A 3.97 unweighted probably means a UC-weighted-capped GPA around 4.3 or so, if she had at least 8 semesters of honors or AP courses in 10th and 11th grades.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19940645/#Comment_19940645 indicates that, in 2015, applicants with such a GPA had pretty good admission rates to most UCs, though if she wants a popular major like computer science or an engineering major, admission will be more difficult.
Yep. CS with a certain type of ME as a minor. The school she has chosen has direct admit into that major. I don’t think she would like the intensity of a UC engineering school, and she doesn’t care about (or more accurately, disdains) the prestige factor. It’s important to us that we can afford the school because we consider ourselves too old to take out loans, and we also have her high school freshman brother to plan for. I’m glad she has found a school she is so excited about that is affordable.
A point I was trying to make (in my very first post here) was that commuting is not realistic for students in many areas of CA. While states may try to scatter their schools geographically in order to make commuting possible, CA neglected to scatter any CSU’s or UC’s in the far northern region of the state. Students in the northern counties can go to Southern Oregon in Ashland for in state tuition rates, but that is a difficult winter commute over a high pass even for those right near the border and is too far of a commute for most.
@NoelleCf >>> unfortunately she doesn’t want to go to UA>>>
Has she visited?
@mom2collegekids – No. She has never been to the south, and I haven’t really, either. She’s pretty closed to the idea of living there, even for college. I don’t think she has anything against UA other than location. She wants a cold climate.
@blossom -
I don’t share anything financial with my friends, they don’t know my salary, my taxes, my mortgage, etc. The reason that I may be able to provide for my grandchildren is that right now I am “house rich.” Once I sell my house, I will have more money because I don’t intend to buy up or to remain in my expensive community. Also, most of my net worth, other than my house, is in my retirement accounts. Right now, I am too young to touch that money without penalty; by the time I have grandchildren, that will no longer be the case. Plus, I haven’t decided whether or not I will put my money towards their college or use some of it for other purposes, like making sure that H and I don’t become burdens on the children as they are trying to live their adult lives.
As of now, although I am not rich, because I have lived frugally and put money away towards retirement, I am not in a position to be awarded financial aid. The alternative would have been not to work as hard as I was capable of and rely on others to support my children.
I could take out loans for college, etc. and I told my kids that if they got into an Ivy or equivalent type school, that I would gladly do so. None of them has chosen to take me up on that and I don’t feel the need to go into debt for a school that is not top notch when I am fortunate enough to live in a state (NY) with well regarded public colleges.
A little off topic, but I usually am: Does anyone else wonder what “tract house” means to the OP? I live near Levittown, PA, so that’s what I picture. That is also the example used by Wikipedia. Is that what a $350K/year SoCal family with 4 children lives in?
People who get need based aid are “rely(ing) on others to support (their) children”? Most low income students don’t get to go away to school. If you didn’t work as hard, your kids would likely be commuting to the local community college or 4-year public like just about everybody else. There isn’t any pot of free money to make going away to school an affordable option. All you get with a lower income is reduced opportunities.
As someone who grew up as a low income kid, I promise you wouldn’t want to trade your kids 18 years living in a non-poor household for the possibility of some meager financial aid.
But go ahead. Quit your jobs and have your kid put off college until 2018. I’m sure that few thousand in Pell grants that you’ll be eligible for will totally be worth it. 8-|
OP might mean the typical California single-level house type–mid-Century modern. If you’ve seen The Social Network, the house they stay in near Stanford is an example. (and, yes, that’s my most immediate reference point haha) Or, they mean the cookie-cutter two-level homes that are more common in SoCal/Orange County. Likely the latter given the screen name, though there are single level mid-Century models in SoCal too. It depends on the neighborhood one lives in (in LA proper, the West Side and parts of the Valley it’s mostly mid-Century models, but in newer suburbs/the OC the cookie-cutter neighborhoods are larger/more modern).
I don’t believe @techmom99 is saying she and her H are not helping their children pay for school. What she is saying is they are unwilling to mortgage their house or raid retirement funds, or take other loans to pay for expensive private schools unless they are ivies.
I would assume OP means cookie cutter large housing developments (or seven smaller ones but all generally the same builder, a few models to choose from, spec houses, not custom or McMansions, 2000-3400 sf ish on smaller lots, is what we would consider tract homes in the greater Seattle area. Which is the current build version of Levittown
Sparsely populated areas tend to have this problem. Redding and Chico are the 84th and 86th largest cities in California, at about 90,000 each. They are not close together enough that someone living in Redding can easily commute to CSU Chico (similar for the distance between Redding and Humboldt State). Much of the population in the northern region does not live in or near these cities, so dropping a CSU or UC into Redding would not add that many students into commuting range. Note that the CSUs in Chico and Humboldt are more residential than most CSUs, probably because the number of students in their reasonable commute ranges is small.
Most of the western states have significant sparsely populated areas where putting in a university someplace would bring few students into commuting range.
