36 ACT.... Now what?

Parents Forum
21

OP: welcome. your son sounds amazing and has worked hard.

i found this web site within the last year. (i’m addicted now!) We are midwest - and elite schools are not on our radar. We want to get our kids through college without big loans. We are decent middle income, but not high savings.

after finding this site, i remember last summer telling our neighbors about our “EFC” – everyone was stunned; and it was all new news. Its so different than when we went to college in the 80s at our local flagship. I think we thought that smart kids meant scholarships – but didn’t realize the enormous difference in schools - public and private, what’s offered, rankings, etc.

There’s a list somewhere of all of the abbreviations for this site; that’s very helpful. And there’s tons of threads that tell of kids, their stats, offered scholarships, and their achievements. Very interesting! work with your guidance counselor; but ask questions here as well. collectively, the posters here are SHARP and very helpful.

have fun with your research!

22

I missed the fact that the OP lives in IL due to cross-posting. Sorry.

As it happens, OP, you have solid choices to look at in-state as a starting point: UIUC is a good flagship, with outstanding engineering; the U of C is a great, intellectually-oriented private university; and Northwestern is another top private university, but more pre-professionally oriented than the U of C. The U of C does have some merit scholarships, but they are highly competitive.

If your S were to visit those three schools–make sure he does the info session and the tour, and attends a class-- he’d probably get some idea of what he likes in a university.

23

I would add a trip to visit some LACs. The Minneapolis area, for example, has a number of FANTASTIC LACs for a student like OP’s son. He could get a nice variety of urban/suburban/small town LACs in one trip north.

24

I know that Duke has a full-ride competitive merit scholarship program which also includes fantastic summer opportunities. But Duke itself is incredibly competitive and the Robertson scholarship program even more so.

You might look into University of Rochester, which I believe is under-rated. They have several automatic merit scholarships and you can see the criteria right on their website.

If Grinnell gives merit money, then you should definitely look there. Also look at Lawrence University in WI.

My DS just got his SAT scores (1580/2310), GPA about 3.8, very, very strong EC. He has no chance at Ivys, Duke, Stanford, and his chances at other top schools are slim. So he’ll make a couple of “hail Mary” applications, apply to 4 near-safeties, probably 4 high matches, and one of the campuses of our not-great state universities just to be sure that he has someplace to go.

With your son’s scores and grades, he’ll have some great choices, but you will have to work hard to find them. This site is invaluable. Good luck!

25

I agree with Sax…figure out how much you can pay and then craft a list accordingly. The most selective colleges do NOT give tuition discounting in the form of merit aid, they give only financial aid so you, the OP, need to do some homework and figure out what those types of colleges are going to expect you to pay. Colleges that will take the closest look at all your financial assets will be those colleges that ustilize the Profile in addition to the federal FAFSA. Those 500 or so colleges are primarily private, but a couple publics (including University of Michigan) use the Profile. Those colleges will individually calculate what they believe you should pay based on their own criteria. With grades and test scores like your student has your son will have good opportunities so don’t trip him up by not doing your homework and figuring out what you can or can’t pay.

26

Sorry Consolation…let me explain a bit more. I think paying all of my son’s costs is not a good thing. Life doesn’t work like that; you need to have skin in the game if you will. I also have a 12 and 15 year old, and even though I could pay my first sons expenses entirely, I could not do for all three. I also have filled out no financial aid forms yet, I just imagine from what I know about the federal government that that answer would be no. First choice for us is scholarships, second is out of pocked (if reasonable) then loans. I am looking for scholarship information more than anything.

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Thanks Ellie, I appreciate your insight. I do understand that on a national level there are thousands of extraordinary kids out there. I do believe mine is one of them, but there is ALWAYS someone better…and in this case lots of someone’s if you will. I am a newbie and all this, so I have a lot to learn here. For instance I had no idea a PSAT score mattered. His school thinks I am crazy when I brought it up. I found out yesterday it matters and I am waiting from the info from the school. Looks like a lot of research too do, which I enjoy…just need to make the time to do it.

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Yes Merit aid is exactly what I am looing for Thumper. In my day we called them scholarships. Now I find out it is just not that simple. Keep in mind this is my first post and time at this site.

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Look at the link in my above post. There is a lot of information there about scholarships…and the requirements for them. If younread all of that, you will have a sense of where you are heading.

