that have been accepted but cannot understand why they are expected to pay full fees.
Thank you so much! this is really helpful to keep low expectations. I think USC offers 50% scholarship for NMF. So letâs see.
USC is private so no OOS vs. In-state tuition cost differences. Just remember, 1/2 $60,446 tuition is still $30K not including room and board. Still lower than a full price UC.
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Since you included Columbia University, let me point out that CU has a number of undergraduate colleges. Specifically, in addition to Columbia College there is also Barnard College. The two colleges share faculty, course catalogues, University facilities, clubs, sororities,⊠; students attend the same classes, and both will be conferred Columbia University degrees at the same graduation.
On the other hand, Barnard has succeeded in maintaining its administrative and financial independence, and has its own admissions process to seeks out exceptional young women. So you combine the benefits of a small liberal arts college and the large co-ed Ivy League university.
Your daughter can apply to both colleges, having the chance that her application will be viewed by two different admissions teams using distinct philosophies.
Thanks for this information! We will definitely keep this in mind and discuss with my D. will they both have same resources in terms of internships etc?
@LaFinalista , based on your D23 experience do you recommend AP Euro or AP World for senior year? Our school doesnât offer World but the kids can do it from CC.
Both D23 and D24 took (are taking) AP World as sophs and at our school both World and US History are prerequisites for AP Euro so you might want to check on that. Since D23 is just now taking APUSH we havenât gotten to Euro yet and I donât have enough knowledge to advise! I bet someone here does!
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Yes. Per example, although my daughter decided for Barnard, her first summer she was awarded a University fellowship for a summer semester in Europe, had a work-study job at one of the universityâs graduate schools, etc.
Basically - other than the first-year housing, generally the various services/offerings are through the University accessible to all, and are not specific to the individual undergraduate colleges, such as their Engineering School, General Studies College, or Columbia College.
In fact, one of her full-year internships that one of her professors had suggested, is even with a completely different private university elsewhere in Manhattan.
One key difference is CCâs requires a highly specific core curriculum - while BC offers hundreds of courses that can be used to satisfy one or multiple distribution requirements and/or a breadth of topic âexplorationsâ. Some people will have a strong preference of one over the other.