<p>Congratulations on your grades and performance at the school newspaper.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s a good idea to live in your car. Given the fact that you would have excellent reasons for having to go to 3 colleges in 2 years, I strongly suggest that you move with your mom or see if there is a way that you can move in with someone in your current location. For instance, perhaps you can trade childcare services for room and board. That may be a very good deal for some working parents particularly during these tough economic times when otherwise they may not be able to afford reliable, good help with their kids.</p>
<p>While it’s wonderful to have big dreams like Berkeley and Northwestern, my advice is to plan to go to such schools for graduate school, where depending on your major, you may be able to qualify for fellowships and teaching assistanceships to cover your costs.</p>
<p>There’s no indication that you’re a Calif. resident, so if you got into Berkeley, you’d have to pay out of state rates, which are extremely high. I don’t think that Berkeley gives financial aid to OOS residents either. Even if they do, Berkeley is not among the few schools – U Virginia, U North Carolina – that guarantee to meet 100% of accepted students’ financial need. Berkeley is very expensive for OOS students, and housing costs in the area are sky high. </p>
<p>Add to all of this the fact that you’d have to move from NJ to Calif., which also would be expensive even if all of your belongings fit into your car. Would your car even make it that far? </p>
<p>I don’t think that you would be able to qualify for in-state tuition/financial aid by simply going to Berkeley. Usually one has to have resided in a state for at least a year BEFORE starting a public university in order to get in state rates. With few exceptions (I think one of the Dakotas’ public universities is an exception), you can’t qualify for in-state rates by simply going to an out of state university.</p>
<p>Consequently, my advice is to find housing where you are by doing the kind of trade I suggested, continue to get excellent grades, and talk to your college’s career services center about graduate school. Start looking at the web pages of grad schools you’d be interested in, and also find out everything you need to do to get into a top graduate school and to get funding. This includes prepping for the GREs, graduate schools’ equivalent of the SATs. In general, ECs don’t matter for grad school. Grades and GRE scores do.</p>
<p>Since you live in N.J., seems it would make sense to look to transfer to Rutgers from your community college. Given your high grades, state residency, and low income status, I’d think that Rutgers might be your best bet at even getting some financial aid as a transfer student-- something that can be difficult at many schools.</p>
<p>I also suggest talking to admissions and financial aid officers at other N.J. public schools, and getting help from your community college, which likely works with students to help them get into N.J. public colleges, including getting financial aid. There may even be some special scholarships for transfer students from N.J. community colleges.</p>