University of California - San DiegoDiscussion Discussion

Pretty much. I have about 30 k to pay with financial aid, in the same boat as you :(

I have almost full tuition to pay I only got a freshman scholarship :(

Out-of-state and saddled with the $53,5K/year. they gave $17k/year merit. $5650/year FAFSA Pell and son's Dad gave him his GIBill: pays about $36K/year. Son will be able to bank much of FAFSA.

If you can handle it, do ROTC: pays your tuition, books, and $400/month living expense stipend every month while in school for four years. You will owe the military six years or less if you don't do four years ROTc, they also have 3 and 2.

My advice: STUDY: make a schedule of 3 hours of study for every hour in class and don't deviate no matter how good looking he/she is and how fabu the party is. Be your own compass and keep your eye on the prize. Graduate Summa Cum Laude (3.9 or higher) visit your profs, be sure they get to know you and you benefit from their experience. You mess up frosh year, and you can kiss good-bye the less-bumpy road to GPA references, internships, jobs, grad school, and big deal grad school scholarships: Rhodes, Truman, Goldwater, etc etc Befriend A students, ESPECIALLY if you are accumulating debt to go to college.

UNLESS of course you're a W (as in Bush jr, who's daddy got this coked-out drunk college Yale boy an oil business which he blew and Daddy's contacts all the way to the WHITE house. most of us don't have parents with friends on the Boards of big-time companies to get junior an $80K starter job. Work hard, it's your ticket out of working at starbucks after you graduate. Or invent something, drop-out, and take your company public, while solving world hunger and world peace....just kidding.

I'm from OR, and I really want to go to UCSD since I've been accepted, but the out-of-state is ridiculous...I don't think I'll be able to go : (.

hi nywra. You're smart with smart parents, you lucky gal...I think you're a gal? You got into UCSD, so you should be able to kick butt in OR, outdoing their top students, saving money for grad school, and getting youself an Ivy league grad degree. the degree that counts the most and determines your place inthe world job,career wise is your LAST degree, not the first. I'll wager with summer school you could be done in OR before four years.

That was really encouraging, thanks Corneliasusie. I am a girl, haha. An interracial girl ;). I wish my parents were as helpful as you are with your son, I'm kind of doing all of this independently. At the same time, I guess it's kind of nice. I might go to OSU honors for first two years if I can't get any scholarships now, and then transfer...or something along those lines!

