<p>We are beginning the process of looking for colleges for my Junior son. He will probably score in the high 1300's (old scale), and wants to go to a private LAC. His grades are nearly straight A's in the "most rigorous" (I hate that term) curriculum at a high-end public school.</p>
<p>Although our EFC using CSS/Profile is a good deal higher, my husband and I have a budget of about $25,000 per year that we have saved for his education. We are lower income/high asset, due to our semiretirement.</p>
<p>With those restrictions, it seems as if he can get merit aid at a 3rd tier LAC to bring the price down from the low 30's into our budget. (example, McDaniel & Washington)</p>
<p>The slightly higher range schools have a higher price tag (40-45), less merit aid, and he would not be as strong an applicant for them, lying maybe at the 75th percentile. (Like Gettysburg and F&M) With our EFC higher than we are willing to pay, I doubt that any merit award would cover our budget shortfall.</p>
<p>So, to my question. How have your kids that are in this situation found their environment when they are in, say, the 90th percentile of their school? Any problems? Regrets? Suggestions?</p>
<p>You seem to be restricting yourself to schools in the Northeast. Let me suggest that you look at schools in the Midwest and South. They tend to have a lower sticker price to begin with, and, with your son's stats, would be likely to award suffucient merit money to bring the cost within your budget.</p>
<p>before you pick colleges based on cost -- does he have a list of colleges he is interested in?</p>
<p>If I were you (and I totally understand the desire to limit the spending for college) I would approach the college search this way:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Calculate your EFC (Expected Family Contribution) using both FM (Federal Methodology) and IM (Institutional Methodology). Don't assume that you won't be getting any Financial Assistance -- many are surprised that they do qualify. I like this calculator: <a href="http://www.finaid.org/calculators/finaidestimate.phtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.finaid.org/calculators/finaidestimate.phtml</a></p></li>
<li><p>Determine what type of school he is interested in and what areas he is interested in studying. Build a list based on those interests -- don't limit it at all (ignore costs, acceptance rates). You will end up with a long list. Read CC and ask for school suggestions. Read college books -- School that change your lives, etc. Make a nice long list of colleges. take a look at college farther from home.</p></li>
<li><p>Start weeding out those colleges -- narrow them down after he takes a second look. some will be too far, some will be too preppy, some will be too hard, etc. </p></li>
<li><p>Now you should have a list of about 30 schools that meet his general interests and requirements. Now you start the real research. You are looking for two things: Cost and how well the school matches your son. For cost, look not only at the cost figures -- but make sure travel and personal expenses are included or add them in. See if they use FM or IM and what your EFC would be. See if they offer merit scholarships or discounts. If you would qualify for need, see if they meet that need and how they meet it (loans or grants). See if they offer work-study even to kids who don't show need. To see if the school would "fit" him -- have him contact the departments he is interested in and talk to them, look at courses catalogs and course descriptions. This should get your list down to a managable size -- about 15 schools. don't forget to look at honors colleges at public universities -- they are often much less expensive and nice programs.</p></li>
<li><p>the next step is to do some visiting to get the list down. You are looking for schools that meet your requirements (cost, fit). he should be happy with any of them. you should have a safety (one he is guaranteed admittance to) and then a mix of matches, reaches and maybe a high-reach or two.</p></li>
<li><p>Apply early -- applications for merit scholarships and honors colleges are usually earlier than the regular admissions. make sure you know the dates for both applying and financial aid documents. many schools require you fill out the FAFSA for financial aid even if you know you won't qualify in order to get merit aid.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>our son had a successful quest for merit aid which precluded him from considering "reach" colleges. He ended up attending Rensselaer where his "stats" placed him in the top quartile of admittees.</p>
<p>So point one-allow your son to aim a bit higher and you may be surprised at the merit aid which is offered.</p>
<p>Secondly, our son has been the recipient of many academic benefits for attending a strong match college. He has had no problem surrounding himself with a great group of friends who are both very intelligent and engaging. The first months in his apt sophomore year they cobbled together a projection tv contraption just for the fun of it. Hey, they're RPI students.</p>