30

The PSAT score matters a lot for merit aid if your son scored high enough to be a National Merit Semi-Finalist. If you post the score and your state, you can find out here how likely it is that your son made it. Although the state cutoffs won’t be available until next fall, there is a parent on the PSAT threads who has analyzed data from previous years and predicted cutoffs for next fall.

31

Perfect Midwestmom. I’m from the Midwest as well. this really helps to reset expectations and to look around at many, many colleges/universities.

32

Fortunately, NMSF cutoffs for Illinois are not among the highest - not among the lowest, either. In the last few years, the cutoff has ranged from 213 to 216. For comparison, in NY it’s been between 215 and 219, and in MA it’s been 221-224. And in Mississippi, it’s been 201-207.

33

By the way…to be a NMF, I believe he will need to take the SAT. That ACT score is not what they use.

34

I think you’re right, thumper, but he won’t need to score all that high, just high enough to demonstrate that his PSAT score was not a fluke. So he could take the SAT and only report to NM, and report only his ACT to colleges.

Of course, there’s a good chance he’ll do really well on the SAT, as well.

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Just found out his PSAT was 203 Looks to me kind of low…but have nothing to compare it too.

36

A quick search shows required score in Illinois is a 215, so no National Merit Semifinalist won’t be a route to merit money.

I do encourage you to look at the “stickied” threads on automatic merit money, and to run Net Price Calculator on a couple of school websites, plugging in your income, deductions etc. from last year’s taxes. It will give you a ballpark estimate of what you can expect to pay, though there will be differences among schools. Some schools which do give merit money will also estimate the merit award, based on kid’s stats, so that can give you a rough sense.

The big shocker for my family was understanding the gap between what schools said we could pay and what we felt we could actually afford. Although we don’t feel like we can write a check for $55,000, that is how a number of schools view our situation. So chasing the merit money to close that gap is part of the college admissions ride.

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@bwbrockton11 I hope you will take the advice to run the Net Price Calculators for a couple of schools. As has been mentioned, you may be surprised to see the results. Try these:
U of Chicago https://npc.collegeboard.org/student/app/uchicago
Notre Dame https://npc.collegeboard.org/student/app/nd
Northwestern https://npc.collegeboard.org/student/app/northwestern

38

Last year’s NMSF cut-off for Illinois was 215, IIRC. But 203 is probably high enough for “Commended scholar.” It’s a fine score, just not high enough for NMSF in Illinois.

Another thing I thought of…does he want to continue his sport(s) in college? That can also be advantage at LACs and may translate into scholastic scholarship money for a kid with his stats. (Even though official sports scholarship money may not be allowed at DIII schools, coaches have a way of finding scholarship money for smart student athletes they want on their teams).

39

No chance at all at the Ivies? I really think that’s not true. Especially if he has a good class rank or his school doesn’t rank.
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Of course, it isn’t wise to bank on getting into any school that selective, and I think you’re right to include plenty of other choices on his list.

@bwbrockton11, lots of people agree that one’s student having some skin in the game is a good idea. I concur that blowing your education resources on the oldest and leaving nothing for the younger kids would be a terrible idea.

As others have commented, you don’t know how financial aid works—yet. :slight_smile:

For the heck of it, I just ran the Yale NPC with these assumptions: live in Carbondale, IL, 3 children the ages of yours, own a home worth $175K that has not appreciated since purchase in 2000, $50K mortgage, no investments other than retirement, $15K in the bank, two earners making a total of $100K (one at $80K, one at $20K), AGI $80K, kid has $3k in the bank. (I just wanted to keep it simple: no other real estate, no farm, no business, etc.) The result was an EFC of $6540. The total family contribution was that sum, plus $2K from a student job. The rest–$57,410–was covered by Yale.

Now, Yale has one of the most generous financial aid programs in the nation, and it is also one of the most difficult schools in the nation to get into; however, your S has the stats to make him a viable candidate, depending on what else he brings to the party. But I know that a lot of people would assume that with an annual income of $100K they would get little or no financial aid from any university.

Run some NPCs. Make sure you cast a wide net.

40

Post 19 has a link to the threads in the financial aid forum having to do with scholarships. Lots of good info on the separate threads in that link.