I wish you were my son, or he had your appreciation. he just tells me to shut-up and learns all the hard way while i constantly bail him out. don't think I could even persuade him to read these posts. Inbetween his earbuds on his Iphone and texting some gal, I can only get in words like, "time for dinner"... Remember, my son would not be going to UCSD, if his Dad had not given him his GIBillwhich is worth almost $40K/year. Transfer is tough cause they do a Catch-22 on you - I love this Heller book. They say be sure what you take fulfills their requirements, but if you have questions, they say, they will not advise unless you are admitted. sheesh. I know. I just did this with Revelle , the Econ department, and the Admissions departmetn for a few days for myson for his core to try to help him have it done BEFORE he gets to UCSD. I did find out that it's a good thing he has no AP stats, cause its worthless as far as Econ department goes: they only accept THEIR stats, Calc-based. My real concern is the 5-quarter Core HUManities. My son has already done so much of this at Stanford U EPGY HighSchool online, and his 50 plus Dual Credits at the local university. I found a loop-hole for him. U NV Reno here does about the same core, but it's 3 semesters, not 5 quarters. The two he's done would have sufficed for 3 of UCSD's, but I had my son do World Lit 200, sophomore level, instead, two quarters to do double duty: satisfies senior year high school ENG and if not matriculated, not more than two classes at attime at UNR, nondegree-seeking, these two semesters of World Lit satify UNR's Core HUM 201, 202 (still he needs 203, which is done with Poli Sci 101) for here. I've been trying to get some one to hold still and read the syllabus,course description at least to tell me if it'll be accepted in place of some of Revelle's core hum. Now that he's accepted, it stil like pulling out molars. Revelle sent me to Admin and Admin is sending me back to revelle. hope it flies.
I researched the AP's for his Econ major and Revelle's requirements and found out he only needs a 3 at this college in Art History, Mandarin, and Physics, can even be B, not necessarily the C mech and C elec/mag. His ENG writing is satisfied with scores. I've been trying to figure out whether to have him stay here for two more semesters, next year and re-apply as a junior - he'll have 90 credits or what ever it is. So this summer it'd be good if he knocked off something in person or online at the community college since it's so dicey to get ones courses for breadth at UC. thinking the biology requirement which is either an easy lower, very low-level or the higher one more associated with the AP. before i pay a few hundred dollars for my son to knock this off this summer, I need toknow whether he should do the idiot 100 class here or the AP level one. Tough to find some one willing to make a ruling. You may have to do this in OR so pay attention: frequently the Advisors have no clue and can easily, unwitingly or just lazy steer you to courses you don't need and waste time and money you don't have to give. ALways get a second and make sure they jive and even better, read the material yourself inthe ucsd major and college website. tofind out the above about theWorld lit doing highschool and college requirements I went to three advising places/people on the community college campus and tehn the university. I got different "answers" each time , and then I realized they were not answers, rather guesses. So, I WENT TO THE DEPARTMENT HEAD OF CORE HUMANITIES AND COMMUNICATED WITH HIM BY EMAIL SO IT WASN'T VERBAL. Go to the source. The registrar is who determines your credits and they are supposed to getit from the department head. so, if u're in OR and planning a tarnsfer, it's critical you take the right stuff to fulfill your core for your college AND the classes lowerlevel for your major. DEpartment head. Skirt the advisors who prefer to not answer and say ,they can;t help you tillyou're admitted. Bull puckie. My advice to you: look in the mirror. Is there any way you can pass for American Indian? you know they can look a lot like Asians...the genes share, you nkow, Bearing Sea migration to the America's from Asia and all. IF you do, see if some how you can change your high school record to reflect Native American. Then at Corvalis, state you are Native American. It is cheating, but you are at a disadvantage racially being Asian: Ivies are actually trying to limit them, cause otherwise their schools would be 100% Asian almost since Asians worldwide areout performing the old racial dominant: white folks. Find some tribe near you, learn about it, write about it and you might be able to go to Stanford, Harvard, not Princeton cause they don't do transfers. The schools do not do DNA testing or inveastigate your lineage. Frankly the stats of admitting a Native American make them look good. so if you're willing to pass yourself off as one, they aren't going to pull the covers down investigating. just get your story straight. I missed my calling. I should have worked for Goldman Sachs selling credit-swap derivatives, raping and plundering...FYI, the Native American thing will never sevice UNLESS you run for public office like some lady did - she said she was some race, not white, and her opponent unearthed it on the national news. Most employers are only going to check to see if you attended and graduted, not your race. heck, Native American might take you far in the work world too. But that might be a tall order, not sure. just don't run for office. Actually she might have pulled it off,but she didn't stick with her story, changed her race back to white. You can do this. Ethically, I have a problem with robbing native americans of a position,but its one they're not filling anyway. heck, until the playing field is leveled for Blacks, they must have diversity, after what was done to them: much worse after the 13th amendmant, after Lincoln and the Civil War, hidious crimes against humanity, hundreds of thousands arrested and killed being worked to death, much worse than when they were someone's property. They didn't sneak into this country illegally,but were dragged and they are still gettting screwed.Did i mention I'm so German descent that my Mom is actually born and raised in Germany - jew,not good, wshe was born in 33.long story. hope I encouraged u to stick it out in Corvalis for a bit. I'll be expecting to hear you graduate Summa Cum Laude some where. some one is going to have a fit for all my dribble on this site.

Wow, thanks for the advice on classes! && that's pretty ungrateful of your son, I would kill to have my parents act a little bit interested in my college pursuits, or have this GI thing, haha. that's pretty funny, not a lot of people can guess my exact heritage, a lot of people guess that I'm native American. I'll think about that though, hahah. Yeah, I'm a full IB student and I take AP classes too, so I have no clue how that'll all work into UCSD credit (90% can't go...they gave me a grant, but I still have 34 thousand a year...I'm paying for and working for college completely on my own :\, I'd rather not start my first years of independence with 130 something thousand in debt.)

