UC vs. UVA- Is this an obvious choice?

College Search & Selection
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<p>First of all, I'm in-state for Virginia. I have visited UVA, but it just doesn't feel like the "right" school for me. Also, I am extremely attracted towards the west coast and the UC system- specifically, I am looking at UCLA, UCB, and UCSD. I feel a little guilty that I am doing this to my parents...is it an obvious choice that I should go for UVA? Or should I pursue the colleges that I truly wish to attend?</p>

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<p>UVA is a great school and since you get in-state tuition, it’ll be a tough combo to beat.<br>
Are your parents willing and able to pay approx. $50k/year for OOS tuition and costs for a UC?</p>

<p>Keep in mind Berkeley, UCLA and UCSD have very different feels as far as campus vibe. The common UC app makes it easy to apply to all three though. </p>

<p>What don’t you like about UVA and maybe others can suggest colleges that you may like better?</p>

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<p>Berkeley is 93% in-state; UCLA is 94%; UCSD is 96%. They’re not meccas for OOS students, and the Virginia system is - along with California’s - the best in the country. If UVA isn’t your best fit, have you visited William & Mary? JMU? Virginia Tech?</p>

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<p>If your stats and likes could take up a place like LA, you might want to consider USC [the University of Southern California]; they could offer some very generous scholarships or financial aid.</p>

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<p>UVA is a fantastic school, and so is William and Mary. It definitely makes sense to stay in state, especially in this economy.</p>

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<p>As a current uva student, I can tell you that it is a really good school. But it never felt like the right fit to me either. What you could do, and what a lot of people do if they dont feel comfortable after a year, is transfer. Youre still saving a lot of money by just going to uva for a year or two…plus who knows? You might end up loving it.</p>

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<p>Yes, but California is so HUGE it doesn’t matter. 1/5 of all Americans live here. California stretches a distance equal to the entire eastern seaboard from New York to Georgia.</p>

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<p>lol but all the amazing universities are supposedly in the east coast lol.</p>

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<p>Why not if you can afford it! </p>

<p>The UCs are great schools to go to. It’s a very different vibe but in a very good way. I’m sure there are a lot of OOS students from Virginia at those 3 UCs you mentioned.</p>

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<p>The UCs will be increasing the percentage of OOS students over the next few years at the direction of the Regents. Cal plans on about 20% OOS.</p>

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<p>Unless you are applying to Cal’s engineering program, you would be extremely foolish to waste that kinda of money. Think of what you could do with ~$100k in your pocket after four years.</p>

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<p>… wrt their comments re the non-CA enrollments for buntyugo…</p>

<p>gaddad was stating older statistics which is common on this message board, without regard to recent trends. I don’t know where he got teh 93, 94, 96% native Californian undergrad enrollments for UCB, UCLA, UCSD, respectively, but if in fact these are correct for the current enrollments of all three, which I doubt, then these %'s are changing and in fact lowering quickly.</p>

<p>Cal’s trend for non-Californian frosh has been going for awhile now, say, five years. UCLA’s trend towards this has been going on for a little while less, and not as rapid. UCSD lags behind the other two, because it doesn’t have quite the rep outside of CA as UCB, first, and UCLA, second, within UC.</p>

<p>If my numbers are correct, big “if,” ;), (I had to work backward from acceptance rates for CA v all-student %’s and total CA=native apps v total apps becasue statfinder doesn’t have 2010 numbers - statfinder usually has 2-year lag in reporting), I found Cal accepted 27% Non-CA, and 73% CA students. For UCLA it was 24%-NCA, 76%-CA. </p>

<p>Cal has the better rep between the two outside of CA, and its yield rate, esp, for internationals will be higher for their frosh class. Someone stated he/she expected Cal’s enrollment to settle in at around 20%, NCA, which seems right. For UCLA, if, say, the yield for CA students is 40% and the yield for NCA is 20%, approx ~ yields per statfinder, this will point to a frosh class that is ~ 85-86% CA and 14-15% NCA. </p>

<p>A lot of international students find a side-door to UCLA through the community- college system, with around 10% of the students enrolling at the school from the system being from outside of the US. Santa Monica College and Foothill College in Los Altos Hills have especially large foreign-student enrollments, and are great to good feeder schools to UCLA.</p>

<p>And with UC schools seeking more NCA students, this could through word of mouth cause an upward spike in NCA applications. The component that has hindered UC from reaching true diversity has been the lesser number of oos and international students. </p>

<p>As bandmom, intimated (flatly stated?), California is an incredibly diverse state not only wrt nationalities/races, etc, but wrt lifestyles and regional culture (wrt the former, I’m speaking mainly here of, say, entertainment, recreation, things to do, not of an advocacy of something that has been heretofore not readily accepted, lol). And this leads to many different feels on each of the UC campuses. So of the nine or so undergraduate-based campuses within the system, you can pick and choose whatever campus-feel that you might want to explore. This is why UC is one of the most incredible places to attend school because though they are sister (brother?) campuses, the feel to UCLA, Cal, UCSB, UCR would be different and in many cases completely different. </p>

<p>I think you’d love it out here, and there might be a chance that you might want to be a resident of the state eventually. We’re not as crazy and whack as some like to believe, lol. There are people like yourself, that want to leave smaller-town-USA, and want to experience life in CA and this seems to be what draws persons like yourself to enroll at a UC campus from places like Fort Wayne, IN or Barrington, IL, or Colleyville, TX. And there won’t be a lack of professional positions to be had either as would be in smaller town.</p>

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<p>They’re the current figures listed on Princeton Review.</p>

