Schools in the South or West

College Search & Selection
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<p>I'm looking for a school that can be described as the following:</p>

<p>*Anywhere in the South or in the West, or anywhere with mild to warm weather year-round would be most preferable, but I might warm up to the idea of going to the Midwest
*Not in a big city
*Not a huge "party school" reputation
*Good programs for foreign languages
*Business-related majors available, preferably
*I'm okay with both private liberal arts colleges and public state schools, probably more favorable toward the latter option
*Liberal student body on the whole, not hippie activist-type liberals but open-minded and accepting, non-clique-y, laidback, friendly, non-preppy
*Not too homogeneous of a student body
*Great academics
*Not excessively hard to get into, somewhere that's not hard for transfer students to get in?
*Most importantly, either low tuition rates, or reputation of giving out great financial aid/scholarships to transfer students (for example, I know Ole Miss, Bama, and Clemson give great scholarships to freshman students, but not to transfers?)</p>

<p>Some things to keep in mind before you make your suggestions:
I would love to go to UCLA because it has everything I would love in a school, but it would be expensive seeing as I'm out-of-state. I would love to go to a Claremont college, but I didn't get into any of the Claremont colleges the first time around, so I doubt I would get in as a transfer especially with the terrible grades I'm making at the college I'm at right now. Occidental gave me a terrible aid package when I applied as a freshman student, so I'm not going to even try again. Additionally, I'm not too keen on attending any schools with very little diversity.</p>

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<p>Wow! That’s going to be tough. I assume you are a transfer, and not from California, and with a budget? I think the diversity piece( depending on what that means to you) is going to make that especially tough in the west.</p>

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<p>Haha yeah, I figured that my post was going to come out sounding really picky, whoopsies. Your assumptions are all correct. Diversity, to me, means a decent amount of geographical diversity as well as racial. It doesn’t have to be as diverse as Harvard or Yale, of course, seeing as that’s pretty difficult to find anyway, but a homogeneous student body composed only of students from surrounding areas doesn’t sound ideal to me, as it would probably be hard for me to meet people and fit in as an out-of-stater.</p>

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<p>If you’re getting bad grades now it will be tough to transfer into anywhere with great academics especially if you have lots of credits.</p>

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<p>That’s why I said both “great academics” and “not too hard to transfer to/get into”, isn’t there any school that fits that criteria? I’m only in my first semester of freshman year, though, and I plan to transfer to community college next fall and improve my grades a bit. My grades right now aren’t failing bad, but they’re probably in the B-C range, so they could be better. I’ve had extenuating circumstances that have affected my grades, as well.</p>

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<p>I’m no expert, but I spend a lot of time here. Seems like transfer scholarships are hard to come by, but stellar stats will help. Inexpensive tuition in California usually means instate publics for instate students, which limits geographic diversity, and usually means big schools. CSU Monterey is small, but I think it has limited majors. Some small Christian schools (Azusa Pacific, Cal Baptist, Point Loma Naz, Westmont, to name a few) seem relatively cheap, but that won’t work for everybody. Occidental sounds perfect, but that’s without knowing stats or financial situation. Maybe Whittier, University of Pacific, University of the Redlands? “Great” and “Not hard” is relative.</p>

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<p>

Do they have to have cured world hunger as well? Think about it. Great academics and don’t cost much but easy to get into… Do you think it would be easy to get into if the first two points were true? There would be a run on the school making it very difficult to get into. An example of this is SUNY Binghamton. Relatively low cost for OOS, very good academics, but <40% admission rate despite being relatively unknown. And the GPAs and scores have gone up as they become more known.</p>

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<p>Thanks for your suggestions.
Just to point out a few things, I actually said I was more favorable toward public state schools, meaning that I’m completely fine with big schools (just so your post doesn’t confuse anybody else into thinking I’d only want to go to a small school). I had a 2100 SAT score and about 3.9/4.5 weighted GPA in high school, 3 APs, unique extracurriculars, and decently good SAT II scores. I got accepted to Occidental when I applied, but they expected my family to pay $42k per year when we’re only able to contribute about $25-28k per year.</p>

<p>@Erin’s Dad- You have a good point. Ignore the “not hard to get into” thing, then. I know I’m able to get into schools that are of the Occidental, Macalester, UMN-TC caliber, if that helps? (I consider those schools to have “great academics”, if that tells you anything about my standards, and an acceptance rate of about 40%, for me, means “not too hard to get into”) Can’t ignore the stuff about costs though… if I can’t afford it, I can’t go.</p>

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<p>Oops! I thought not huge OR party school vs not " huge party school"!</p>

<p>So some CSUs are not ard to get into, cheaper than UCs out if state ( I’d guess 25k with room and board for those that offer it, like Chico), some departments will have good academics, but most students will be from California.</p>

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<p>I think it’s time to weight/order your priorities. I don’t think there’s a single school that matches all of them.</p>

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<p>I’m a civil engineering major (junior) at Clemson and you should definitely look at applying here!</p>

<p>Here’s how I think Clemson may fit your criteria (feel free to follow up if you have any questions!!):</p>

<p>*Anywhere in the South or in the West, or anywhere with mild to warm weather year-round would be most preferable, but I might warm up to the idea of going to the Midwest</p>

