“And he’s Instate, it can’t be that expensive.”
Ha! The OP’s annual cost would be higher than their annual household income. That’s typical in Pennsylvania and Illinois.
@VANDEMORY1342 (last paragraph answers initial questions, everything until than is just personal, kind-of-ranty stuff) I considered applying to Penn State and even began the process during an in-day application day at my school involving Penn. I ultimately never finished though because the experience and knowledge gained was very off putting. I was not a fan of nearly anything about the school and was hugely against the concept of a single institution spreading across the entire state through several campuses; I want to be sure I feel my school is truly what they say they represent and not have to rely on several hundred kids at different campuses to uphold that reputation.
I already know through that day at my school I would not get into the main campus, but I could stand a chance in getting into one of the smaller campuses. Of the kids who took opportunity of their visit to our school, all who finished applying have gotten in but one (8 of the 9). None of them got into their main campus, though I know not all had even applied to get in. With myself included, three of us chose to not apply to any of the campuses.
I am not sure what would have been offered to me had I applied and gotten into any of the campuses, but I gather it would not have been enough to seriously attend because two girls I am fairly close with (one especially) did not receive much. Admittedly, both come from more money ($40,000-$70,000) and are not minorities, and one has only taken an equally academic harsh course load as I and only ranks around 20 (still better than myself though) with zero pressing personal occurrences. But the other is very high achieving, ranked 9 in our class, and is in excelled courses thanks to her involvement with our school’s Gifted Program (an enrichment program for the gifted or/and high achieving), so it came more of as a surprise when she received just about the same as the previous girl mentioned.
I have no specific or confident interest in what I exactly want to do (that is one of the reasons a gap year came to mind), but for every school I applied to I marked Psychology as my intended major since my mother has this illusion that I will work for the FBI creating profiles of suspects. I enjoy the sciences but they are not my strength, and even though most who have read my written work assignments assume I have a knack for the English language and that I would or should be considering that direction, I absolutely find it a choir and believe I’ve only mastered the facade of appearing to know how to write. I do not like the humanities, such as Psychology, because they are too theoretical, and if I wanted to play with wet clay, I’d be an artist.
Apply NOW to Denison, Muhlenberg and Dickinson, test optional (don’t submit your act).
Pm me your essays.
Ask calU if you can have a couple more days to think about it.
Did you apply EA to Gettysburg? I thought only had Ed?
My take:
-The chances of you getting into the two colleges you are waiting to hear back from - Gettysburg and Lafayette - are very low. Your grades and test scores are well below their 25th percentile. I don’t think it makes sense to delay making a decision on this full-ride for the very, very slim chance that you get into one of those. (And in the off chance that you do get into one of them and are offered enough money to attend…you can decide what to do then.
-The gap year is also unlikely to offer anything to you to boost your profile. To be quite frank, the students who a gap year benefits the most are middle-class to upper-middle-class students whose parents or guardians can afford to support them in doing something cool in the interim time.
The only way I could see a gap year benefiting you is if you genuinely think that your college list wasn’t the best it could be in terms of offering you colleges that were affordable options and/or that might offer you merit scholarships. I could see an argument for that, especially if you haven’t considered HBCUs before this. Your test scores, for example, are just shy of the minimums for Howard’s freshman scholarships. Your scores are, however, in range for scholarships at places like Hampton, Florida A&M, probably some others. However, these wouldn’t be full rides. At Howard, the one you could get by edging your score up a little would be full tuition, I think; you’d still have housing costs. And at Hampton and Florida A&M, the scholarships you’re currently eligible for are just a couple thousand a year. At FAMU you need a 1290 or a 29 to get full tuition.
Given your family’s income and the fact that they’d be unable to help much with making up the difference - and the fact that HBCUs do not meet full demonstrated need and will likely offer you loans for the difference - I’m not sure that’s a good reason to delay, either.
There are two public HBCUs in PA. One is Lincoln University, a state-related institution like Penn State, Temple, and Pitt. Total cost of attendance there is just shy of $22K without any awards. Their deadline is May 1, and they have rolling admission, so you could still apply there if you wanted. The other is Cheyney University of PA, which is in the PASSHE system like California University of PA. Honestly, if you already have a full ride at Cal UPA I see no reason to apply to Cheyney unless you just really want to go to an HBCU. They’re comparable.
-If you do choose to take the full ride - which I think you should - take it with the outlook that you will likely be there for all four years. If you do transfer, it’s likely to be to another PASSHE campus or MAYBE one of the lower-cost Penn State satellites.
Colleges like University of Chicago still take your high school grades and test scores into account when you transfer, and they tend to prefer students from peer schools. If you can’t get into the University of Chicago now, it’s unlikely that a year or two of college at not-a-peer school will help you much. And UCLA gives preference to California community college students; your chances of transferring from a PASSHE campus, even if you had a perfect 4.0, are also very small (and then you would still have the affordability problem).
Not that you can’t try, but I wouldn’t take the outlook that “you can just transfer [to one of the other schools you like] later.” Odds are, you won’t transfer.
