Hello @KevinFromOC
While I have been regularly browsing this site for about a year, this is my first post. I felt compelled to create an account to provide my advice after facing a very similar situation to yours last fall.
Our son attending the local public high school had high stats and NHRP status but did not get NMS, in part due to the fact that he had not prepared for the PSAT as we did not know that the test mattered when he took it (we were under the erroneous impression it was just a practice test). In fact, we did not even know that there was such thing as NHRP until the school counselor informed our child that he had been nominated. Anyway, he wanted to study civil engineering. And as you, living in New Jersey which is a high cost of living area, we have a large income compared to the national average which meant that expensive schools looked out of reach even though we were told by poorly informed people that we might be pleasantly surprised by the amount of aid we would get.
Not really knowing what to expect, he applied to a dozen schools, with the understanding that price would be a factor in the final decision: Rutgers, TCNJ, Stevens, Princeton as they were somewhat local. MIT, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon to see what we would get. Georgia and Virginia Tech because the prices appeared to be potentially reasonable for out of state schools. And finally, University of Kentucky (UK) and Arizona State University (ASU) because they claimed to offer incredible deals to NHRP students.
Applying to a dozen schools is a lot of work, but after writing a few essays, one can recycle ideas so it should not take more than four hours on average to apply to a school. Note however that a lot of schools only offer scholarships to students that apply early (as early as October 1st for Georgia Tech) so you need to make sure that you establish an aggressive application schedule and stick to it. He applied Early Application (EA) whenever a non-restrictive option was offered, and regular application otherwise.
A school that stood out for us is Arizona State University, and that is where he headed two weeks ago. While it was not a school on our radar, our son went to visit their Barrett Honors College after receiving an unsolicited letter basically offering to cover his trip. It was the first time he was flying by himself and he really liked his visit. I don’t know if they will offer that option this year but you might want to have your daughter inquire.
Honors Colleges are in our opinion a great concept. They are much cheaper than private schools yet seem to offer a great environment for high stat kids. A very good resource on the topic is in my opinion the book “Inside Honors 2018-2019: Ratings and Reviews of 50 Public University Honors Programs” by John Willingham (as well as the associated website). A 2019-2020 edition might come out later this year but even if so, the content will probably be similar. I also like “Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania” by Frank Bruni which frequently writes in the New York Times.
Acceptance letters came in little by little. He ended up being rejected by MIT, Princeton and Georgia Tech. He got accepted by all the other schools. While slightly discounted due to need, prices for Cornell and Carnegie Mellon were in our opinion unreasonable. While Stevens provided a significant merit scholarship, it was also unreasonable in our opinion considering its ranking. TCNJ and Virginia Tech did not offer enough merit discount to significantly lower the price. Rutgers and ASU both offered significant merit which made them both similarly priced and both accessible to us. University of Kentucky ended up the cheapest since, as advertised, they also offered money for the room the first two years. Sadly, University of Kentucky is somewhat difficult to reach from NJ and did not offer to arrange a personalized visit so our son never went to visit and therefore we ended up not considering it. He eventually decided on ASU over Rutgers.
Assuming you decide to go to the Barrett Honors College at ASU and you get the a large scholarship, note that they charge numerous fees (engineering fees, honors fees, miscellaneous fees) so your total cost might end up over 15K/year, but still very likely under 20K/year, which even though it is over your target might be your best option.
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