<p>@b@r!um
That’s a point I didn’t think about. Well, I’ll check it for all of my schools. Don’t most schools have some stores on Campus? Would I need a car in Tampa?</p>
<p>USF is better than UWF which is like FAU and FAU is better than FIU.
As a freshman you’d live on campus and have a dining plan. But when you move off campus, you need to have access to a grocery store.
I recommended a lot more universities (some of which would give you scholarships):
Old Westbury/City Tech is by NYC (since originally you were thinking about attending CUNY’s). You’d get a housing scholarship for Old Westbury and you may get merit too.</p>
<p>9.000 pounds in loans X3 seems crazy though. That’s like $45,000 for 3 years in loans…</p>
<p>Sam: Please don’t believe everything your counselor is sharing with you unless that counselor has lived here, worked here and gone to school here. </p>
<p>MYOS pointed out that you don’t get out in 2 years from the CC’s here. The CC’s are overcrowded because the universities are impacted, and these aren’t taking as many students as in previous years, so you get to spend a lot of time holding your place at the CC. Students do complain of not being able to get classes and Governor Brown is aware and is trying to add more monies to the CC’s, but the state is out of money that’s why international students and OOS students get billed full fees. </p>
<p>If you go to school in southern California, you have to own a car. Our public transportation systems are lousy, so we are on the freeways a LOT. San Diego has a Trolley system that goes to SDSU but you have to be near a line to take it. Where I live there is no direct access to a trolley line and there are long blocks along freeways just to get access to a bus, to get to a trolley.</p>
<p>Long Beach is a commuter school and get in their cars driving away on weekends. </p>
<p>SDSU has what they call “mini-dorms” which the City of San Diego is trying to legally challenge and eliminate. That could be what you saw on Craigslist. Homeowners sell their houses near the SDSU area, and investors buy them then split up a 3 or 4 bedroom house and the “roommate” ends up with 6-8 roommates with one bathroom to share. </p>
<p>If you can apply to the private schools in California, try to apply because many of those schools have some scholarship monies, but those schools will be expensive. Point Loma Nazarene is a Christian college directly on the beach. (Surfboards line the dorm rooms) Chapman University in Orange County is also a Christian college but does give out scholarship monies. Those are good small unknown schools that would be in Southern Cal and would possibly have scholarship monies.</p>
<p>@MYOS1634
That’s why USF is really my top choice :D. Well, I’ve to look if it’s an option to move out of campus.
Well, I think it won’t hurt to apply to Old Westbury. It has a good location and is not very expensive. As for City Tech, is it a good school? There is no one who knows the CUNY system here in Germany. On the other hand, SUNY is known.</p>
<p>Well, that’s the English system. However, our government would pay 4000 pounds for the first year for the tuition and then give me about 600 pounds every month for housing and food.I don’t have another choice - there is no German U, that offers the course I applied to (Aerospace Engineering). There are only polytechnical universities, which are not good at all. So it wouldn’t be this much, but it would be definitely enough debt. But if one U in Scotland accepts me, I wouldn’t have to pay any tuition.</p>
<p>@aunt bea
Okay, so a CC doen’t seem to be a good option anymore.
This thing with the car is making me crazy. But I think I would lease a car anyway. It’s the same like here, without a car you can’t go anywhere, if you don’t live in urban areas.</p>
<p>Which of the private universities would accept me? They seem to be very expensive though… And is it a problem to not be a Christian, if you want to go to a Christian university?</p>
<p>
You’ll find plenty of eateries (dining halls, cafes, starbucks, etc) on campus. Beyond that, the only thing you can count on is a post office and a bookstore (that sells mostly textbooks, school supplies and college-branded apparel) which also functions as a convenience store. (It might carry one brand of shampoo and hair conditioner, one kind of laundry detergent, AA and AAA batteries, etc. Things that you might run out of and want a replacement for right now.) Stanford (where I am at right now) also has a small grocery store, two banks, a hair salon and a bike store on campus. However, the on-campus stores generally charge twice as much as stores off campus. We pay for convenience… </p>
<p>I am saying “don’t count on those things” because I’ve been to a dozen other colleges that did not have those things on campus. </p>
<p>Also note that the campus layout can vary a lot. Some universities have a traditional campus, where a few blocks of property are owned by the college - you won’t find many stores on campus in this case. Some universities have a random scatter of buildings in a part of the city. You’ll probably find quite a few stores between campus buildings then. And yet other universities are quite compact, occupying only a single high-rise building.</p>
<p>Thanks. I realized that I’ll need a car, no matter if I attend university in the US, UK or Germany.
And thanks for explaning the campus system too :).</p>
<p>Most of the “christian” universities in SD county are sponsored by a “religion” but their students receive federal and state funding and they attempt to have programs that stay secular. You can always apply and see what they offer. Some schools have the monies to give to intern’l students others don’t have any.
