Below are the 23 schools my D20 applied to, with final numbers and applicable comments. But first let me explain several important things regarding these numbers.
When I give a school’s COA, I am referring to the costs paid to the school, which are tuition, fees, room, and board. I am NOT including other things that schools will factor into their total COA - things like books, supplies, travel expenses, and miscellaneous.
In addition, for some schools I’m using the 2019-20 COA and for others I’m using the 2020-21 COA.
For financial aid, our EFC was $22K. For both the FAFSA and CSS Profile, I indicated that we would have 2 students in college. As it turns out, we will only have one student in college, so had we pursued schools that offered financial aid the amount awarded would in reality be drastically reduced or eliminated altogether. The only 2 exceptions to this are Johns Hopkins and Princeton, which are the only 2 schools I inquired about financial aid, and I talk about those in the school lists below.
When I give the financial aid amount awarded, I do NOT include loans offered. I personally think its absurd for schools to consider loans as part of financial aid. I do, however, include Work Study offered as a separate item.
For some schools, it wasn’t exactly clear what part of their awards were merit based and what part was financial aid based - in those cases I tried my best to distinguish between the two but I may not be 100% accurate.
All COA, Aid, and Cost to us that I list are per year for all 4 years. Most schools will raise their COA a little each year, and it is unclear if merit and/or financial aid awards would also be raised to cover those costs or not. Miami Ohio, and possibly a few others, freeze their costs for all 4 years so there is no increase.
Costs are rounded to the nearest $1000.
So here is the list, sorted by lowest out of pocket cost to attend to highest out of pocket cost to attend :
(1) University of South Carolina. D20 was invited to the Top Scholars competition. Initially she was awarded a Horseshoe scholarship, which is essentially full tuition, but was named a McNair alternate. Very soon after the initial award she was notified that she was bumped up to a McNair. In addition, she was awarded $6K Provost for NHRP, and an additional $6K departmental scholarship.
McNair Scholarship : $22K + In-State tuition (essentially an additional $23K) = $45K
Provost + Departmental Scholarship = $12K
Out of state COA : $48K
Merit Aid : $57K
Cost to us : -$9K
So, although we haven’t seen it official yet, our understanding is that she will receive a check from UofSC for about $9K every year for her to attend.
(2) Rose Hulman. D20 was awarded a Commitment Scholarship for full tuition, and later won a full room & board scholarship. On top of that, she was awarded a full scholarship for the cost of a laptop, which they require incoming students to buy and costs $2400.
COA : $66K
Merit Aid : $65K (plus a one time $2400 laptop)
Cost to us : $1K
(3) Miami Ohio. D20 was awarded a $41K merit scholarship, and invited to attend the Presidential Fellows scholarship competition, but she did not win a PFP scholarship. They did give all PFP finalists a full tuition award, but with her initial scholarship she already had a better than full tuition award.
COA : $50K
Merit Aid : $41K
Cost to us : $9K
(4) UC Irvine. BIG CAVEAT : this does NOT include room & board - this is the one school she applied to where she would live at home and commute. So the COA and Cost to us numbers here cannot be directly compared to other schools.
In-State COA without Room & Board : $14K
Merit Aid : $5K
Cost to us : $9K
(5) Alabama Honors College.
COA : $45K
Merit Aid : $33K
Cost to us : $12K
(6) Utah Honors College. Given that D20 already had 4 scholarship competition invites, she did not apply for their full ride Eccles Scholarship.
COA : $42K
Merit Aid : $28K
Cost to us : $14K
(7) Arizona State Barrett Honors College
COA : $45K
Merit Aid : $29K
Cost to us : $16K
(8) Michigan State Honors. Like Utah, D20 did not apply for their full ride Alumni Distinguished Scholarship
COA : $50K
Merit Aid : $28K
Financial Aid : $1K
Cost to us : $21K
(9) Johns Hopkins. No merit aid with JHU, but very generous with the financial aid. When I contacted them about the fact that our other (disabled) daughter would not be attending college full time, they stated that they will consider her to have a comparable college career and as long as she is financially dependent on us and progressing towards independence and taking college classes, and as such they would not reduce our financial aid. They were also very eager to find any other reasons to increase our financial aid, and in my opinion really tried to work with us to reduce the cost even more.
COA : $74K
Financial Aid : $50K
Work Study : $3K
Cost to us : $21K
(10) Pittsburgh Honors. D20 applied for their full ride Chancellors Scholarship but was not invited to the competition.
COA : $50K
Merit Aid : $27K
Cost to us : $23K
(11) Clarkson Honors. D20 applied for their Ignite scholarship but did not win.
COA : $69K
Merit Aid : $38K
Financial Aid : $5K
Work Study : $1K
Cost to us : $25K
(12) UCLA. Was not awarded any merit aid at all.
In-State COA : $29K
Merit Aid : $0
Financial Aid : $4K
Cost to us : $25K
(13) UCSD. Like UCLA, not awarded any merit aid at all.
In-State COA : $29K
Merit Aid : $0
Financial Aid : $1K
Work Study : $2K
Cost to us : $26K
(14) RPI
COA : $73K
Merit Aid : $41K
Financial Aid : $5K
Cost to us : $27K
(15) Princeton. Their financial aid offer did not include our other daughter having any college expenses. I contacted them and had a very negative experience - they did not seem interested at all in working with us - the complete opposite experience of JHU
COA : $72K
Financial Aid : $43K
Cost to us : $29K
(16) USC. D20 was invited to their Explore USC event where she could win a half or full tuition scholarship. After attending the event, USC became her #1 favorite school, but unfortunately she only won a half tuition scholarship plus $15K in other USC scholarships. Had she won a full tuition scholarship we probably would have found a way to make it work.
COA : $76K
Merit Aid : $44K
Work Study : $3K
Cost to us : $29K
(17) Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)
COA : $66K
Merit Aid : $19K
Financial Aid : $15K
Work Study : $3K
Cost to us : $29K
(18) Vanderbilt. D20 applied for CV full tuition scholarship but did not win. She was in fact not awarded any merit aid at all.
COA : $73K
Merit Aid : $0
Financial Aid : $38K
Work Study : $2K
Cost to us : $33K
(19) Stevens Institute of Technology
COA : $72K
Merit Aid : $28K
Financial Aid : $7K
Work Study : $2K
Cost to us : $35K
(20) Worcester Poly Institute
COA : $70K
Merit Aid : $31K
Financial Aid : $1K
Cost to us : $38K
(21) Northeastern
COA : $74K
Merit Aid : $33K
Financial Aid : $0
Work Study : $2K
Cost to us : $39K
(22) Colorado School of Mines. D20 was invited to apply for their full tuition Harvey scholarship but after examining the chances she did not.
COA : $56K
Merit Aid : $14K
Financial Aid : $0
Work Study : $2K
Cost to us : $40K
(23) And the only school that she applied to but was waitlisted was Rice.