@eandesmom is correct. I have not refused to pay for my children to go to college. I have told my children that I will pay for an instate school for them. I live in NY, there are 60 plus SUNY colleges to choose from. They are about $20K or so per year for a four year and about 6 for a community college at this point and I am paying it. I have one at each currently and another who is graduated with a masters. My oldest dropped out of college and is employed. I have told him that if he chooses to return to a state school, it is on him to pay up front (he’s 26) BUT if he gets A’s, I will reimburse him 100% and I will reimburse 50% for B’s. It any of my children wanted to go to a different school, they could have the state money and self-fund the difference. If that school was an Ivy or equivalent (U of Chicago or the like), I would chip in more. I just don’t see why I should pay for my child to attend a school like Hofstra or St. John’s when there are SUNY schools available to them.
While my kids were growing up, I didn’t stint on them. Dance classes, music lessons, sports, bowling, tutoring, day camp, scouting. Ten years ago, I lost my good paying job of 20+ years and although I got a new job within a few months, I still don’t make what I did then. I am certainly not seeking pity; even at my reduced income, I am still a higher earning person. . However, the knowledge that I could lose my job again informs all of my financial decisions. It doesn’t help that I grew up in a housing project in the South Bronx and that my H is not in the best of health. I run scared.
As another poster pointed out, I AM bitter about my parents refusal to pay for or even contribute to my college. They went into debt to send my younger sister to school in another country and made me pay rent money, so, yes, I am bitter about that. Eventually, I realized that I couldn’t let my anger about my parents affect my children. Despite that, I am not in a position where I can afford to pay $40K out of pocket for a year of college. I am managing $25K. My newest car is a 2006, which someone GAVE me, my other cars are from 1992 and 1994. I don’t live large. I live in an expensive area, but we bought before the market went up, and we are in the starter neighborhood. I bought here so that I could send my kids to public school; where we lived before that, I would have had to send the kids to private school. My H and I decided that it was a better financial choice to buy a home in a better area than pay for non public schools. None of my kids has their own car, I buy my clothing at Costco and Kmart, I am not living large. I have had one vacation since 1995 and that was to Vegas earlier this year with my D. She paid for a large portion of it as a thank you to me for helping her with college.
I CHOSE to have 5 children and I certainly don’t expect anyone to pay for them. However, if the government gives out FA AND I fall within the parameters of being awarded some, would it be wrong to apply for it? Doesn’t my tax money help pay for it? I would never quit my job and have my child wait a year to apply
Is it wrong to set financial parameters for our children? How many posters here tell students to speak to their parents about a budget before applying to schools? I gave my kids a budget. It’s the cost of an instate school. Maybe if I had only one or two children, I could afford 60K a year for college, but I don’t and I love having a large family. I also feel that it’s not financially responsible for me to plunge heavily into debt to pay for expensive colleges. H is 60 and I am almost there. Our working lives are almost over. I don’t want to be a burden on my children as I age. I want them to have the money to pay for their kids to go to college.
@techmom99 Any financial expert or retirement planner worth their salt will tell folks to save for their retirement needs first before college costs for their kids. You are providing your kids an instate education. I see nothing wrong with what you are doing.
Thank you.
Does anyone else wonder what "tract house" means to the OP? <<<
[/QUOTE]
In Calif, instead of saying “live in a subdivision,” or “bought in a subdivision,” people say, “live in a tract house,” or “bought a tract house.” It’s not like Levittown.
In Calif, a tract home can be a $1M home.
FWIW. After over 100 posts—mostly about her—it may seem like it, but socalmom007 (who lives in “tract” housing) is not the OP. The OP of this thread simply asked a question if there is some threshold where one can be sure they will not get FA. Nothing more.
In NY we call it living in a development.
How about U Wyoming? It’s not in the south. Also U of SD and ND.
mom2collegekids,
I didn’t say UTA or TAMU weren’t top notch schools. I said most of their satellites were crappy, especially considering the costs. Yes, UTD is the exception, as I clearly noted.
I didn’t say that I expected anyone to foot my kid’s college bill. I expressed my opinion that EFC’s calculations are absurd and that Texas state schools, outside of a few exceptions, are substandard and too expensive for what they provide for the fifty percent of the student body who manage to graduate in six years.
Huge multi-million dollar student recreation centers versus bare bones educational departments at most of of our state schools aren’t a recipe for academic success. They should be better institutions.
Are you a Texas resident? Have you fully explored our schools?
Why do my child’s stats have anything to do with this conversation?
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I feel the OP and socalmom007. I was shocked at our EFC of $35K and the high all-in cost of our mediocre state colleges (20K-25K/average 4yr grad rate hovering around 50%+) available to our above average kid because Texas is a 10% state. Fall below that hard line and you’ve got UT Dallas and Texas Tech on the public side as the only decent options outside of the unattainable UTA and A&M College Station. Tough luck that he attended one the highest ranked public schools in the nation and has the chops to attend better than the state has on offer.
My property taxes have shot up to nearly $10K a year on our ancient, small Austin house in the last few years. Our property insurance rates have increased significantly as well. So has our employer sponsored health premiums. We have no car payments and rarely take vacations. Our 401K is maxed out in matching contributions and we slam another $1K a month into the college fund.
We carry zero debt, take home 70% of our gross (140K) income after taxes and have a sophomore following our rising senior. The EFC only drops by a few thousand once we have two in college.
$35K a year is an impossible number.
The whole system of calculating EFC is insane.
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since you didn’t use the word, “satellite” I didn’t know you were talking about satellite schools. You used the words, “mediocre state colleges.”
Since you believe $35k is an impossible number, and I can understand why, what would a lower EFC do for you?