My daughter is a high stats student and looking for guidance on safety school applications. We don’t want to ‘burn’ the $60-$80 per app without good strategy behind it. She has a 4.0 UW and 4.5 UC weighted GPA with all 5’s on her 6 sophomore and junior AP’s. EC’s will be good as well. She is definitely applying to UCLA, UCB, UCSD, UCSB, and USC. Financially we are good with any of the UC’s cost, but would be great to add some merit awards to help out a bit. With that being said should she be looking to apply to one more relatively sure admit? SDSU? A Cal State? 2 more? Thoughts?
While the UCs’ holistic admissions reading does not give 100% admission assurance to anyone, a student with an unweighted 4.0 HS GPA in hard courses (and test scores that are not awful, though UCs emphasize test scores less than many other colleges) can probably see several of the campuses (particularly some of those that you have not listed) as low matches or almost safeties.
But beware that some majors (e.g. engineering majors and CS) may be significantly more selective than the campuses, so if she is interested in such majors, she may have to go lower down the selectivity range.
And I should have mentioned she has a 1480 SAT. She’s taking it again next weekend and she thinks she can improve.
And…she want to major in Biology or something related.
Your local Cal State or SDSU/CSULB or UC Riverside would be excellent safeties as long as she is willing to attend no matter what.
CSU’s and UC’s offer merit scholarships but most of the in-state aid is need-based. Regents at each UC Campus can vary from $2000/year at UCLA to $10,000/year at UC Riverside and everything in-between but all have a need component beyond the minimum $$ amount.
If you are looking for merit, you would need to target some private schools: University of San Diego, Santa Clara, Occidental, Claremont Colleges, USC, LMU, Chapman to name a few.
Have you run the Net Price calculators on any private schools of interest?
SDSU’s Webers Honor college offers some merit scholarships if she is interested in SDSU:
https://newscenter.sdsu.edu/dus/uhc/honors_scholarships.aspx
@gumbymom - all the UC’s are within our budget - the merit would be nice add on. We did run the net price at some privates. USC particularly was not within our budget unless some some large merit aid were made available. I guess you don’t find out until your are accepted and receive your award letter so we shall see.
@sandiegodad2017: Based on your username SDSU is local? It definitely does not hurt have a solid safety school on the list and with the Weber’s Honor college, she would definitely be in good academic company if she decided to attend.
Based on her stats, she looks like a good candidate for Regents at some of the UC schools, so even a few thousand dollars can help.
For USC, she needs to apply before Dec 1 if she wants a good chance at merit aid.
The UC’s are excellent schools, so if she happy to attend and they are within your budget, then there is no need to look further.
Does she have additional preferences (academic or non-academic)?
OP,
I always go with what the poster clearly wants (I try not to push people in a new direction), but Gumbymom is right. There are a LOT of colleges out there that will offer significant merit awards (half tuition and sometimes more) to a high-stats, well-rounded student, but this means targeting privates, including out of state, which it sounds like your daughter is not interested in (she wants to stay in CA). CTCL schools are pretty famous for dishing out significant merit award. If your daughter is unwilling to leave CA but is open to the west coast, there’s Lewis and Clark, Whitman, Willamette, Whittier (lots of “W” schools!), Reed, U. of Puget Sound, plus the schools that Gumbymom mentioned. I should admit my bias. I attended a CTCL school, and my alma mater gives Presidential Scholarships (covering full tuition) to five incoming students. Obviously, these scholarship recipients are tippy-top students who were probably heading to a more “elite” college, but the merit money was too good to turn down. Of course, the world of LACs is completely different. Many students don’t want the fishbowl feel of a small school where one cannot disappear into the crowd, and then there’s the lack of name recognition, for even the most elite LACs are not really that well known to the average person (outside of the world of College Confidential, most would think that Vassar or Grinnel are funny-sounding places: why on earth would someone send her/his child to such a strangely-named school? LOL. I often joke–though it’s the truth–that the average person would think that Williams College is a Bible school or a beauty school. Sigh).
But it sounds like your daughter is targeting universities, which is perfectly awesome (I attended large universities for graduate school and have taught at all sorts of places), and since you have stated that you’re comfortable with the costs at the UC/CSU schools, perhaps that is where your daughter is most likely headed. Just know that there are schools out there that will shower your child with merit money. And there are plenty of threads here on CC devoted to the topic.
Best of luck.
My daughter has Arizona as a safety and there’s guaranteed merit there.
http://financialaid.arizona.edu/types-aid/scholarships/scholarships-0
You guys are awesome with your advice! I’ve been a lurker for a long time and finally decided to jump in the pool.
@ucbalumnus - I think she is leaning non academic
@Gumbymom - yes we live in San Diego County so SDSU would be local
@Hapworth - great post - thanks for the perspective. I believe she wants to go to a more recognized school and unless Berkeley comes calling I think she wants to stay relatively close to our southern California home, as would we.
We attended a local UCLA information session last night and we were very impressed with the presentation and information gathered. While my daughter has gone on an informal tour of UCLA we’ll be going on a formal in January.
Definitely a stressful and exciting time.
If she wants a more recognized school closer to southern California, the more obvious choices that are not as selective as your original list include UCI and UCR, in addition to SDSU that you mentioned.
Funny, my D’s stats aren’t as quite as high as yours (4.2 UC, 32 ACT) but her requirements are the same. I posted a similar thread a while ago.
She’s applying to:
UCB
UCI
UCSD
UCSB
USC (for a flyer, probably not affordable)
SDSU
Her guidance counsler got her totally freaked out by telling her none of those were safeties last so we are grudgingly adding LB State, but I still contend SDSU is a perfectly fine safety for her. Her GC was telling her to add Fullerton and SJSU and I told her I wasn’t wasting the money on the app. I brought up Arizona, because they take just about everybody, but she said she wouldn’t go there even if she was accepted so I said don’t waste the app fee.
She’s unwilling to go out of state, unwilling to go to a small school, so at this point if she doesn’t get in anywhere on this list she’ll go to community college for a year and try again.
@sc aneater - I’m sure our UC situation is pretty common. While it looks pretty good on paper you read of all the stories of high stat kids being denied and it makes you worry. Out of curiosity, why is UCLA not on your daughters list?
@sandiegodad2017 , ^Regarding your curiosity about @sc aneater :
“…why is UCLA not on your daughter list”
I have a feeling that it has something to do with his affiliation with USC, as his name suggests 
(But don’t expect to get any response from him as perhaps no notifications goes to him because you did not properly set up a reference to his name in your post)
^ neither apparently I could set up a reference to him (because of an empty space at the middle of his name)
@“sc anteater”
Did it! Add quotes around the name but after the @ to tag with a space @uclaparent9 , @sandiegodad2017
Good to know!
She could apply to SDSU Honors and UCSC Honors and have two very fine safeties.
You could take her to visit St Mary’s of California and Chapman, Occidental and Scripps (the former alternate safeties, the latter matches.)
Her stats appear good enough to get into the lower tier UCs. Don’t waste money on multiple safeties. BTW, have you looked at the Claremont Colleges? Pomona, Harvey Mudd, and rest of the consortium could be good fits, too.