Can you afford NYU?
If you need financial support to go to a school without parental support and you are a National Merit Finalist I’d be on the phone to Alabama and OU ASAP!
@“aunt bea” - yes you are right about USC - I spaced for a moment!
Take a gap year if you don’t want to accept (or you parents don’t want to) that SCU is a great school. I would anticipate very small merit $ from them - typical is maybe 6k with a 3.7, sorry, but you might not get any. They do not give out large merit money except to their Johnson scholars and that is twenty students that were already notified. Besides those, recipients don’t get much. A lot of their money goes to service/community type orgs rather than scholarships. Also, they don’t have to give out aid, there are plenty of people that are willing to be full pay for it because it has a very strong reputation the Bay Area. Virtually the who’s who of lawyers and judges in norcal hail from SCU and engineers coming out of there easily find great jobs in silicon valley. Their business school is also very good.
But if you have the “ivy only” dreamer parents, then take a year off and try again.
Why try again? Ivy dreamer next year could be ivy reject round 2
Please understand that even your safety school has a rather low acceptance rate for a safety. You basically applied to one marginal safety and a bunch of reach schools. You got into one. Be proud of yourself. If you want to make yourself feel better, there are several legendary threads by students who had incredible stats that were off the charts. They got into none, or one or two colleges.
You aren’t a failure. IMO, you actually took a gamble and you haven’t lost everything. If you get into another of your colleges, well done. But you are good.
I was offered a fair financial aid from Santa Clara University.
No I cannot afford NYU.
I was going to ask if Santa Clara is affordable because except for a handful of students their financial aid is lousy (ranks as the worst with NYU).
So if you continue and got sufficient financial aid to attend, congratulations.
Santa Clara is a match for you, not a safety.
What would you prefer: a gap year or scu?
What about your parents?
Keep in mind that you won’t be able to. Reapply to the same college’s the second time around (the schools you applied to won’t admit someone they denied already so you’d have to make an entirely different list.)
sometimes things are simply meant to be. perhaps this is a sign, almost too clear to appreciate now, but in hindsight it could be a blessing !!
Thank you everyone for the kind replies. To update on my current situation, I was rejected to every college after Santa Clara… I will probably be attending a community college and transferring after my freshman year. Also, I was waitlisted by NYU Stern. I no longer have enough hope inside to see any good results, so i won’t rely on NYU.
Remember that as a transfer student the likelihood of financial aid or merit is reduced. Does that matter to you or are you full pay? Did Santa Clara give you FA or Merit?
This bodes repeating - Santa Clara is an excellent university- don’t sell it short because it was your safety. Go for a revisit.
IMO you applied to all reach type schools and Santa Clara was your one match. Give it strong consideration. As noted above aid for transfer students is quite limited.
@happy1 is right. With a 1430/3.7, only NYU was also a match, but once you said Stern, it went back up to a reach.
I think you were poorly advised on your list. All of those schools reject thousands of perfect stats kids. So you got into the one you had a reasonable shot at. You would have been better served if you had chosen just 2 or 3 of the reaches and focused on match schools (#100-40 range schools).
And a safety you would like.
My advice would be a gap year and try again with a more balanced list. CC and transfer is not going to get you to any of those schools either I’m afraid. How about a CC and transfer to a UC?
I know it hurts and I’m sorry.
Is Santa Clara affordable?
@guamboy you sound incredibly bright to me. I think it would be a shame to pass up the opportunity to attend the college that wants you. As a parent, I certainly hope your parents are supporting you, but if not, please feel confident that you are intelligent enough and will do very well in life.
Why aren’t you going to Santa Clara? If its affordable that would make much more sense than community college and transferring. What do you have against Santa Clara? Everything I have heard about it is good.
Even if you think you want to eventually transfer, go to SCU next year. You just might like it. If not, transfer from there to another school.
My worry is that Santa Clara is known for lousy aid, especially for middle-class and working class students.
Santa Clara is not worth Co signing loans or parents PLUS loans.
From the OP: "I was offered a fair financial aid from Santa Clara University. "