<p>His performance in the classroom has far exceeded our expectations and he is on track to graduate with high honors with an interdisciplinary compsci/cogsci (AI) major and recently decided to "tack on" a philosophy minor. So his academic plan is both challenging a broad. But more importantly, he seems really excited about his academics and his non-compsci work in particular.</p>
<p>Finally, because he has been a outstanding student in his department several profs have taken notice. For the past two semesters, 3 profs offered him paid UGTA positions to assist the instructor in intro CompSci lab sessions(4 total class hrs @ $80/wk). He was able to work this summer on an open source programming project with one of those profs. No pay but interesting work. He was also inducted into the Department honorary society, one of the few sophomores inducted.</p>
<p>So I hope you can see that there are some significant advantages of becoming that big fish in the small pond if the student works hard and takes advantage when they come his way.</p>
<p>Son wants to stay within 2 hours of home (Baltimore), so the price tags in that range seem consistent. He's said he'd rather stay closer & lower in selectivity than go farther away for a bargain.</p>
<p>"How have your kids that are in this situation found their environment when they are in, say, the 90th percentile of their school?"</p>
<p>I think it depends largely on your child's personality. Is he patient or impatient? How has he reacted in middle and high school classes where he was more skilled than the other students?</p>
<p>Does he have anything -- sports? music? -- that schools might be willing to pay for? My D has similar stats to your S, and we are also in the high EFC situation. She plays violin, and we are hoping for merit there. One school (Allegheny) has offered her a merit (non-music) scholarship that brings the total costs to about $23,000 per year. Yet to hear from other schools. </p>
<p>We were also concerned about the academic environment at schools where D would be in the upper end. She has applied to honors programs at schools where she is significantly higher, with the hopes that she would be surrounded by more academically-minded students there.</p>
<p>In the Baltimore area, depending on what your S wants, I have heard that Goucher can be pretty generous, and their stats are lower. Also, many smaller LACs really want boys, and you may find them more willing to pay.</p>
<p>My best friend was in a similar situation, she was able to get merit aid at a lot of schools, but got zilch from her #1 school, Gettysburg (she was NM semi, top 5 of graduating class, strong EC, Civil War camps at Gettysburg, etc.)...</p>
<p>She ended up at Millersville on a full tuition scholarship and ended up very happy, graduated summa cum laude, and also met her fiance (another very smart person who chose cheaper over expensive). </p>
<p>It depends on the child in the end, but my friend really grew in college, despite being at the top of her entering class.</p>
<p>Other LACs you may want to look into for merit aid (if he doesn't mind being near the top) are Elizabethtown College and York College.</p>
<p>Binx--Unfortunately no. He'll be an Eagle scout, but they don't really need them like they need musicians and ball players. At this point, his career aspiration is to major in Math and maybe be a teacher--for which McDaniel will be fine--but as my post said, I wish he could go where he was more in the upper third than upper 10th.</p>
<p>He's not particularly aggressive or competitive academically, and has found school fairly easy. His peers tend to be the type who have out-scored him by a significant degree on the PSATs. (Loads of 210+ in his classes, from what he says)</p>
<p>"So, to my question. How have your kids that are in this situation found their environment when they are in, say, the 90th percentile of their school? Any problems? Regrets? Suggestions?"</p>
<p>This can play out in many ways, having little to do with the "score" per se, and more how he plays it out once at the school. If he indeed performs as one of the top kids there, he will get more research opportunities, more mentoring opportunities, more opportunities generally speaking than he would if he was just an average kid at a school where the scores were higher. Or, alternatively, he could fall into a rut of mediocrity.</p>
<p>SAT scores predict first year college performance. That's all. The College Board makes no other claim for them, and I am always surprised that parents would put more stock in them than the authors and owners. They are a three-hour test. Higher or lower scores can reflect which side of the bed the student got up on, what s/he had for breakfast, how many thousands of dollars the family spent for test preparation activities, or none of the above.</p>
<p>Sit with your son and discuss the distances, then go over time/cost of transportation. He could get a plane from the nearest airport to Boston, Chicago or Florida for less than the cost of a train ticket rt Newark, NJ to Washington DC. and not any longer in time.
