Advice for awesome SAT/very good GPA

College Search & Selection
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<p>First of all, thank you all for the knowledge and experience you are sharing! We are learning a lot.</p>

<p>High School Junior scored 228 PSAT/1560 old SAT (800 Math/760 Reading)/2370 new SAT (780 Math/800 writing/790 reading), ~3.6/4.41 GPA, will miss the cut for top 10% of his class on GPA at magnet high school. All classes this year were AP or honors, including Calculus AB, Honors Physics, AP Economics,etc....plans on taking 9 AP classes in senior year. Freshman and Sophomore year had a mixture of A's and B's, Junior year has had only 1 B on report card, remainder all A's. Is not an athlete, no music background. </p>

<p>My child is somewhat non-commital about most things, but has some interest in engineering. It would be a stretch to say that an engineering career is a burning desire. But, there is zero interest in any other career. Took a college class in engineering last summer and is taking another this summer.</p>

<p>EC includes debate team, volunteering at nursing home, charity events, church, etc. Several hundred hours of documented volunteer work.</p>

<p>My son associates with the math magnets at his school, who seem to be a strong motivating factor, but he is in the Communications Arts high school program.</p>

<p>Other factors: We are optimistic that he will be a NMS finalist, which opens a few scholarship opportunities, for example at Florida. We have ~40K for him for college. Could add some to that over his college career, but it would be extrmely difficult.</p>

<p>We are not a racial minority and would not qualify for needs-based assistance. No legacy.</p>

<p>It appears most top private schools are 40k per year or more for tuition, room and board, etc., which is way out of our league, financially, unless he were to receive substantial assistance.</p>

<p>Questions:</p>

<p>Does he qualify for admission and/or scholarships at a top rated engineering university? What public universities would be good for him? </p>

<p>What advice would you give if your student had these credentials?</p>

<p>Where would you recommend applying?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance,</p>

<p>~gnusasaurus</p>

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<p>gnusasaurus,
I must admit, I'm about to be a senior in highschool, and might not know the most info about college apps, but those SAT/PSAT scores are outstanding! While some programs might be skeptical about the GPA, I would hope your son's accomplishments and an interview would cover that. I assume his AP exam scores are high as well? Depending on how much geography and environment matter to the student (I have a friend who is politically liberal and would suffocate in a primarily republican environment :) ) I would look at some rankings of universities based on the financial aid their students receive. Also, there are some big books of scholarships out there. Fastweb.com offers some pretty good scholarships for community service, which I could never win competing with your son's hundreds of hours. If anyone in the family works with a large corporation like GE or Harris, there are some good scholarships there. Depending on the state you live in, it might have some full-ride opportunities like Florida's Bright Futures. I'd love to recommend some colleges, but right now I also have a thread asking for help with my own application options! I wish you the best with the search.</p>

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<p>gnu, My recommendations--Focus your college search on the colleges that will offer your S merit aid. With his stats, he can clean house. The Ivies and the uber competitive LACs tend to offer need based aid only. I've read alot of posts here on CC about kids in this year's graduating class with fantastic stats applying only to the very top tier schools and being disappointed. Disappointed because many were not accepted to their top choices and disappointed becasue they got little or no aid. In the SE, some of the schools I have heard that may be more liberal with their merit aid would be: Flagler, Emory, Rhodes, Vanderbilt, Seewanee, Furman, Wake Forest, Wofford, Tulane, Rice, Washington & Lee, Centre and others I am sure. Some of these are not necessarily engineering schools. In your own backyard, I have heard UF has a great public honors program. My two cents.</p>

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<p>Gnusa
Congrats on your sons' excellent scores!
A couple of questions -
Has he done any visits? Has any idea about size, location, etc?
Will your guidance dept at school be any help or are you on your own?
Have you actually done an online trial FAFSA, or one of the other school specific calculators? Are you definitely onely in the market for merit money?</p>

<p>If he were my son I would emphasize fit, finances and future. He reads like many boys - still maturing, grades OK frosh year, but then hit his stride, scores higher than grades/class rank.
To address fit, I would get him in the car and out to visit a selcted range of schools - large, small, public, private, LAC, uni. Since he is not clearly passionate about engineering, I wouldn't exclude schools because they have no formal engineering program, almost all good LACs and small unis will have some provision for getting students into an engineering curriculum if they decide to go that direction - part of the purpose at this point is for him to see what the range of college experiences is, and perhaps to give some realistic thought to possible majors.</p>

<p>For finances - you should run a FAFSA on the FAFSA website, or do a caculator - several schools have could ones on their websites (Search calculator on this forum). If it still looks like merit aid, his best shot will be a tier below the upper stratosphere, as well as honors colleges at various state universities. These come in many shapes and sizes, and offer many different experiences. Good state honors outside the usual suspects are Ole Miss, South Carolina and Alabama. Tulane might be interested in him, Vandy, too, although merit would be dicier there unless you are from a very underrepresented state.</p>

<p>3) Future - unless he comes home this summer passionate about engineering, I would be less enthused over "techie" schools like GaTech or Rochester or Rennesalar - some of these schools give great merit money, but I would want him to have some other options, but that may change as the year progresses - good luck</p>

<p>Oh, and you might want to post on Parents Forum - soem of the smart folks there don't stray too far away from that board.</p>

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<p>Purdue and Georgia Tech are safe choices.</p>

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<p>Why are you dismissing need aid?</p>

<p>you said it'd be very hard to add to the 40,000, which seems to imply that you're not earning all that much. Not to mention, the fafsa only expects you to give like 12% of your savings to him for college each year, which means you're only expected to give $4.8k of that. Top schools are also notoriously generous with their financial aid - my best offer was from duke, which was all need based aid, even though i got a 75% scholarship to vanderbilt.</p>

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<p>Hey, Azmo:</p>

<p>The trial FAFSA calculator estimates our family contribution at something like $50k per year, which we could do if we werent having to save for a daughter going to college in a few years and having to save for our impending retirement. Apparently the FAFSA calculator doesnt take these other factors into account. If we pay for our sons complete education at a top school, which I guess we could do by neglecting everything, you would find my son enjoying a very nice college education. However, you would find my wife and I living in a tent and eating cat food in our retirement.</p>