Moving for IS tuition

[horseygirl423]

Hi there everyone, please let me know if there is a better place for this...I think it is a valuable topic to discuss. I had planned to apply this year and opted to wait due to COVID-19. I plan to move to Colorado eventually for family reasons and am wondering if anyone has made the move for IS tuition to a particular school prior to application.

Having this extra time before class of 2026 applications open, I am considering whether I should make the move now to get IS to CSU.

Does anyone have input on whether this move will negatively impact my application? Would they value IS applicants with a greater history in CO over me? If I follow through with it, I have opportunities to work in vet med in CO starting summer 2021.

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[battie]

Life long CO resident that was rejected from CSU three times.

I'm sure there have been plenty of people who have made the move and done the switch for the in state tuition. The number of how many people who have moved, switched residency, *and* gotten an in state acceptance is hard to pin down though. I dont see how the move would negatively impact your application. Honestly, they accept roughly the same number of in state and out of state students, so it could only help your application since far, far, far fewer in state people apply to the same number of seats.

As far as long term residents being picked over short term residents, that's an admissions department question.

Keep in mind that even as an in state student, you could be offered an out of state seat due to the funky shenanigans they do. In that case, due to CSUs massive out of state tuition, you could very well pay more going to CSU than is reasonable. A friend of mine in the class above me was also a CO resident offered an out of state seat, and it was cheaper for him to go to Illinois out of state due to 1) expensive out of state price and 2) much more expensive cost of living.

 

[MixedAnimals77]

Same as bats lifelong resident etc but I was offered IS tuition on my first application. I chose to go elsewhere due to costs. CO doesn't really support their higher ed and we really pay the price. Ft Collins is really expensive to live in. One of my classmates was also a CO resident and rejected but ended up here with me at WSU! My advice to you would be if you are going to move for IS tuition to move to a school that has cheaper IS tuition& best fits your application profile then maybe move after you get your degree if that's an option.

 

[britzen]

Hi there everyone, please let me know if there is a better place for this...I think it is a valuable topic to discuss. I had planned to apply this year and opted to wait due to COVID-19. I plan to move to Colorado eventually for family reasons and am wondering if anyone has made the move for IS tuition to a particular school prior to application.

Having this extra time before class of 2026 applications open, I am considering whether I should make the move now to get IS to CSU. CSU is my top choice and I am currently a MD resident. I do not really want to go to VA-MD, Penn is my other choice because I am equine focused. I have really strong stats but am weighing the tuition options.

Does anyone have input on whether this move will negatively impact my application for CSU? Would they value IS applicants with a greater history in CO over me? If I follow through with it, I have opportunities to work in vet med in CO starting summer 2021.

I don't think schools will care at all. Your in state status is just about whether the state will subsidize your tuition, which it will if you've lived there long enough to establish residency. To the admissions office, it just tells them which pile to put you in for review.

There is no part of the application review where commitment to a state will help you unless you go to a program that REQUIRES you to stay in the state afterward. Some contract seats stipulate that you are required to go back to the state that paid for you - if you're a North Dakota resident and they subsidize your tuition at Minnesota for example, I think that you will be required to go back to North Dakota to practice for several years after you finish school. Presumably, a long history of residency in North Dakota would be looked on favorably for something like that because they are trying to invest their money in people who will stay and contribute to their state long term.


As a VMCVM student I will also shamelessly plug for your current in-state. We have an excellent equine program, including the equine medical center in Leesburg.

We are also one of the cheapest programs in the country and, as you will hear many people on here reiterate, going to your cheapest option will result in the greatest long term happiness.

In state tuition and fees at VMCVM are $14,000 cheaper per year than IS rates for CSU. (COL and other stuff seems about the same.)

That's $56,000 over 4 years... Probably more like $75,000-$100,000 when you account for interest on loans.

Something to consider for anybody who is considering moving for IS rates... Not all IS rates are created equal.

 

[sheltermed]

As someone who moved for a school, I'm still on the fence about recommending it to someone myself. There are a lot of moving parts and things to consider.

I applied to my school out of state one year and got waitlisted. It was the only school I had heard semi positively from and one of the maybe one or two other schools that aligned best with the type of application I had. Because it was a particularly competitive year, having gotten as far as the wait list as an out of state resident made me fairly confident I'd be admitted as a resident.

Long story short, moving did get me admitted, or admitted more easily than I would have been if I remained out of state. However, even though I met the requirements for in state tuition status, I was rejected for it. Some of the committees that review these applications base their decisions on opinions as opposed to what's written in their policies, and to be fair they do reserve the right to do so within those policies. I don't regret the decision, though, as a separate opportunity came up for me here that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

So for some schools you can get admitted as a resident but not approved for in state tuition. Just be very meticulous in researching every detail of becoming a resident of another state and getting granted in state tuition at a particular university. It's not as easy as it looks.

Good luck!

Eta: it's all very dependent on your personal circumstances as well. If you're cool moving away from family and friends and don't have family/partner to consider, it's a pretty low stakes move. And that was the case for me, but I realize it would not be for many others.

Eta again: I DID move with the understanding of the possibility of not getting in state tuition (my main objective was just to get admitted), I had done my research, so I wasn't surprised!