<p>Clemson - In upstate South Carolina, we get all four seasons except a shortened winter and extended spring/summer season. Summers are WARM! We get snow maybe once a year around February but it rarely sticks and if it does school gets cancelled haha</p>

<p>*Not in a big city</p>

<p>Clemson - college town of 13,000 people. The town would not exist were it not for the college haha</p>

<p>*Not a huge “party school” reputation</p>

<p>Clemson - I don’t think it has the reputation of a “party school” but I would say it’s a typical college campus and there are going to be stupid people who neglect their schoolwork and go out and party during the week. Definitely wouldn’t say the party scene is out of control and it’s there if you want it and if it’s not your thing, you’d be fine off too.</p>

<p>*Good programs for foreign languages</p>

<p>Clemson - Here’s more information on foreign languages: [Undergraduate</a> Students : Clemson University](<a href=“http://www.clemson.edu/caah/languages/undergraduate-students/index.html]Undergraduate”>http://www.clemson.edu/caah/languages/undergraduate-students/index.html)
We offer Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, ASL, Italian and I think Russian so plenty of languages to choose from!</p>

<p>*Business-related majors available, preferably</p>

<p>Clemson - we have a fantastic College of Business. We have majors in the fields of Accounting, Economics, Management, and Marketing. According to BusinessWeek magazine, we have the 29th best business program in the country among public institutions and our accounting program is 13th among public colleges.</p>

<p>*I’m okay with both private liberal arts colleges and public state schools, probably more favorable toward the latter option</p>

<p>Clemson - Clemson is definitely a public state school. However, it is not as big as many other public schools. We have about 16,000 undergraduates and 19,000 students overall. Compare that with schools like Penn State or Purdue or Ohio State with over 40,000. You get the resources of a big school but with a lower student population.
Not Clemson related but there are public liberal arts type colleges in the southeast/mid-atlantic! I’d recommend that you take a look at UNC-Asheville, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, New College of Florida, College of Charleston. In the Midwest, there is University Of Minnesota - Morris and Truman State University.</p>

<p>*Liberal student body on the whole, not hippie activist-type liberals but open-minded and accepting, non-clique-y, laidback, friendly, non-preppy</p>

<p>Clemson - I don’t think you will find many schools (other than maybe UNC-Asheville or New College of Florida - liberal arts type schools) that have a liberal student body in the south. South Carolina is a republican/conservative dominated state and that holds true with Clemson as well. I will say though that people are pretty open-minded though. They may not agree with you but they will be willing to listen and accept your point of view. People are very laid back and friendly as well. There are some very preppy students here, most of them in Greek Life (fraternities/sororities) but statistically they are only 20% of the student population.</p>

<p>*Not too homogeneous of a student body</p>

<p>Clemson - This is another weakness of Clemson and this is due to the fact that the state of South Carolina doesn’t have many significant races living there other than whites and blacks. I am Chinese myself and while it was weird at first not having a lot of diversity, I got used to it. There are many minorities and many international students but Clemson can definitely do a lot better in this regard.</p>

<p>*Great academics</p>

<p>Clemson - We were ranked the 25th best public college in the country by US News & World Report.</p>

<p>*Not excessively hard to get into, somewhere that’s not hard for transfer students to get in?</p>

<p>Clemson - I’ll refer you to the transfer requirements that Clemson has on their admissions page: [Transfer</a> Student Admission Procedures and Requirements : Clemson University](<a href=“Admissions | Clemson University, South Carolina”>Admissions | Clemson University, South Carolina)</p>

<p>*Most importantly, either low tuition rates, or reputation of giving out great financial aid/scholarships to transfer students (for example, I know Ole Miss, Bama, and Clemson give great scholarships to freshman students, but not to transfers?)</p>

<p>Clemson - To be honest, I don’t think many public colleges will give out great financial aid to transfer students. I’m not 100% sure though since I’ve never had to go through the transfer process.</p>

<p>Hope that helps you out with your questions! Like I said, don’t hesitate to ask me anything about Clemson or if you need any help in general! Good luck!</p>

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<p>on a side note, I don’t think that many private liberal arts colleges have business-type majors</p>

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<p>I doubt any public is going to give you the need-based aid you need. UVA or UNC might, but don’t know if they give to transfers.</p>

<p>What state are you in?</p>

<p>How much will your parents pay? $25k-28k? If so, then it sounds like your in-state publics are the only schools that will work. The others will expect your family to pay more.</p>

<p>It’s unfortunate that you didn’t use your stats to snag some big merit the first go-round. Hopefully this will be a lesson for some others.</p>

<p>Where are you going to school now? Are you a frosh?</p>

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<p>Ok…I thought your screen name was familiar so I looked at your past posts. Your instate flagship is UMaryland. That’s the school you should go to…or some other Maryland school. </p>

<p>Your old posts say that your parents like prestige…well from your posts it sounds like they want it, but won’t pay for it. They can’t have it both ways.</p>

<p>Where are you going to school now?</p>

15

<p>Thank you, pierre0913! I’ll PM you with any more questions.</p>

<p>mom2collegekids, I don’t want to say it publicly on here because I feel like I’ve given away too much information on here in the past about myself that may make me easily identifiable in real life, but I’ll PM you the name of the school I go to right now. Also, my past posts aren’t a good indicator of what I want now because I’ve changed a lot in my views since a lot of the posts I’ve made on here before.</p>