UCLA Regents and Alumni Scholarship vs UPENN

Hello!

I was fortunate to be admitted to both UCLA (I got both the regents and alumni scholarships) and the college of arts and sciences at UPenn (with the Benjamin Franklin Scholars). I live in LA and would only pay around 1.3k a year for UCLA (Including all expenses) and around 12k a year for Upenn (also all expenses). I want to go to Law School in Columbia or Harvard and want a high gpa but I already received a C from a community college class that would mildly affect my gpa. I am torn on which one to choose. I am not sure what I want to major in but I want to double major in something around econ/english. Ii want to live somewhere new but the scholarships are very tempting. Any advice?

Congrats on your choices and scholarships! I live just outside Philadelphia and spent ten years in LA living in Brentwood, so your post caught my eye. If you can afford the $48 for Penn, come on over to the East Coast for the next four years. My own daughter was accepted to UCLA, SD, and Berkeley, but we are out of state and the tuition costs over Penn could not be justified. She then was down to Georgetown, Fordham honors, and Penn. She started looking hard at Penn, and the opportunities are vast for internships, research, and study abroad. We just walked the campus (in masks of course) as people can exercise with social distance in the city; it’s gorgeous even on a cloudy, rainy day. Such old beautiful buildings , green space, trees and the brick walkways are a very different experience than SoCal. Philadelphia is a great city for students. But I love UCLA as well; if money is a big issue, def take the scholarships. Good luck either way!

If you’re going to law school and money is an issue then go to ucla. A lot of ucla grads go to t14 law schools. Lsat and gpa are most important.

My first reaction is to go east for the life experiences. $12k/yr is a good deal. But if you have to take out that amount in loans, $48k is too much debt, IMO, particularly given the alternative.

Additionally, UCLA is an attorney factory as it is an MD factory. A lot of your fellow classmates will be practicing attorneys with specialties in entertainment law, corporate, etc.