Smart! nywra. do not take out more in loans for four years of ugrad than you'll make at your first job in one year - which may be as little as $35K, and you'd rack up four times that at UCSD and then the interest would turn it in to hundreds of thousands of dollars: you'd never travel, have a new car, buy ahome, start a business, have the luxury to shop for a great job, or find a man who'd want a debt-ridden gal (prince charmings are really the stuff of fairytales).

UC is the best college for AP's/IB's Dual Credits, and transfering unlike Most Selective privates which limit them to 32 or 45 credits (don't know these are quarter or semeter colleges). After you achieve what I've written below, go on collegeboard.org and double-check it with the colleges on www.questbridge.org (big endowment privates, historically most generous to poor, talented apps). Check the transfer stats and only apply to those who historically admit the most transfers. Do NOT pay any application fees. If they can't front your app fee, their not much promise and who needs 'm.

Live at home. Take 18 credits a semester, get straight A's, stay focused, make a schedule of 3 hours of study for every one hour of class and do NOT deviate no matter how fabu the party and sexy he is. Visit profs regularly to shoot the shi* and let them get to know you, your dreams, aspirations, problems with class, anything...make them your friend and advisor. Meet kids at school , make friends, join stuff beside stupid football spectator sport watching. I'll guarantee you'll get better advising from your profs than the 'advisors', who often are work/study and you're just a paycheck to survive college. Some profs will be like these unmotivating advisors, but most of them will value you valuing their opinion and experience. They're smart, they've done the grad school apps, they know much of the drill better than i could ever write. Figure out a major, improve your math skills, retest SAT or ACT if you want, work endless problems in McGraw Hill Math Level II and do all the practice problems and explanations (goes up to precalc/trig) and if you have troubles, go to the Corvalis math lab: make this your hobby, mastering math at least to score mid to high 750's on this exam. And after you do, take the ACT or SAT right away and you'll drive up your scores seriously. the questbridge schools expect most of their English majors to be math smart too, unless you're a best selling author or writing screen plays for Hollywood...blah blah blah. My point is, fill your application goodie-bag stuffed full for when you apply for transfer or grad school. What ever your hobby/sport is, parley that to helping younger people do it. Colleges who help you want to know you are passionate about something and care enough about others to try to share your joy with them and if they're giving you money, they hope you might one day give back to them and it's easier to envision this happening with some one already in the habbit of sharing themselves selflessly. And see if you can create a paper trail for your Native American roots I hear you have. Just remember you are native american and so am I, we all evolved from the same soupy sea - well that's rich, as in poor form. Diversity I very much believe in, but am still counseling you to make it work for you, and to avoid the prejudice now about your race. heck, i thought about telling my son to tell on college just for the experiment that he's Polynesian descent - not hardly, he's born on Oahu, but is about a German descent as the average Joe at a Deutch ghasthouse, Munchen beir garten...O.k. super late and my editing is turning into more stories.

Focus in on a few colleges you'll apply and do everything you can to meet their core and what usually goes for your chosen major's lower-level work. Study colleges majors, courses, use two windows to read the description of what their talking about with their numbered courses - they're all different, a 200 course might be 20 or a 10 somewhere else. Check the courses required for your major at the Most Selective schools, cuase I guarantee the lesser selectives taking the lower achieving kids will have lower bars of expectation to get a degree. Shoot for the top, at least your work in Corvalis will get you into the next level down which is very selective. Work hard and avoid lower. Cross reference in multiple ways - takes time,but you'll benefit tremendously and then if you get an advisor who's not informed or just doesn't care, you can avoid an expensive pitfal and waste of time inthe wrong classes. If you have questions write - email and always get it in writing incase you need to print the position for the registrar which is where you go to make sure you get your credit - things change at colleges, the requirements and what flies. Department head is where to go if it's muddled. Above for colleges transfer credit advice. it's lots easier to do this with an Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Emory, Pomona than a huge public school, but it's doable if you have your heart set on California!.. Pomona is SoCal, inland 30 miles from L.A., suburbs, fabulous.