We used Ruggs to look at departments. Then we all read Princeton Review, Colleges that Change Lives, suscribed to US News. I've glanced at colleges on Colleges of Distinction website. I suggest he look at both the Colleges books first, to see if some of the methods of learning sound right for him.
Not what I would have expected going into it, but my personal experience has been that math teachers and departments were extra supportive and involved with the students, treating them as very junior peers who are working up the math ladder.</p>
<p>Jaybee, my experience is 30 years old, but I was one of those tiptop kids in a less than competitive school in college. This can be very advantageous to the right student. There are many good profs/teachers out there in the hinterlands, and they can be very protective of and very nurturing to their best students, much more likely to go the extra mile, because an excellent student will seem even more out of the ordinary. This sounds elitist, but it is true.</p>
<p>I would be more worried about this statement of yours:
"He's not particularly aggressive or competitive academically, and has found school fairly easy."
I'm not sure that he will do worse in college because of the lower expectations of his peers, often you don't really know how the other students are doing. But at the academically less challenging institution, you have to challenge yourself to some extent, go an extra mile, to get all you can out of college - but to some degree that is true at any university, isn't it?
Some of my college classes, way back in the day, were actually pretty easy for me, so my response to that was to take more classes (it was real cheap back then, too, living was the expensive part, tuition was nothing) - I graduated with almost 5 years semester hours finished in 4. My school was pure teaching, no research, so I ended up with a 15 hour per week job proctoring remedial classes, doing lab prep and general gofer work. I marched in the band and was copy editor of my college yearbook. I had to go out and get some of those things, but some I lucked into because I was one of the students that "stuck out" grade wise.
There will be other high caliber students at whatever school he finally attends, and they tend to find each other, amazingly. I would be more concerned that he performs to his potential, regardless of where he is.</p>
<p>I agree that it depends on the child. My freshman son had scores in the mid to high 700s and straight As and is at our state flagship U (in the honors program). Some of his classes are with other honors students and others are mixed. So far, he's doing well is and is very happy. Time will tell if he latches on to research and other opportunities as a result of being in the very top of his class. We hope so!<br>
He did get quite a few generous merit offers at schools that were one notch below his profile (Lehigh, Gettsyburg, Dickinson) but he also got zilch at other schools like Wake Forest. He's a pretty flexible kid so we think he would have done fine at any of these choices.
