Is it signifigantly harder to get into state schools from out of state?

Answered

Without knowing which of the UCs or which Penn State campus you are talking about, the simple answer would be the following:

-For Penn St. Main Campus, the admit rate would be about 42% for out of state vs. 58% for in state or 16% harder. And the tuition differential is about 22,000 more for out of state.

-For UC schools the opposite is true. For the best UC schools like UCLA and Berkeley, the admit rates for out-of-state might be say 14% for out of state and 10% in state at UCLA. And maybe a similar spread at Berkeley. But this year, Berkeley rates are going to be like 8-9% max because there is a court stay on how many they can enroll so they are planning on cutting the admits by 5100 places to about 12200 and the application pool is going to be like 130-140,000. Your best bet might be UCSanDiego where in state is 32% and out of state is 59%. Or UC Davis or UCIrvine which has 70-80% admit rates for out of state vs. 21% (UCI), 39% (UCD) for in state. But keep in mind that tuition at UC schools for out of state will be close to $45,000 plus room and board so budget about $70,000 per year as an out of state student freshman year and about 5% more each year.

Hope that is helpful.

Good luck