Psychology is not a humanities field. It’s in the social sciences. It’s also not super theoretical.
@MYOS1634 I applied regular decision to Gettysburg but that is because, even as of now, I am very poorly informed about the college application process and didn’t know how significant small things like that actually mattered. With that said, I know that makes it even less likely I will be accepted, especially considering how low my stats are in comparison to what they usually accept. And you’re right, they do only have early decision and do not have early action, it is just that they have two unique deadlines for two sets of early decision applicants. I’d take you up on applying to the schools you stated, but after taking everyone’s advice into consideration, I am pretty sure I will just take the full ride offer I have from Cal U. My essays are poor quality anyway. Since I already knew I was unlikely to get into my reach schools, I put nearly no effort into writing my essays and am pretty sure I didn’t even bother to reread them for grammatical mistakes. #-o I mean, I didn’t even know my intended major’s field is a social science and not the humanities. Lol, #embarrassing
an issue is that lower income/urm students need more of a boost in terms of resources, networking, etc - the third tier college kid in the example above had family resources you don’t and calU doesn’t have much in terms of resources…you’d be better off with a full ride from a full need college like Gettysburg or Dickinson…
^You are correct about resources and networking. The flip side is that the OP is more likely to feel “at home” at CALU and as such may be more likely to stay and graduate. I think a lot of lower income students feel out of place at the better LACs, where there are many upper income full-pay students. I know that as a lower middle-class student at Bucknell (on a National Merit scholarship back in the dark ages), I often wished I had gone to a state (PASSHE) school. I’m sure that feeling is even more intense for a low income URM student. However, a lot depends on the personality of the student. My adult son loved Haverford and mixing with the wealthy students; my daughter did not (transferred to Penn State, back when PSU was affordable).
@Levon36
I’m a bit hard pressed to give you advice, however there is still time to apply to places especially LAC’s which i think will be good for you, a slower paced environment. What are the stipulations of your scholarship? What GPA do you need to consistently achieve?
@VANDEMORY1342 I’m not familiar with the acronym LAC, but the scholarship offered to me requires I simply attend full time studying the major of my choice and that I maintain no less than a 2.5 GPA while attending. It seems fairly easy to follow. At this rate, my senior year will help improve my GPA to a 3.5 or so, but that won’t do anything but change my class rank a bit. My GPA is dragged down by two D’s I received my sophomore year and other low grades for classes I was to uninterested in to achieve to my full potential. I know college is different, so it may not be as easy as I think to maintain a 2.5, but even my guidance counselor refers to Cal U as “grade thirteen”.
Have you looked at the universities listed previously, some of which are test optional (ie., your score won’t be necessary, they’ll look at your classes, grades, and essays).
PM your essays please.
There’s a lot of space between CalU and UChicago and the colleges listed upthread are in that niche.
However with some having deadlines tonight, you better move fast running NPCs and choosing those that offer the best financial aid.
@Levon36 you have received lots of good advice, uniformly encouraging the full ride. More advice probably won’t help.
I will paraphrase the issue more starkly: I am a slightly above average student. Few in my family have gone to college and my family does not put a high value on college. We have saved no money for my college education and we have minimal family income to devote to college expenses. In high school, I was pre-occupied with other concerns to such an extent that I barely thought of college and even now I know little of the process. Despite that, I have fairly specific and selective criteria about which schools I will attend and my ideal choices are highly unlikely to occur.
You get the idea. And nevertheless you have a full ride offer from a local school. That is a miracle! Realize what opportunity is in front of you and take it. You have a zero risk option to advance your education beyond what generations in your family have not achieved.
A gap year hanging out at home with a family that does not highly value education with a “needy nephew” etc. is a regressive year and highly unlikely to be gainful.
With your history, you should not expect to have any idea what you want to do in college. That is not a problem! Go to college, on a full ride scholarship, study widely, and find something about which you are passionate to study.
Also, check your award to make sure it’s a full ride, or whether it’s full tuition, or whether the package doesn’t just include grants.
http://www.finaid.org/calculators/awardletteradvanced.phtml
Here’s a useful calculator to compare aid packages.
@Levon36
what @WISdad23 said is poignant. You can always transfer is you focus and study hard and only take general education classes (English, writing, health etc) to keep a high GPA. And if CalU is what it’s stereotyped to be ( the 13th grade) then you’ll have little problem doing well. However as a impoverished, unemployed(?), URM male. Odds are decreasingly out of your favor. So now you need to focus on saving for travel, food, and entertainment/ miscellaneous expenses while at school as it seems you family cannot help much. In hindsight you’ve been given a blessing that many impoverished students dream of.
Also LAC= Liberal Arts College
I am taking a gap year for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I’d like to spend a year away from home, working hard, but not worrying about a GPA. I applied for AmeriCorps FEMA Corps, and I was offered a spot. I will defer my college admission to fall of 2019. Aside from the experience of working on a team of peers, upon completion of the 10 month commitment, I’ll earn a more than 5k Segal scholarship. Also, they pay for room, board, and travel, plus a stipend for added expenses.