I second what B@r!um says about on-campus facilities. At Aztec Shops at SDSU, they have a full store with SDSU clothing, computers and everything you might need but it comes at a hefty price. You need wheels. Whereas at UCDavis, the town surrounds the university and has multiple shops that you can get to by bicycle. The Target store is a little far, even by bike. So, be aware that you will need a car in some counties.</p>
<p>
Which German university did you have in mind? Most college students in Germany seem to get by without a car just fine…</p>
<p>@aunt bea
I was also thinking about applying to Pepperdine, but heard it’s a fundamental Christian school. Even though I don’t believe such things, I didn’t want to take this risk. However, could you tell me which private ones I could look at? For example there is Whittier, but their complete Cost of Attendance is above 50,000$. I don’t think I’d get such a huge scholarship.</p>
<p>@b@r!um
Well, I didn’t really think about any university in Germany in detail, the application filling date begins in June and ends in August. So I don’t know which ones offer my major, but in general I would think about Frankfurt, Berlin, maybe also Cologne. It’s really a hassle to find a university here, but at least there is no application fee.
Yes, that’s right. In Frankfurt you also wouldn’t need a car, but in most other cities public transportation is very bad on sundays and in the evening. Also, taking the train to another city costs at least 15€ (one way), if it’s next to you, 40€ are more realistic for cities that are far away.</p>
<p>
Would a car be any cheaper though? A train ticket from e.g. Berlin to Leipzig is €33.70. Or it would be about 300km driving distance, which at 8 l/100km and €1.50/l gas prices would come out to be about €36. And that doesn’t include car maintainance or insurance…</p>
<p>If you want a car and can afford one, go for it! I’m just trying to say (for the rest of the world following our conversation) that a car doesn’t seem as necessary in Germany as you are painting it. Especially given that college students can usually use local transit for free…</p>
<p>
I wonder what you’d think about public transit in the US. I’d take Sunday service in Germany over weekday service in most US cities any day!</p>
<p>No, it’s actually not. Insurance is also very expensive. But I think I wouldn’t have a choice in the U.S. and even in Germany I wouldn’t like to drive with the Bahn, because of their delays (and if you miss a train, good luck with their sale prices; they have a train connection and they would have to issue a new one).
I heard that public transportation is not good in the U.S., it’s not bad here, but I meant that I’d want a car for visiting friends and parents. I mean I would pay much less here compared to the U.S., why not buy a car with that money? It’s not that I’m rich, but I think I could afford a used one that doesn’t have an expensive insurance.</p>
<p>Sam: You may want to take a look at this list for California privates with some religious backing. Again, most are pretty secular.</p>
<p>[Member</a> Colleges | AICCUAICCU](<a href=“http://www.aiccu.edu/member-colleges/]Member”>http://www.aiccu.edu/member-colleges/)</p>
<p>If your want San Diego, check out PLNU (Christian) and Univ of San Diego (Catholic).</p>
<p>PLNU wouldn’t seem secular to a German teen though. University San Diego is probably to most religious they can imagine and that’s considered pretty secular here.
University San Diego, University San Francisco,Whittier , Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara, St Mary’s of california should all be looked into. (Chapman had a jan 15 deadline so it’s too late already).</p>
<p>@aunt bea
Thanks, I took a short look. Whittier seems to be the best one for me, but my advisor said I shouldn’t apply there, because it’s very unlikely that they give me a scholarship that covers half of their Cost of Attendance.
From the Christian Colleges, there are many that seem to be good to me. However, is there one that is widely known in California and also respected (I don’t mean elite institutions :D)? I think I’m gonna regret it, if I don’t apply to at least one college in Cali. </p>
<p>@MYOS1634
Okay.
You said I could apply to SUNY Old Westbury and I made a short research about the university and found mostly negative reviews. Is it really a bad school?
Also, is City Tech good or not?</p>
<p>As for my UCAS application (England & Scotland) I already received one conditional offer from the University of Glasgow, but one of their condition is to have physics as a subject now and I don’t have it, so it’s nearly impossible to fulfill their condition, sadly.</p>
<p>Samman, you don’t have a TOEFL score, your GPA is in the B to B+ range*, and you have these scores:
It’s unlikely you will get into any school that is praised on these boards. A “good” school would expect scores in the 650 range and a top school would expect scores of 700+. You have to be realistic and either apply this year to lesser schools, or take a gap year and apply next year with better scores and Abitur scores in hand. We can understand the CR and W scores, so they’ll likely add 50-100 points more for context, but your numbers won’t add up to a scholarship. Even the 560 math is not that good - not bad, especially if you intend to major in the Humanities or perhaps social sciences, just not good and not great. Getting a half tuition scholarship with these scores is not very likely, especially at a school in CA which is very sought after by internationals and therefore CA schools don’t really need to attract them.</p>
<p>You have a shot at Old Westbury and yes it’s not a school for high performers, it’s a school for students with scores in the 450-550 range, which is your range too. You may have a shot at a scholarship paying for your housing there.</p>
<p>NYIT is easy to get into and a good tech school but the beginning courses are “weed out”, meaning that many who got in don’t pass.</p>
<p>The conditions for UK schools are spelled out on each program’s page… why did you apply to a program that required Physic? 
