<p>Hey all! </p>
<p>Okay, so I am a freshman in college, and I have already transferred once. I spent my first semester at Purdue, but decided the school was not for me. I have a 3.47 from my semester here.</p>
<p>I transferred to USD (university of San Diego) for my second semester, and I love the school. I anticipate having about 3.7 from my semester here. However, my family's financial situation has very drastically changed. </p>
<p>My family can no longer afford my tuition here, and I honestly can not afford a tuition in many places right now. It is a huge change for me and my family, but due to the way financial need is calculated, I won't be able to receive help. </p>
<p>This is the background, now for the question. I had about a 2050 SAT (I don't remember exactly), and I am doing well at my school. I want to go on to law school and I am not sure how much undergraduate school ranking matters. </p>
<p>The Kings College in New York has offered me what comes out to being almost full tuition. I am temped to take it, but I do not want to mess up my chances of getting into a good law school. I can't transfer to a state school because California state schools only accept upper division transfers. If I stay at USD I will have to take out about 35,000-40,000 a year. If I go to Kings I will have to take out 2000-5000 a year. </p>
<p>What should I do?</p>
<p>Prestige doesn’t matter very much. Prestige amongst a bunch of schools like the ones you’re discussing certainly won’t matter in the least.</p>
<p>Don’t go to kings college. If you are from NYC, you are better served going to CUNY. I know that undergrad does not matter, but it is unranked by US news and has a low 64% retention rate. Even at full tuition, you can and should do better. If you just want to be in NYC, choose a more reputable school.</p>
<p>My suggestion may not be a popular one, but I’ll mention it anyway.</p>
<p>I would suggest for you to take the next year off as a gap year. Go home, work, and find the right college for you where you will NOT be in very much debt, like the King’s college you mentioned. It sounds like you will not be challenged at all at Kings college and just going there because of the monetary offer.</p>
<p>You do not want to go through four years of college with much debt ESPECIALLY if you want to go to Law School. Do the research and you will find many options for you that will be affordable.</p>
<p>My advice: start over, find the college that is affordable and a good fit for you. Perhaps one closer to your home where you don’t have to worry about the extra expense of plane flights.</p>
<p>By doing the research, you will be making the decisions of where you go to college, pro-active instead of re-active. Plan it out. Good luck.</p>
<p>Choccochipcookie,</p>
<p>You have given some very good advice. You are right; OP is hoping from place to place and really needs to find the right school for him/her. Cast a wide net of schools at palaces where s/he may be eligible for need based financial aid or perhaps even some merit money (this could be a tough road as a transfer).</p>
<p>Maybe Op should even look into doing Americorps during the gap year.</p>
<p>If a California resident, why not attend a local community college and put in for a transfer to a Cal State or UC? Apps are completed in fall for the following September. UC offers a Blue & Gold Plan for low income folks which covers tuition. </p>
<p>If a NY resident, why not attend a community college there?</p>
<p>In either case, you could attend classes and obtain some much needed counseling/transfer advice.</p>
<p>The problem is we won’t show up as low income because we never have been before… I am a California resident by the way.</p>
<p>What I need is to find somewhere I am eligible for merit aid as a transfer. This is basically my only options. We will appear to be able to afford whatever school, but have had a devastating change in the last week.</p>
<p>Do not go to King’s College at any cost! I dorm with all the males from King College and I can tell you that they are one unhappy bunch. It is an ultra-conservative school which has a lot of religious teachings. They have a large endowment but the whole college is just 3 stories of the Empire State Building. I urge you to reconsider.</p>
<p>Possible alternative options include going to CUNY ($8000 a year maximum out-of-state) or a CC.</p>
<p>The drastic change in your family financial circumstances will absolutely be considered in financial aid if you document it well. My son just got a full ride to several top national engineering schools, and it was the details I wrote out that mattered. </p>
<p>My suggestions: Be willing to work, be willing to document personal matters that affect finances, be willing to consider scholarships that require service, and be willing to borrow judiciously. For example, one school offered $47,000 per year but my son would leave with $40,000 in debt after four years. We wrote a letter with details of our longterm and expected future circumstances and got a full ride, no work, no loans, no student contribution. It was all true and verifiable, but it was significant even though my income has increased recently. </p>