<p>Band Mom’s point is very well taken, but my concern with limited OOS participation in the UCs is more about admission and aid. As Drax said, admissions rates are much more generous towards California residents than OOS applicants, and I would assume that aid packages reflect that mission to serve the taxpayers of California as well. Bluebayou’s question about “what you could do with ~$100k in your pocket after four years” is a good one. For instance, you could buy a house, rent out some of the rooms, and pay off the mortgage (and perhaps some grad school tuition?) with the revenue.</p>

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<p>Last year, Cal was 77% instate. But to me that is an almost worthless statistic. (Of course, publics are chock full of instate residents.)</p>

<p><a href=“http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions//freshmen.asp[/url]”>http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions//freshmen.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Sry, but I don’t buy it. There is absolutely no reason to assume that ‘if they build it, they will come.’ In other words, just bcos more are accepted does not mean that the yield will continue. There are just not that many students willing to fork out $55k/year when their instate Uni could be free to them. (Someone who has the stats to be accepted to Cal/UCLA would be extremely competitive an instate full ride at one of the 'Zonas, for example.) Why would anyone pay $220k, vs. staying home for essentially free?</p>

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<p>Preliminary 2010 at UCLA, no enrolled numbers</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_fr/Frosh_Prof09.htm[/url]”>http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_fr/Frosh_Prof09.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>2009; 336 enrolled OOS students; 4005 in state
[Profile</a> of Admitted Freshmen, Fall 2009 - UCLA Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_fr/Frosh_Prof10.htm]Profile”>http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_fr/Frosh_Prof10.htm)</p>

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<p>Another reason to come to California:</p>

<p>The current temperature at UCLA is 65
The current temperature at UC San Diego is 63
The current temperature at UC Santa Barbara is 65
The current temperature at UCB is 56 </p>

<p>The current temperature at UVA is 100</p>

<p>:)</p>

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<p>Temperature data for January</p>

<p>The average high temperature at UCLA is 65
The average high temperature at UC San Diego is 63
The average high temperature at UC Santa Barbara is 65
The average high temperature at UCB is 56 </p>

<p>The average high temperature at UVA is 10</p>

<p>:)</p>

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<p>shrinkwrap, I don’t know if your post was intended my way, per your quote:</p>

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<p>That link you provided, btw, was for 2009, not 2010.</p>

<p>Add 131 internationals to the 336 oos, totaling 467 NCA students. Of the total enrolled of 4,472, comes to a NCA enrollment of 10.4%.</p>

<p>The the director of admissions at the school, Mr Tran, said something to the effect that the school is seeking, I believe it was, a 300-student reduction in CA-students. The intimation would be that the school would be seeking a 300-person increase in NCA enrollment.
All numbers being equal, otherwise, that comes to a NCA enrollment of ~ 17%. I’m not sure if I remember the “300 student…student reduction” part correctly.</p>

<p>Yes, the quest towards more NCA enrollment was brought to the fore for the 2010 frosh class. There had been some trending towards this at UCLA, but not as much as in this upcoming class. </p>

<p>The reason, of course, was Arnold’s draconian cuts towards state funding of the UC system undergrad education late last year, early this year. </p>

<p>This forced the hand at Cal and UCLA to take in more NCA students because, of course, they pay full non-state supported tuitions.</p>

<p>gadad:</p>

<p>There is a long excuse of being true to the citizenry of California, regarding needing to keep UC at extremely high levels of in-staters. </p>

<p>If you look at higher education as “a right," then sure the school should keep the enrollments at 90%+ from CA. </p>

<p>If you look at higher education as a “privilege,” then the system should educate the best and brightest, regardless of origin. </p>

<p>I prefer the latter. With the argument of the former, then the school should stick with quotas, which are in place anyway, no matter what the university calls it. And I’m not against them, but the regents should just call it for waht it is, “quotas.” </p>

<p>Add, too, that UC has probably one of the lowest % of non-instate as all public universities in the nation. If there’s a need for more full-paying students to prevent cuts, then it should go in that dirction. </p>

<p>bluebayou:</p>

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<p>How about wanting to leave a sleepy, smaller community? </p>

<p>How about the beaches of CA? How about the weather as bandmom said? </p>

<p>How about wanting to work in the entertainment industry either behind the camera, or in front? Despite what bayboi would say, USC doesn’t “own” the industry. There are loads of UCLA grads in production, writing and acting and administration. There are loads of UCLA grads in ancillary fields related to the industry in entertainment law, and agency. </p>

<p>How about the fact there is the full gamut of professions to which to aspire to out in CA, being that it has the largest economy in the nation, with the highest (edit: highest pay) per profession, say, outside of NYC?</p>

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<p>Perhaps Barnum was right: there is one born every minute. :)</p>

<p>But in my bank, free at ASU + $200k+ for grad school at Cal/UCLA is the way to go. The beaches and entertainment industry are a whole lot more fun with money in your pocket.</p>

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<p>Nah, bluebayou, I would never advocate attending a UC campus paying oos tuition if buntyugo couldn’t afford it. It sounded like his/her parents could, but that could have meant a loan attachment to them instead, which wouldn’t be good. </p>

<p>The general point is there are plenty of NCA students, especially internationals, that can afford the oos tuition at UC. Absolutely, the rich have a wider array of colleges and universities from which to select, and they can go more towards feel, comfort, etc.</p>

<p>Who wouldn’t want to experience a California lifestyle if as you said one could afford it?</p>

<p>As for ASU, I wouldn’t think going there would guarantee a spot at UCLA or Cal for grad, but best of luck to you.</p>