<p>I really want to pay the least amount of money for college. I am a community college student and will have my associates by the end of this year (about 60 credits, with honors, 3.9 GPA). I really want to go to Cali or Florida but out of state costs are insane! And if I want to go to a good school its so competitive that I doubt I would get a scholarship. I really do not know how the whole scholarship thing works because I haven't had to fill out the FAFSA yet.</p>
<p>Basically, please tell me what schools in California, Florida, or Illinois (if I end up in-state) will give me the most money for having a 3.9 with a bunch of honors classes? I also dont want it to be a sucky school though. Like please dont tell me SIU- no offense if you go there but I want a school with a better rep.</p>
<p>First off - there is a big difference between financial aid and merit scholarships. One is based on financial need - the other on merit (grades, athletics, etc.)</p>
<p>You need to go to find a FAFSA calculator - each school as one on their website - and put in the information and see what you might receive in AID.</p>
<p>Then research each school to see what kind of merit scholarships they offer for transfer students - again you will find this on their websites. </p>
<p>There are no colleges in California that give full rides to transfer students as a general rule of thumb. A 3.9 and honor classes is commendable, but not unusual. Realize that for privates that they take transfer students to fill out the gaps in their enrollment numbers so that they have money coming in…so they are not handing out freebie rides to transfer students.</p>
<p>The CSUs and UCs will give you nothing as an OOS student. At best, some privates in CA will try to give you some financial aid to help meet your need… so for example, if you are middle income and apply to USF or Mills or SCU or the likes, you may find that you get a “need based grant” of anywhere between 5K - 15K on top of the regular loans you qualify for–but when the total COA of these privates run close to 50K, you can see that even a 15K “need based grant” gets you nowhere.</p>
<p>You need to go see the transfer counselor at your community college. That person should be able to help you find the best places to study for the least money. That is his/her job! If your own transfer counselor has no ideas, he/she has professional colleagues all over the country who do.</p>
<p>As a transfer student your options will be very limited unless you can pay the costs. There are millions of tranfers students out there and many have super GPAs. If there were such “free rides” out there, these kids would all be grabbing them.</p>
<p>Are you saying that your parents won’t pay anything? </p>
<p>What is your FAFSA EFC?</p>
<p>Do you qualify for Bright Futures in your state? </p>
<p>It’s very likely that your affordable choices will be a Florida public unless you get accepted to one of the few privates that give excellent aid to transfer students.</p>
<p>Congratulations on getting through CC with that GPA. Absolutely visit the counselors at your college to find out where successful students like you are most welcomed. CCs usually have some schools that are just waiting for the crop of good strong transfers from the locall CC to come fill out the ranks where kids who started there left for any number of reasons. THose are your best bets. Some might even have some awards for students like you.</p>
<p>As far as transferring to other school, the problem is that most merit scholarhsip are for freshmen, And when I say most, it’s overwhelmingly most, like nearly all. Yes, there are some transfer scholarships and you should check Fastweb, and google for them Get a list of what schools have awards for transfers in amounts that will make it doable for you. Also, make a list of schools that interest you and call them and ask what they have for transfer students. Again,most schools do NOT meet full need for transfer students even if they do for their freshmen. But some do. You want to stack the cards so that they are for you as mucha s possible when you make your choices as to where to finish up.</p>
<p>How much is instate IL? I know for sure CA doesn’t give anything to out of state transfers. They almost give zero to instate transfers beyond financial need, but that is only for instate. OOS CSU’s are in the $30-35k COA and UC are in the $45-50k range so might not really be doable or worth it since privates costs the same and are not impacted. The cheapest good public would probably be CalPoly SLO, I actually saw a lot of OOS people checking it. But then it is major dependent. They’re famous for architecture, engineering, business, agriculture, construction management, hmmm a couple other things. They’re also a lot cheaper than UCB, but its all choices, Room and Board at UCB is minimum $18k by itself just to give you a gauge and its similar at all UCs. However from what I notice, UC’s love OOS money if you’re willing to pay it.</p>
<p>Instate IL schools are kind of expensive, however they will be cheaper than going to an OOS public in most cases.</p>
<p>This student is in a common position. He goes to a CC, does well, and naturally thinks that his high GPA will net him a lot of scholarship money. The sad truth is that there are many, many transfers with high GPAs, and most schools just don’t have much/any incentives to offer these students much money since their enrollment doesn’t help with rankings.</p>
<p>Unless his parents are willing to pay OR he’s low income and he’s luckily accepted to one of the few schools that gives transfers great aid, his choices are likely going to be instate and maybe limited to a school that he can commute to.</p>