Hello CC Community. I’m going to try to be as succinct as possible, but this might get a little long-winded, and for that I apologize.
To start, I’m a California community college transfer student from the Bay Area looking to major in Aerospace Engineering. I have a 3.90~ GPA, a single W, and I have had to bounce between full and part time enrollment because of a chronic illness I’ve had since childhood. This application season has been tough, but the net result is an acceptance to USC, which I was really excited about until my financial aid offer came in. This year alone would put me in around $40k of debt (about 26k would need to be in the form of a private loan, and I’m sure my parents are going to (rightfully) say no and I wouldn’t want to burden them with that anyway). If I have 2 to 3 years left depending on my health (which seems to be getting worse as I age), that’s a heck of a lot of debt I’ll be graduating with. (Even if my father is retiring, financial aid probably won’t differ much from year to year until well until it doesn’t matter).
Should I withdraw my admission and try for somewhere else in the fall? My issue with doing so is that the only other schools with Aerospace that I haven’t applied to in California are UCSD, UCI, UC Davis, and SJSU. After a review based on location, proximity to a specialist, climate, and other things I’ve already ruled these other institutions out. After spending so long at community college that was not a fit for my situation (other than financially), my concern is that I’d be spending another couple of years in the same fashion. The other option would be to change my major to mechanical engineering and maybe apply to Cal, but I doubt that I’d have anymore of a chance of getting in here than at those other equally impacted schools + I’m not really interested in doing that even if people claim that they’re basically the same major.
At this point I’m just rambling, so tl;dr: Is USC even worth the debt or should I just try my best to make it work at a different institution next year maybe even with a different major?
Taking on debt is a financial burden to any normal person / family with an average income. However, with your illness, the chance of a medical emergency increases exponentially, especially if you’re feeling worse as time goes on.
Introducing debt in your case is DEFINITELY not advised. I sympathize with your situation. Seeing somebody who works hard being screwed out of what they earned puts a knot in my stomach. But I digress.
Briefly analyzing your situation pragmatically, USC is not worth the debt. While I don’t think you should change your major (unless it’s not available at some institutions, which in that case, I suppose you could switch), I do recommend reapplying. Your GPA alone looks great, and since you’ve been able to secure an acceptance from USC, I assume your other stats are also solid.
I’m also going to assume that your illness prevents you from leaving the state. What happened with UC Berkeley? UCLA? While I do not recommend you bother with Caltech (acceptance metrics are pretty unpleasant, and they’re a private institution), I do think you should apply to California Polytechnic State University.
Anyway, my advice in short is to:
- Ditch USC (sadly)
- Reapply (maybe) To UC Berkely, UCLA.
- Research PUBLIC institutions with a strong engineering program (perhaps a strong aerospace engineering program, but I’d cast a wide net, and search engineering programs).
Best of luck, and if you have any further questions for me, you can privately message me.
@TransferStalker Thank you for your response. It puts a knot in my stomach too. Especially since I know how successful I can be regardless of health with the appropriate treatment plan and the right accommodations.
I applied to both Cal Poly SLO and UCLA this admissions season. I was waitlisted at both, and I’m going to assume at this point that it’s just a soft no. Cal Poly Pomona, like Long Beach, was out of the question because of location and proximity to specialist (because I’ll be alone rides to appointments are out of question).
Another layer to this is that I absolutely must graduate before I turn 26, so there is a sense of urgency here.
Again, thanks for responding. I guess I have a lot to think about.
When you do transfer, consider taking out tuition insurance. With the right insurance, this would cover monies lost if you were to need to withdraw from classes for medical reasons . Make sure it covers medical withdrawals. From what I hear it’s not expensive.