<p>Go talk to financial aid counselors in person or call them on the phone. This is harder if the school is large and much harder if they don’t see you as a standout student. So, find a way of distinguishing yourself and make a pitch. Find out what you can and go for it. </p>
<p>You can take a year off and start again, so long as you are sure you will not make that a life off from education. If you take a year off, work at the highest paying job (or two) you can and volunteer as well to make yourself stand out upon reapplying. </p>
<p>Go talk to financial aid about emergency grants and loans and don’t give up too easily to stay in school. </p>
<p>As for King’s College, don’t be worried about them being strict. If they are going to give you a full ride, you can control yourself to accept it. Think of it as a very well paid four year job because tuition isn’t cheap. Then, play the part and get the degree.</p>
<p>Kings is giving full tuition, where is the other 23K for room board food and fees coming from? It is the equivalent to a matchbook, ads on the subway school here in NYC. He would be better served going to CUNY</p>
<p>Okay, then, how about this? If you are happy at Univ. of San Diego, then go in person to talk to FA office. Have you done that yet?</p>
<p>You are not telling a full story, so it’s hard to know your situation. See if the people at San Diego will help you come up with a solution to allow you to stay and not pay thousands of dollars of loans. Or work for a year or two and then go back to San Diego after you’ve earned some tuition money. Or go to San Diego with the loans and wait to go to Law School.</p>
<p>Does not make sense at all to go to a school in NY. Just think of all the money you’d be paying in plane fares!</p>
<p>Best thing for you is to find a way to stay at Univ. of San Diego without massive loans. Call the FA office, or better yet, go in person and don’t stop until you have a FA counselor that is willing to help find you a solution.</p>
<p>you are a California resident that plans to apply to LS in the future. For law schools, the ONLY thing that matters is gpa+lsat. Unless you need to move out (for reasons not stated), attending a community college is an option. It is a GREAT option, since you will likely earn all A’s, and it is cheap for instate residents. </p>
<p>The chances of earning a full ride as a transfer are almost nil. Borrowing a bunch of money for undergrad is not wise if you plan on LS.</p>
<p>Considering you’re a california resident, there’s no reason why you can’t simply save money by attending a community college, and then transferring either to a Cal State or UC. Assuming you want to save extra money, attending your local UC while living at home, will help keep the costs down way below the 35-40K per year you’d be paying to attend USD.</p>
<p>USD is about 50k a year… I currently have no financial aid and never even filled out the fafsa in the past… it just wasn’t necessary. I could be wrong, but this is why I doubted financial need based aid would be an option. Up until very very recently it was quite obviously not needed. </p>
<p>The community college by where I live is known to be a joke. Combine that with a complete and total hate for the idea of living at home and you already have me attending a community college and having to pay room and board somewhere.</p>
<p>My parents say they can pay about 15k/yr, assuming nothing else goes wrong. Additionally, we have no local UC or Cal State, its about 1.5 hours away from home.</p>
<p>Regardless if your local community college is a joke or not, what matters if they have course equivalencies that will count to fulfill IGETC to transfer. If they do, and you can be certified, having gone to the best CC vs the worst, will not factor in to getting in. </p>
<p>Paying room and board, plus uc tuition in state is still significantly less than a private school price tag. Heck, even paying to room with someone near a better Community College in a different area, be it San Fran, LA, Santa Barbara, SD or wherever will still be cheaper than the 50K price tag of USD. </p>
<p>You need to speak with financial aid at USD, fill out the fafsa, and see if they offer you need based aid or merit aid for Fall 2011.</p>
<p>^^absolutely, apply to USD for finaid now and see what they say.</p>
<p>Or you could attend a juco, such as Santa Monica City or Santa Barbara City, both of which have local housing available for students. It might cost $10k/yr to live on campus, but still cheaper than USD at full fare. </p>
<p>From there, if your financial situation doesn’t improve, you can apply for a transfer to transfer-friendly private schools which meet full need, such as 'SC, or Smith, or…</p>
<p>Please understand that LS costs $200k for three years; perhaps $250k by the time you apply. Instate is not much less.</p>
<p>Applying for financial aid will not help! My parents lost a bout 1.5 mil this week. Fafsa looks into the past.</p>
<p>FAFSA looks one year back, if memory serves. So one year off ought to fix things quite nicely.</p>
<p>But okay. You don’t want to take a year off. You don’t want to go to community college. You don’t want to live at home, but living anywhere other than home is now too expensive.</p>
<p>What exactly would you like to do?</p>
<p>Living elsewhere is an option. Attending a community college or any school that offers merit aid for transfers is an option.</p>