This is going to be very spartan to stay at home, but you'll need the money for your transfer school and grad school. Serious delayed gratification needs to be lightened up occasionally - it's so important a time coming out of adolescence into young adulthood to soldify socially. Well, join a club or two, PE classes. You'll be O.K. if you keep your eye on the prize and spend the time researching so no effort is a wasted one.

spend time beyond questbridge and collegeboard googling endless college ratings. Princeton has a super one of 50, where they evaluate the top 50 colleges on much more things than USNewsReport. such as, how happy kids are (college prowler and college confidential could be your regular Saturday night date!) and not only graduation rates, but levels of pay and how many are employed after graduation. spend the day at barnes nobles and read all their college rating books there in their starbucks cafe. Beware of the schools who employ graduates for low wages just so they can show them employeed at graduation. college is it's own racket. and where so many college grads go for their careers: admissions.

I hope my diatribe causes you to feel good about your Corvalis - very wise - decision and helps you keep your eye on the very dooable prize. Go get it!

oh,one more thing, www. directtextbooks.com and get the cheapest version of "How to go to college for almost free" by Ben something. study this and add put what u learn into action and your warchest for winning admission to where you want to go with enough money to enjoy and avoid college debt, ugrad for sure.

Good Night.

Thanks! Yeah, good chance I'll go to OSU honours. & coincidentally, I was a finalist for the questbridge scholarship, but I didn't win... :\ Being a finalist hasn't really helped me with admissions so far. Yes, I will hard like always, thank you for all the great advice. : ) Coincidentally, my math score is the one that needs to go up a lot haha. It's like you already know me!

You, nywra, are going to do awesome in life - great attitude. If you have half a brain and work at it, you can do math: you have much more than half. OSU math lab and tutors are there for you to give you what you've not gotten in public schools since first grade.

Native American Questbridgers with lower credentials than you got in, I'm assuming. Any person in this country with an inkling of US History, not the white-washed public school version, will be and should be compassionate.

Friend me on Facebook 'Susie Binkley'. I clicked on a lot of stuff and it may not be going public right now or accessible with my name. don't know, obviously don't care. The colleges are getting everyone connected. Not UCSD: the UC known for minimal social happenings; but UCLA is all over it: connected all their new admits with a private UC Facebook account.

More unsolicted advice: carefully study a major or minor, with some sort of math compenent at U of O Eugene, discover the core/breadth requirements for it and the major, and do them this coming year at OSU Corvalis, change schools for 2014/15, if at all possible and won't cost too much money and everything transfers. Study the AP credits at OSU and UofO - the scores needed. You can do AP's this May and next May - no law says you can't do an AP while IN college for lower division core/breadth. $90 AP and a $20 prep book, and or borrow the actual text for the course from a high school in your area - even yours - is lots better than the $500 to $4000 colleges will charge for the course. Stay on your toes: prep, prep, prep for standardized tests. GRE's (grad school entrance exams are around the corner. read stuff for seniors at your college: plan ahead. Start going to meetings at your college discussing Rhodes, Truman, Goldwater Scholarships for grad school: aim high.

If you're able to live at home and knock of your u-grad in 3 three years, or double major in four, live at home, stay at home till grad school. You gotta get to grad school. Don't let Mr. Right deter you...in ten years he could be Mr. Wrong, or worse, Mr. Nightmare... on the other hand - current evolution situation, women have the body and energy best suited to going with no sleep to care for enfants between 18 and 28. Oh well.

My son, who I thought does not listen to me, something must have seeped in. After I explained to him that he'd have no debt and GIBill gone at UCSD, he's thinking ahead to blowing his grad school money ugrad. GI Bill pays off much more grad school with the yellow ribbons at the top schools - $30K per year becomes $40 and $50. UCSD could potentially do the bait and switch the WSJ warns about: give great grants to frosh, and then not give it again, but frosh do not - who does -want to change schools; so they end up with, in our case $41K in unplanned for loans ugrad. Not acceptable.

