What great out of state public colleges do your kids love?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD's June SAT scores make University of South Carolina acceptance "likely." It's #1 public college on her list for fall 2014. If anyone else has South Carolina insight, please share.

Apply early- housing for freshman year is based on the date they receive you application- which should be posted online by Mid August. If you are in MCPS, many schools require 6 weeks to send transcripts to schools, so be on the ball, in the counselors office asking them to send the transcripts by the 1st week of school, as the application deadline for the first batch of kids (when most apply) is October 15th.

I really can't say enough about how generous they were. My son (who is a smart slacker) had a 3.2 unweighted, 3.97 weighted. 9 AP's, 6 going into senior year, of which he passed all of them with 3's and 4's, no 5's. He got a 31 on his ACT (one sitting) and a 1920 on his SAT's. They cut the out of state rate in half for us, taking it from 28,000 14,000 under the Woodrow Scholarship. He was invited to Capstone but does not want to do it.

If I could have done one thing differently, I would NOT have submitted the SAT's. The application says that you have to submit all standardized tests, but I found out after the fact that you do not.

We found out about admission mid December. Scholarship info was posted in early April.

Just for comparison, he got into VA Tech (small scholarship, would have been 38,000/yr) and U of Md under the Business LEP (limited enrollment) and got into the Scholars (step below honors, still a signature program). Towson was our safety (they gave us a full ride, he was having none of it) and the University of Central Florida (also got a generous scholarship.)

You can download last years application now to get a feel for the essay questions (which were VERY similar to the year before that's questions) and to see what info you need.

The biggest thing I can tell you again is that Oct 15th is early. Be on the ball and proactive to get those transcripts in.

Good Luck!

NP here. Wow, thanks, PP! Every time I start to despair that this forum has been overrun by childish adults, somebody like you comes along and shares valuable experience, like a breath if fresh air. My DS sounds a lot like yours, a smart slacker, and I will definitely remember USC in two years.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the helpful USC info. Curious why you suggested bypassing the SATs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the helpful USC info. Curious why you suggested bypassing the SATs?

The reason I would have bypassed sending my kids SAT's in is that his 31 ACT corresponds to about a 2100 in the SAT's. He only took them one time each- he had a hard time the end of Junior year emotionally, and even getting him to take them that one time was a struggle (depression and anxiety, breakup with a girlfriend of 3 years, yadda yadda yadda) and then by the time the next SAT rolled around (end of Sept early Oct) all the info of test scores and GPA had already been sent in with the early admission application. If I had just sent in the ACT they would not have had the SAT to compare it to. I was VERY happy with the package SC gave, but I wonder if it would have been higher if they only had the ACT and not the SAT to compare it to.

The Oct 15th application is NOT binding. It's similar to the U MD priority deadline, where the majority of kids are taken from the first batch. There is a second deadline (maybe mid December?) and that group of kids finds out in late March I think.

[Anonymous]

Can Oct 1 SAT scores be considered for early app? Will you still secure your app date for housing or does everything wait for Oct scores? My DD is planning to take Oct SATs but sounds like USC app should be long filed by then?

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure about that. Call the admissions department- they are super nice- they can best help you.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. And what's with the junior yr break ups? DD broke up with longtime boyfriend a few days after his HS graduation and a few days before her finals. So yes she took 5 final exams with a broken heart and studied not one minute. It was sad any way you look at it.

[Anonymous]

The breakup thing worked well for my son. He had a fun senior year, with a new group of kids, and I think it will be easier for him to leave knowing he has a clean break. We had a rough few months, but in the end it was all for the best. Good luck with your daughters senior year!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BTW, many of the Texas state schools have a one year residency requirement before applying. We briefly looked at Texas A & M (computers) but DC would have to move there for a year before applying. Same with the California schools - so check out those residency requirements before wasting your time. When we applied to VA universities we had to provide address, date we moved in to that address, etc. etc. how long had we lived in the state.

For Texas and California residency requirements, I assume that's to receive the instate tuition rates or do you mean before you can apply?

That's a very good question and I think it varies wildly from state to state. Some state systems are very good and very competitive so have strict residency requirements. That's why I was urging OP to check before getting invested in a school.

The Texas state schools (well at least the ones we looked at, see comment about the dual system in CA below) definitely required a one year residency before you could apply at all. We did look into Texas A&M and some others (some really good schools down there!) and DC would have had to live there in Texas for a year before even applying.

In sharp contrast, Univ. of California allows, indeeds encourages, OOS because the state is bankrupt and they need the kids who will pay full freight. So no problem there applying from OOS, especially if your application looks like you are going to pay full zOOS freight. In fact, the U.C. system has gotten legislation passed that increases the no. of college seats available to OOS just for this reason (this info is directly from a Regent). However, the Univ of Cal system is different from the California State University system (there were two state university systems in CA set up in the glory days of CA; also a very good two year junior college system, now called community college system - the push in Cal's glory days was to let every Californian have a shot at college). The Cal State system takes Californians first. I had called one of the flagships that feeds computer geeks and animators into Disneyland and was told there was no point in applying from the east coast because they were "oversubscribed" by thousands of Californians who wanted in. The only way DC could go to a Cal STate Univ. school (as opposed to Univ. of Cal.) was to move out there and live out the residency requirement (I don't know what it is) and then apply to Cal State San Diego, etc., but only after paying her dues as a resident.

Then there's VA which takes too many OOS (IMHO) again to get kids who will pay full freight. And a lot of international students for the same reason. No residency requirement for OOS. But when we applied as a resident we had to prove residency and length of residency. I know someone in DC's class going to Univ. of Georgia, so obviously no residency requiremen there, etc. So my advice was to just make sure before visiting that there isn't a residency requirement.

BTW - something to check out. I read somewhere that sometimes OSS kids get stigmatized by the in-state kids. This particular anecdote was about UVA and the UVA in-state resident's attitudes. An OSS woman was complaining that once she said she was from "X State" then the other kids would say, "Oh, another wealthy stupid student paying our way through college, park your Mercedes over there and thank you very much". The story could be isolated but I did read it and it was someone's quote with photo about her misery at UVA as an OSS. If I were looking at OSS opportunities for DC, I would very much check into that. It's well known in the U.C. (Univ. of Cal.) system that the OSS'rs are paying the say of the in-state kids. And the in-state kids think they are superior. I would certainly ask a lot of questions and try to find out if that is true. Good luck!

Just wondering, which other Texas schools did you research and what did you think of them? We have family out there and I thought about some of those universities for DD and was looking at some private schools (SMU, Baylor, TCU etc) as well as publics like A&M and Tech

[Anonymous]

Auburn

[Anonymous]

For schools out-of-state in areas which are unfamiliar: know your child's political leanings, then research voting patterns.