You can still apply to a few colleges there but look at the conditions: typically you must meet a condition of subject AND a condition of grades in that subject. If your American GPA is in the 3-3.6 range, you would need programs with admission standards at CCC or BC, and of course meet the subject requirements, plus IELTS or TOEFL is a requirements with a high level typically required (90+ TOEFL/6.5IELTS). Although you missed the Jan 15 deadline, they’ll look at applications until March - April.</p>
<p>How much can your family afford? $35,000? $25,000? Depending on the answer, you would have fewer or more choices.</p>
<ul>
<li>if that’s a “translation”: what’s your actual “GPA” or what are your predicted scores for the national exams?</li>
</ul>
<p>That’s why I’m asking which school is good for me.
I know that Cali is very competetive and that’s what I wrote too.
Okay, then Old Westbury and NYIT -> checked. It were just some reviews on College ******* regarding the students and housing conditions (that all people drive home on weekends and only this guys stay there, who cause problems).</p>
<p>I know this, but I didn’t understand physics as a requirement to have, but as a condition to get this points, IF you have it. I didn’t think it’s different in the UK. But that’s not a problem as I have applied to 4 different universities, too. It’s University of Strathclyde, Herriot Watt, University of Hertfordshire and City University London.
They show the entry requirements in our Abitur grades, because we are an EU country. My Abitur grade is predicted to be 1.9, I also don’t need the IELTS, because the will look at my English Abitur grade. My predicted grade should be a 3.6 GPA, now it is 3.4 I think.
About 30000$. A bit more is not a problem.</p>
<p>It’s true Old Westbury and NYIT are commuter schools. </p>
<p>You might want to check CUNY CSI, the dorms are awesome, it’s near NY City, and it’s easy to get into.
With $30,000 you have a shot at Whittier.
In fact, you have a shot at many colleges much less expensive than Whittier.</p>
<p>Check out: Coastal Carolina, UMass Lowell, University of Mary Washington (public university near Washington DC), UNC Asheville, Appalachian State, UNC Wilmington, UMN Morris, TCNJ, U Maine Farmington, SOuthern Oregon University.</p>
<p>Private universities where you may get enough financial aid:
University of San Diego (reach), University of Portland (reach), University of Dayton, UNiversity of Seattle, University of Puget Sound, Pacific Lutheran College, Hendrix (reach), Susquehanna, Earlham, St Michael’s, Gustavus Adolphus, Washington College (MD), Drew University, Flagler College, Eckerd College, Albion, Hiram, Ithaca, Hartwick, Augsburg, Hamline, Alma, College of Idaho.</p>
<p>You’re probably 3.6 indeed so that opens up more colleges.
Be aware that you’ll probably have to take the TOEFL anyway.</p>
<p>Okay, I’ll look for all of the colleges you wrote down and tell you if I’m going to apply to one of them afterwards.
It’s really these CR and Writing section that aren’t good, compared to German standards my average is considered as very good (as I said, I think I’m gonna make the 1.9 and our average is 2.4;1 is the best, 6 is the worst, although you need at least a 3.9 to get the Abitur). At least it was enough for USF and I hope they will make an unconditional offer.</p>
<p>American colleges always make unconditional offers: either you’re in, or not.
I know 1.9 is very good but the SAT scores aren’t, which is too bad because with better scores you may have qualified for merit aid at some colleges. Really, anything below 600 can’t be called “good” - not bad but a 560M if you want to get into anything like CS, math, or science, isn’t a good score. I’m sure your curriculum has been very advanced and very challenging so you should be able to pick up things quickly once your English gets better.
Nevertheless the #1 criterion for internationals is how much they can afford, so your odds are good at all these schools.</p>
<p>Since you especially like Florida, check out Eckerd College.Their scores are in the 500-600 range so you’d very likely get in. They have their own private beach. Flagler is another FL college near the ocean.
[Eckerd</a> College | Welcome to Eckerd College](<a href=“http://www.eckerd.edu/]Eckerd”>http://www.eckerd.edu/)</p>
<p>
That’s not entirely true. The conditions just aren’t made explicit and are somewhat subject to negotiations. Colleges do review the final grades of their admitted students and if they are significantly lower than expected, admission offers can and do get rescinded. However, American colleges often give students a chance to explain a drop in performance before kicking them out. (For example, if your grades drop because you spent two months in a hospital recovering from a car accident, colleges would be much more lenient than if you didn’t have a legitimate explanation.)</p>