I've just exchanged a four emails about this with UCSD Fin Aid. No promises, but they say, it's not something we perpetrate. She,Renee Moore, framed it as such, "no guarantees when it comes to financial aid, becuase the grant is dependent on too many factors such as changes in housing, changes in FAFSA, governmental policy beyond the school's control." It's the last one that troubles me. Policy maybe or change to be to help frosh first. So, next email I framed my concern differently with , "What's the percentage, your best guestimate since stats likely not available to you, of sophomores or juniors coming to your offices emailing , whining, crying ,about having to take out loans due to loss of grants?" No answer as yet. She made it very clear my son's grant is NEED-based aid, not MERIT-based aid. No wonder the U.S. is about to experience another financial bubble-burst, much worse than the banker-caused housing crisis, which is the College Loan crisis involving trillion of dollars of student debt that cannot and will not be paid back.

Today's the day my son will hear from CAL (berkeley), Princeton - uber dream school for him, Dartmouth, Brown. April 1 is Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst. Many, if not most of the students of these schools' class of 2017 have already been notified they're in. It's about miracles now. Reading www.College Confidential's posting from the newly admitted including their apps-scores-gpa's-activities, leaves little hope. Simply amazing, astounding high schoolers are going to the nation's very best.

Wish my son had done as instructed and started his Common App essay last summer and then cranked open the common Sept 1, when it came available. He first opened the common app on December 28, with 19 schools to write. Idiot. 3 of them whose scores I paid to have sent, he couldn't even get to their app's essays. The kids who got in have been all over their process for the last two years, at least.

Wishing you well and the best of luck. I do so hope I've pumped you up with hope, vim, and vigor to make your dreams come true. I think your Asian parents are partly Americanized with their odd non-Asian attitude you describe as so hands-off your education, showing no involvement or care. But, I'll wager they still value family, hopefully, and can end up being a tremendous assest if they let you do your school and don't resort to charging you room and board! Be respectful and incredibly nice and helpful at home, and thankful for what you do have. What if you were a Nevada foster care kid? Nevada kicks them out with nothing at 18, after not supporting their original family unit, unlike CA which gives them college support. Just saying: be thankful.

Aloha, susie

About the tranfer (should have edited above) idea: it's if it doesn't cost too much money all the way around, including housing and your work transfers smoothly.

Below is how you might work the AP angle, but if it doesn't fly, there's CLEP ( on collegeboard website).

AP: all you have to do to take an AP after you leave high school is suck-up to your high school you graduated or any high school and pay them the going rate fee (about $90) to administer the exam. AP is a different entity from collegeboard with different offices in a different city and different employees and different banks of computers storing your info and different phone number to reach them. They do NOT accept payment. Only the school administering the test can take your payment and order your test and proctor you. Your money is extra money in their coiffers. If your school doesn't offer what ever AP you want to take, then find who's giving it by shopping in your district and then moving out beyond your district, even out of state OR, CA. All they can say is "no", but many will say yes. For example, Northern Nevada doesn't do Chinese, so we'll travel to CA for his Chinese AP as well as micro/macro and ArtHistory, The IB school here doesn't even do AP C Physics (either one, sheeesh).

Be sure you write your social and same address as on the other test records, so AP connects all your tests when you order scores sent. This way they're stored together and they'll ALL go with one fee. If you move, contact AP, college board website has their number or google it. Let them know to update your address.

If your school is difficult about ordering your test, do a sales job on them while being very nice, and don't give up: some school will want the money. Try to get this felt out long before prepping for the test. They get part of the $90 for administering the test, and you'd just be one more in a room all ready set up for others with a paid teacher/admin proctoring. This county employee proctoring is paid whether you show up or not. That's the great thing about going to a public school: they want you to have as many AP's as possible where as the privates don't: they want you to have as few as possible and don't want to let you, often, to use AP for Core requirements, only to move you up to a more rigorous class in same subject or to fulfill an elective. Be nonshalant when selling/closing, so they understand this is normal all over the US...it's not.actually, there may be some rule that you have to still be in high school but who's to know whether not you were held back? hmmm, better find out if this will fly, before you head down this path too far. Likely that's why they only let high schools take the money - it's for kids in high school. My son is in an unusual situation in that he's doing sophomore college level work DUAL credit high school, so is in college, not in the district's schools, but they know him from before he dropped out to go home school full time college, and why they're willing to help him, plus he's still 18 and won't be 19 for a long time. Well, on second thought don't beat this AP-path too hard, might not work at all. That's the AP skinny. I've not checked Oregon,but am willing to wager it's not much different from CA and Nevada public universities. Don't give up: check into CLEP on the collegeboard website and these tests will save you money too.

