<p>Congrats Ohio! What a wonderful feeling!! DD received a letter from Quinnipiac yesterday inviting her into the honors program!! I’ve a feeling it just moved up to 1st place!</p>
<p>Yay, Ohiobassmom … what a great feeling!</p>
<p>Thanks all. He’s been invited to a scholarship day this Saturday which could be worth $2K or more, which would lessen the loan load, so I think we’ll go and call it our visit too. (This school stacked his other scholarship so will stack any others he might earn too).</p>
<p>Meanwhile, his “tied with one other school for #1 choice” - the only music conservatory/LAC he really loved, sent an email saying “your FA package is ready, we’ll mail a username and email a password”. WT heck?? It’s online, they’ve done it, but we can’t access it…the suspense is tough.</p>
<p>Then again, if that comes before Saturday it may be hard to get him to do the scholarship day at the other school.</p>
<p>Hello all! I’ve been lurking here for awhile and have found all of your posts so helpful. Congratulations to all of you & your children on their incoming acceptances.</p>
<p>I will be posting on the 2013 hs grad thread for 3.0 students, but thought it might make more sense to start here…and gain some opinions/wisdom/advice from the people who just went through the process & are starting to see the results 
I really hope you might be able to help me bc I feel that we are just all over the place and I’m not confident that we’re looking at the right schools for my son.</p>
<p>My S is a junior this year (grad HS class of 2013) and to date has been “squeaking by”. If he likes the class, he does well. If he doesn’t…well, you get the idea. He has a 3.0 gpa, is taking the SATs for the 1st time this coming Saturday. He plays football, is part of his HS theater department, and has some but not a ton of volunteer work.
He is very interested in majoring in Communications, public relations to be specific.</p>
<p>I am trying to help him find a list of schools to visit/list that he’ll enjoy that are a possibility for a B/C student…and one that might give aid. He will not qualify for need based aid due to my H’s income, but our debt & lack of credit will make it very difficult to afford these high sticker prices. I keep hearing about “safety” schools…but are there any true safety schools for the B/C student as well as financial safeties?? Ugh…so overwhelming. So far we have visited Juniata…because we read CTCL, and he loved it, but now I see their GPA is not really for B students? We have visited Suny Albany & Cortland…again, I dont feel confident about these for a B student. We are visiting UDelaware, Susquehanna, Monmouth U, Temple, Ithaca, Suny Buffalo, and Quinnipiac. He also is talking about some schools in South Carolina as well as ASU and DePaul. We cant visit those though unless he applies & is accepted. (Like I said earlier, all over the place.) I keep feeling like the schools we’re checking either won’t take his grades…or we won’t be able to afford it w/o merit aid. </p>
<p>I know this is a lot…and if you’ve followed everything I’ve just rambled…please tell me, Are we looking at the right schools? Any suggestions on true safeties,both academic & financial for the B student on the east coast? Any schools we absolutely need to go see? All help is greatly appreciated. :)</p>
<p>Welcome giat. I can only speak to my S’ experiences so far. He’s just UNDER a 3.0, but had a nice ACT (28). With those he has, so far gotten merit awards at Capital U (though most of the award was for music, just under half was not), Adrain College, Wittenberg U and Bowling Green U. All in Ohio (Adrian in MI).</p>
<p>We are still waiting on some schools that he may or may not even be accepted to. But so far, he has some nice options.</p>
<p>I suggest you read through this whole topic if you haven’t yet, lots of specific suggestions in here. And subscribe to it so you can see accepts/merit as they come in this month.</p>
<p>Giat, consider some Southern schools - they are generally a lot cheaper than New England schools. Look at Lynchburg (VA) specifically - they have a communications department and are a CTCL school. Roanoke College, also in VA, gives very good aid and is higher on the name recognition (somewhere around 120 National LAC ranking). My nephew (not a particularly strong student) received a very generous unsolicited merit aid very shortly after he was accepted in October. Unfortunately, Roanoke does not have a communications major, but they do have a very strong business program if a major in marketing would be acceptable. Finally, Flagler College in St Augustine Florida is quite inexpensive, and I’ve heard they give good aid (my daughter will be applying there) and they have a communications department.</p>
<p>Giat,</p>
<p>A lot depends on how much you are willing to pay. Your S might get in ASU but ASU is pretty expensive for OOS students…COA is about $38,000 per year. He will get no merit aid at ASU.</p>
<p>Depending on grade specifics and SAT score, he might be able to get into Iowa or Iowa State. Both have the same requirements. COA at ISU is about $30,000 per year while Iowa is about $37,000.</p>
<p>I believe that Kansas only requires about a 2.5 gpa. KU is a GREAT place for B/C students and about the best you could do (reputation wise for a national university) with that GPA.</p>
