<p>^^^</p>
<p>Re: free iPad…</p>
<p>Alabama is also giving a “free iPad” to NMFs and NAs…along with free tuition, housing, and more. </p>
<p>Yes…with a keyboard and some apps…you can do almost anything.</p>
<p>I think some schools are changing from offering laptops to iPads because so many kids already have laptops (or want only a certain one), but many kids want whatever the latest iPad is. Since iPad 3 will soon be out, the awards will probably include those.</p>
<p>Makes sense, it’s a relatively inexpensive perk (in the grand scheme of college costs), but has a definite cool factor.</p>
<p>I can’t help but think of Facebook scams when I see “free iPad” however :)</p>
<p>Some private schools provide huge Merit packages. Since they are not funded by taxpayer’s money, IS and OOS is the same. I know one such school - Case Western.
My D. got $27K / year at Case, but choose to go somewhere else (full tuition Merit award). We sould have paid about $5k / year in tuition at Case, not too bad at all. I do not know about physics / math majors, Case is considered to be strong in pre-med, engineering.</p>
<p>"Some private schools provide huge Merit packages. "</p>
<p>this is true. The trick is to measure against total costs. A private school’s merit may sound huge (like $25k per year), but if the cost is $60k, then the $15k per year merit from a school that costs $35k is the better deal.</p>
<p>Just a cautionary note to the OP- I have friends and family members who have gotten caught up in the “huge merit package” race. Try to remember that the real goal is to optimize your kids education- the best place for your child with an affordable price tag (to you), and not to rack up points. I had a nephew who took the “huge merit package” at a place he wasn’t interested in- hated it when he visited, hated it during his scholarship weekend, hated it during orientation. And guess what- the package required a 3.2 to keep and he did his darndest to lose the scholarship as quickly as he could. His parents were more devastated at no longer being able to say, “they’re paying HIM to attend” than at the reality- which is their kid went from being able to write his own ticket as a HS senior, to being low person on the totem pole trying to find an affordable school to transfer to with a $%^& GPA.</p>
<p>It is so easy to get excited about everyone’s story about how much of a merit award their kid turned down to go somewhere else even more lucrative. At the end of the day- your kid needs to find a range of schools to which he can get admitted, and which you can afford using a range of financial scenarios. (need, merit, merit packaged into need, work study, loans, no loans, etc.) And then make a decision.</p>
<p>but the point is not to get the biggest dollar award. the point is to bridge the gap between what you can afford and what the school costs (sticker price) and hopefully end up with a choice that meets your kids educational needs.</p>
<p>" . . .the point is not to get the biggest dollar award. the point is to bridge the gap between what you can afford and what the school costs (sticker price) and hopefully end up with a choice that meets your kids educational needs. "</p>
<p>Agree.</p>
<p>(P.S. DD’12 has been offered a “free iPad” by state flagship) She is waiting to hear from the non-iPad schools in April ;).</p>
<p>I know that somewhere up thread, mini mentioned Smith and Op said D was not interested in attending a Womens college.</p>
<p>I would not be so quick to have D poo-poo the womens colleges. Smith not only has a stand out science program, it is also part of the 5 college consortium where she could cross register at Amherst, Umass Amherst, Hampshire and Mount Holyoke.</p>
<p>They are also part of the 12 college exchange where she can attend one college for the academic year of 2 schools (one school each semester).</p>
<p>Amherst College Bowdoin College Connecticut College Wellesley College
Mount Holyoke College Trinity College Vassar College Wheaton College<br>
Connecticut College-NTI Wesleyan University Dartmouth College Williams-Mystic Seaport Program.</p>
<p>In addition both Smith and Mount Holyoke offer extensive study abroad opportunities and they both give need based aid in addition to merit aid.</p>
<p>[Smith</a> College: Financial Aid](<a href=“http://www.smith.edu/finaid/prospect/aid_merit.php]Smith”>http://www.smith.edu/finaid/prospect/aid_merit.php)</p>
<p>[Merit</a> Opportunities :: Admission :: Mount Holyoke College](<a href=“http://www.mtholyoke.edu/admission/merit.html]Merit”>http://www.mtholyoke.edu/admission/merit.html)</p>
<p>I agree sybbie. I mentioned Barnard to my D (she’s in 9th grade) and she poo poo’ed it because it’s a women’s college. I could have given her all the reasons a womens college is great, and I probably will at some point, but i went with “you know Columbia is across the street and you can take classes there right?”</p>
<p>I don’t know if Smith is as physically close to the other schools in the consortium, but one is definitely not cloistered away from boys for 4 years, I am sure.</p>
<p>My daughter attended an all-girls high school. She would not set foot on a women’s college campus under any circumstances. It isn’t for everyone ( or even all young women).;)</p>
<p>D has a high W and UW GPA and has yet to take the official ACT or SAT but tested high on the Explore. I figured there wasn’t any special OOS scholarship, but thought I’d ask. We have time to weigh options. I know this sounds so naive but H and I really had no clear understanding of just how much college tuitions have risen since we were in school. </p>
<p>OSU has a physics department as does U of O. They’re just not considered as strong as UW or Berkeley. And none of them have astrophysics as an undergrad - few colleges do. There are no OOS tuition breaks for UW or Cal.</p>
<p>While we are hoping (praying) for a scholarship, we’ve explained to D that she may have to settle for in-state school for undergrad work and then weigh options for highly selective school for grad work. </p>
<p>We’re looking at Harvey Mudd, CalTech, UCSB and Stanford next month.</p>
<p>“D has a high W and UW GPA and has yet to take the official ACT or SAT but tested high on the Explore…We’re looking at Harvey Mudd, CalTech, UCSB and Stanford next month.”