One question - does your son's peer group at his high school include the smartest kids? My son always hung out with the above average but not spectacular kids and avoided kids who were too "bookish". He had similar feelings about schools (avoiding schools with a reputation for attracting heavy hitters who study all the time). Our friends son (with similar scores and profile) was just the opposite. It all boils down to the type of kid you have.</p>
<p>ophiolite--Thanks for reminding me about Elizabethtown. Visited there with my first, and I really liked it. A little too girl-heavy was my only problem.</p>
<p>toneranger--Yes, he's right there with the Harvard wannabes. He's actually the underachiever, test-wise, in his group. He's socially comfortable with them, but doesn't want to be as academically competitive. He likes the kids personally, but doesn't understand the grade-obsession and valedictorian ambitions that his lunch pals have. </p>
<p>He's never thought about applying to a "reach" school--doesn't want to be at the middle or bottom. Mom is just worried about being too close to the top.</p>
<p>Not to hijack my own thread, but why the heck are McDaniel & Gettysburg, both the same size LAC's, 20 miles apart, $10,000 different in price, particularly when McDaniel seems to give out money by the carload, and Gettysburg is known to be stingy?</p>
<p>Or you could say the same thing about Bucknell and Susquehanna, sitting on the same river.</p>
<p>jaybee,
a couple of my son's friends attended LAC's where they were in the top 10 or 5% of admitted. Their first years at the schools were not challenging. Better in the second year - and good research op's. I believe both are graduating in less than 4 years. The young man's college is Ohio Wesleyan - wouldn't hurt to look at it.</p>
<p>Since your son is interested in math, you should be very sure that the college has a good math department and that he is not going to run out of classes to take. The advantage of a university it that undergrads can often take graduate courses. How much of a concern this is depends in part how much math he will have on graduation. If he will have had a year or more math beyond AP Calc BC (or the equivilant) you need to be careful.</p>
<p>I would also suggest looking - just for fun - at some midwestern or southern LAC's, where he could offer geographical diversity. He may not want to get out of dodge as a junior ... but may feel quite differently around this time next year. In addition to Ohio Wesleyan, College of Wooster and Allegheny (already mentioned) might be of interest.</p>
<p>Jaybee - We did alot of the things hsmomstef mentioned above, and toured 12 schools that we all felt were good for our daughter. My D is in the top 5% of her class and did well on her SAT's and ACT. At first she had little input, being the oldest child and not really knowing what she wanted. Initially, she thought a large city-based school would be best. We looked at NYU and Boston University. She quickly determined that she liked a college with more of a campus, so we looked at Vassar and Boston College. These were too stuffy, not her type of environment. She finally found that she liked the small LAC type school, so we visited St. Joseph's University (PA), Bucknell, Holy Cross (MA) and Susquehanna U (as a lark since it was so close to Bucknell). We all walked away liking Susquehanna U the most. Sure, it does not carry the prestige of the other 3, but we really found few notable differences. Students and Admissions reps were wonderful. The environment is one that my daughter feels fits her the best. Tuition, room and board is less at SU and they offer wonderful merit scholarships (as does SJU). SU may be a school you'd want to consider visiting.</p>
<p>Here are some random thoughts for you to consider.</p>
<p>For merit awards, SAT score will probably matter a lot, though I really don't know where the cut-offs are. Encourage him to do some prep (see Xiggi method). With pretty high scores and good grades in good classes, he can probably land decent merit awards at schools like RPI and Case Western if he also has very strong SATs. At Case, the awards are in the range of $16-26 K per year. RPI has $10-15K (maybe more, I don't know). (I think these two schools pay people to put up with the cold weather!) Pitt is also known for good $. All of these are a 1-hour $99 Southwest flight from BWI. I’m kind of hoping my S goes more 50 miles away to push him out of his comfort zone—sounds like your S may have similar tendencies?</p>
<p>If you haven’t already, spend the $15 for premium access to USNews. You can look up things like the average merit award and percentage of first-year undergrads getting the award (e.g., McDaniel gives 63% of first-year students merit money, but only 33% of total undergrads!)</p>
<p>Don't rule out the publics as affordable options. UM-CP is big, but very good (make sure to apply by the Dec 1 priority deadline for better chance of admission and $). UMBC has a strong math department, and has recently built dorms and stuff. St. Mary’s is more along the lines of a small liberal arts college. Towson? Check out the Maryland distinguished scholar program if his PSATs are good enough for possible $3K per year if he stays in-state. Also, U Delaware is very close, not as big, and gives merit $ to boot.</p>
<p>By the way, spring break of junior year is a great time for college visits—wish we had done more.</p>
<p>My S is extremely happy at the U he ended up attending, tho his SAT scores put him in the top 10-25%tile, with generous merit aid. He's in engineering & they're having him repeat all the AP coursework he took in HS (tho he got credit), so he's enjoying cruising (with better grades than HS) while he adjusts to the social aspects of college life. He actually never stepped foot on campus until we helped him move in to his school in August, but said it didn't matter because he could be happy anywhere.</p>