correction: the privates want you to ace as many AP as possible demonstrating you took the most rigorous courses you could. After Admin gets through with yoru records and you're admitted, it's then the registrar working under school belief/policy formed by admin adn dept heads how much credit they'll allow: if stanford gives you a diploma with their name on it they want most of your work done at their school especially what they value: their core and major requirements, thus why what I say above is true. It's name brand at the best private schools. The lousier, less-than, often for-profit, privates disallow much for your AP's and put limits on them, so you have to spend more at their schools to graduate. the public schools don't share much of the above private schools' pissing/marking their territory/classes to get your diploma. the result, tho at the privates is often the same: limited numbers of AP 's that you can use beyond elective credit: varies from school to school. takes much time and research.

the stronger your app, the higher the potential for more aid/grants/ whether need or merit based.

WOW corneliasusie, seems like you really know your stuff. Wish my parents were as determined and focused, which they are(just flew from PA to cali to visit schools) but nowhere near your level.

thanks. tell my son, who seems to have forgotten that he's been accepted to top US schools and that he's living inthe state with the highest high school dropout rates and lowest test scores with even Mississippi passing us by. Northern Nevada not as bad as Las Vegas clarke county which is the real culprit. NV doesn't fund eductation, barely does.

My son just tells me to shut up. I am glad to hear , though you have fantastic parents, as most do who are getting into top schools. Life is not fair, never was, never will be. thank you again. yesterday battling my son and my ex, with my ex giving lame, unresearched advice from his UC experience 40 years ago. your kindness lifts my spirits.

Dmitri678, my son's been accepted to UCSD, UCLA, and UCBerkeley (a. k. a. CAL). My ex, at this late date wants to take him trasping about CA to look. my son's already chose. he needs his tough courses handled this semester and he's been goofing in his multivariable calc class at UNR...Econ at CAL and UCSD is excellent, my son's major. and how he's telling my son he can change majors two or three times and still gradute ontime. trying to tellhim to quit talking to my son,cause it's not 1983 and it's very hard now at UC to get one's classes with ONE major from the get-go and graduate in 4 and this is abig deal College ugrad debt is the next US economic bubble to burst, ti's out of control: trillions of ugrad debt defaulting daily. go to a lesser school to keep debt down ugrad. http://www.collegeresults.org/

the whole idea about dorms frosh is to connect inthe commuity. my idiot ex, says his mother didn't get him is dorm right away and he had to come in spring and it was fine. No, he was , is and will be asocial brainiac genious misfit. why go late when you can go ontime? Plus CAL has a summer jumpstart on breadth classes this summer...talking to him is exasperating. thank you again foryour kind words.

BTW, there's boy here in Reno, who's almost as naturally smart as my son, but could not get scores over 29 on the ACT, even tho he took it four times. He's in Case Western and Carnegie Mellon with between $35 and $40K scholarships after me counseling to put "Native American" on his Common App and telling him how to raise his ACT, how to prep to get the scores he did, did xtra currics (he also got his ENational coaching license for soccer with my son), my son's an Eagle Scout and he did try with Civil Air Patrol but too little too late He's something like a 64th Cherokee and did the Common App as this is his race, but identifies with white race, and he looks mostly like his parents: Northern Italian, blonde and blue. Both Case and CMU are flying paying his air to go look at their campuses.

Like I said above, the colleges need to show diversity, so if some one is iwlling to say so and stick to their story, not like the Congresswoman who last month got busted fro same, cause she claimed Hispanic on her college app and got into a top notch school, but changed back to white for grad school and career. Made the National news.

So, another has taken advantage of all my research and done very well. ! good luck to you all.

FYI: my son did not have to lie on his app, did admit he's causcasion, and has people, documents, to to back up everything he put on his resume. Although I see a couple angles, honesty is the best policy. We figured, and I hope you do too, if they don't want him/you, and they prefer other more accomplished, smoother road history to success than his/yours, there'll be some where else where my son/you is accepted and respected and valued. They call it a 'fit'. It's just too bad it's not 1975, when the percentages of apps and fits was much higher.