Where should I look at ? Cal Fullerton and then get a metro pass? Is it a good school? Any other ideas?
CSU Los Angeles is closer to downtown Los Angeles and has a Metrolink station.
How about the Community College route? Santa Monica college is a great school and you can transfer from there to a four year school after posting a good academic record. That’s what I’d do in your shoes.
Remember that out of state tuition is higher, and there is no financial aid. And research rent in the LA area. It’s very high. Consider a path to establishing residency first, before going to school here.
Some other colleges/universities in the Los Angeles area (in no particular order) include (in addition to ones mentioned above) Occidental, CSU Northridge, Pepperdine (in Malibu), Mount St Marys (women’s college). A little farther away are schools such as Chapman University (about as far as Fullerton), Long Beach, Whittier College, Cal Lu in Thousand Oaks (very suburban).
CSU Dominguez Hills is in the South Bay area between downtown LA and Long Beach.
Are you instate or OOS?
My advice for you, if you truly want to live in LA, is to find an affordable college wherever, kick butt, do lots of internships, and move to LA as a college graduate with a job in hand.
If you eventually want to get into UCLA/USC/LMU, or want to be within a certain area of LA, I’d go the community college route first. Otherwise, any of the many schools in the LA Metro Area should be fine.
People down in Southern California like to make a distinction between LA proper, Orange County and San Bernadino County, but I’ve never found the differences to be that drastic.
Commuting time and the weather, temperature-wise, make a big difference in SoCal. Do you have a preference @cbonk ?
If you haven’t, you might want to get familar with the LA-Orange County metropolitan area, visit the campuses and understand the admission requirments. Then you can decide where you might want to live and possibly go to school. Have a backup plan. Travelling from one end of the metropolitan area to the other end can take up to 1.5 hours without heavy traffic. Cost of living (mostly rent) can vary a lot from a lower end to a very high end depending on where you live in the area.
Not sure where you live, but I’m guessing you’re not from So Cal. LA is really big, like silly big. It’s different than other big cities. Have you visited LA? Are you talking about living downtown?
With bad traffic and a weak public transit system (getting a little better every year), you need to choose your school first and then find an appropriate place to live.
Check out a community college in LA and then transfer to one of the schools you didn’t get into?
As an LA native, I agree 100%. Have you considered applying to one of the Claremont Colleges? They’re not smackdab in the middle of downtown LA, but they’re within the LA county nevertheless. They have beautiful campuses, are well known, and many of its students go downtown as weekend/break outings.
If op couldn’t get into LMU they can’t get into the Claremont’s either. 