<p>I’ll speak to my DD’s experience: 3.1 or 3.2 UW, much higher weighted GPA; 2120 SAT; 30 ACT. quinnipiac is one of 2 schools left in the running for her. They offered her a 20K/year scholarship and the honors college. But it is an expensive school, so don’t know if that meets your criteria.</p>
<p>My son is a Roanoke College grad. He was a B student and got very good merit aid. Roanoke is a great little LAC in a beautiful location.</p>
<p>I’m another parent of a son with a <3.0 GPA. He applied to a bunch of CTCL schools, and, so far, he has had great results. It has been said that smaller colleges will tend to look at the student’s whole application (as opposed to looking primarily at GPA and test scores). This appears to be the case for my son.</p>
<p>You mentioned that your son plays football? Does he want to play in college. If so, look into schools who may need football players. Hendrix College in Arkansas is starting a new football program next year.</p>
<p>kathiep,</p>
<p>I’ve seen your messages several times regarding Roanoke College. I’m glad you’ve had such a positive experience. My husband is an administrator (and teaches a few classes) there, so I’m always pleased to read positive things on the board. I’ve taken several continuing ed classes there, and am always impressed with the professors. Roanoke/Salem is a great place to live - a mecca for outdoor activities. Unfortunately, my kids don’t want to go there - it’s a bit too close to home :-)</p>
<p>I hear you mamaduck, Ursinus, Muhlehnberg, Lafayette, Lehigh, Kutztown, etc. all crossed off the lists when my kids were looking! My kids chose schools either 7 or 17 hours away!</p>
<p>Yeah, the duckling wants to go far, far away …</p>
<p>Giat, It kind of depends where you are located. If you are in NY, then the SUNYs are possible with a B average- just not merit aid there with those grades. My D, h.s. class of 2015 with slightly better than a straight B got in a lot of places, and almost all with merit except the SUNYs, but she restricted her search to upstate NY and western MA. What are your geographic preferences or restrictions?</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your replies! We will definitely look into some of the schools you mentioned, although I doubt he’ll want Roanoke w/o a Comm dept. 
Thanks for letting me know that ASU won’t give him merit aid…that’ll have to eliminate one of his choices. Has anyone here applied to Ithaca college, Monmouth U, or U Delaware? He is very interested in these & is curious if a B student can get accepted and if so, was aid offered?
Thanks for helping. :)</p>
<p>Kinderny, thank you! To be honest…he wants to go anywhere as long as it’s not THAT close to home. We are in Dutchess County, NY…upstate us fine…OOS is fine. Mainly, we need some safer choices- both academically and financially. I didn’t think he’d have a shot at the Sunys, but he does like Albany & Cortland.</p>
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<p>Waiting on Ithaca here . . . . I’m checking that damn portal every few hours. :)</p>
<p>I’ve been pleasantly surprised by my son’s acceptances. He has about a 2.7 GPA, no honors classes, low 1900s SATs, and no ECs other than some part-time work. I didn’t know if he could get in anywhere. We did not apply for FA and I’m starting to think that might have been a pretty big hook. Or they are taking a chance that he will grow up enough in college to live up to the potential shown by his SAT scores. Accepted to KU (yes the bar is very low for automatic admit – I think it is 2.5 for OOS students), Drexel (College of Arts & Sciences), Hofstra (with some merit $, basically the same amount as their room & board costs), Roger Williams U., Pace University NYC campus ($15K merit), SUNY Plattsburgh, McDaniel, Lycoming ($12K in merit), Albright ($14K merit), Hartwick ($19K merit).</p>
<p>giat13, My Roanoke grad did an English major and a communications concentration. They don’t have minors there. He has said that he should have majored in communications but didn’t want to transfer so it’s good to rule it out!</p>
<p>Simpkin…been lurking here as I have s current sophomore, and it’s so reassuring to see your son’s acceptances. Mine currently has a GPA between a 2.5 and 2.75 (not sure yet where it will end up after this semester) and I’ve been so anxious over his prospects. </p>
<p>I’ve gotten so many good ideas from this thread (and the other 3.0-3.3 one, even though he’s not into that range (this is the closest I think we’ll get on CC). We’re in Michigan, and will be looking more in the mid-west, although PA is on option. I’d like to keep it w/in driving distance.</p>
<p>Open for suggestions…so far on my radar are Grand Valley State U, U of Miami (Ohio), Bradley U, Bowling Green and Ball State. My top two choices for him are Grand Valley and U of Miami, although whether or not he’ll be able to get in is an issue. Those are the two I know the most about and will have to take some time to really learn about the other schools, and any others we decide to look at.</p>
<p>Naviance, if your school offers it, is a good tool for seeing schools’ accepted student average GPA and test scores. It gave us some good leads, or more precisely, allowed us to check leads given elsewhere.</p>
<p>umich, Adrian College is in range.</p>