High grades weighted GPAs are not relevant, she should have good grades in the hardest classes anyway. Sophomore year may be too early to be deciding someone has a good GPA, if her school offers harder courses she should be taking them and if she can’t handle them then competitive schools might not be for her. Mediocre grades and test scores are barriers to entry in schools like the ones you listed, not things that get you admitted. Assuming she is competitive for these schools, she’s going to need to show the extracurricular intent and enthusiasm that these schools are looking for to have a chance, and even then they’re flooded with too many applicants who fit their needs. </p>
<pre><code> Of the schools listed above UCSB seems the most reasonable, but you have to remember that the UC system is (sort of) broken financially and they want people to pay the full out of state tuition and fees. Caltech, Harvey Mudd, and Stanford are extremely competitive schools.
</code></pre>
<p>“OSU has a physics department as does U of O. They’re just not considered as strong as UW or Berkeley. And none of them have astrophysics as an undergrad - few colleges do. There are no OOS tuition breaks for UW or Cal.”
UW and Berkeley are hardly on the same level, in my book, but favorites aside this is kind of silly. Astrophysics is graduate (or advanced undergraduate) work, period. The only place that she can <em>really</em> do astrophysics as an undergraduate is probably Caltech and MIT [I’m being a little bit hyperbolic here, but honestly you need a good deal of physics to do anything meaningful]. She’s going to have to wait until she’s ready to take graduate level material (or at least close). </p>
<p>Yes, you can do summer research pertaining to astro, but it’s almost entirely grunt work with little to no sparkle, is she okay with that? How does she know she’s going to want to go through all of the material required to do astrophysics? Does she know what modern astrophysical research entails? Where does her drive come from, is it going to carry her through 5 to 7 years of PhD research? Is she okay with doing work that’s largely statistical and computational in nature? Theory jobs are very hard to come by and the acceptance rates are substantially lower than experimental ones.</p>
<p>I’m not saying she needs to be able to answer all of the above right now, but…
Don’t make decisions on such a specific sub-field until she’s ready. If she hasn’t gotten through a few semesters university physics through her school (AP/IB are okay starting places) or a community college or a state university, she doesn’t know what physics is yet.</p>
<p>One last thing, I don’t want to scare anyone out of academics [more competition isn’t always a bad thing], but there aren’t a lot of obvious job prospects for an astrophysicist outside of academia. She <em>can</em> find work if she decides not to go tenure-track, but it’s not always easy to adjust and the jobs market is extremely volatile. </p>
<p>I think the best thing she can do for herself is to get into calc and physics at a university level, and then immediately try to find a professor at a nearby school who will let her do grunt work for free so long as it’s credited. If she can manage to find a little project of some sort at a local university or even community college it will speak volumes about her dedication. </p>
<p>Good luck to her, but make sure she isn’t surprised when she realizes it’s a lot of hard work.</p>
<p>One last thing, she’s going to need the math to back the physical intuition; if she isn’t into competition math, she should give it a try. The best physicists I know are all excellent problem solvers. If she wants to see what modern research is like arxiv is a good resource, if she wants to see what she can do as an undergraduate she should try to read REU papers for astrophysics, though it will probably be over her head for now.</p>
<p>What was eye opening for us was; the outcome of this instate vs. outstate debacle? not much difference in out of pocket (for us). I always raise my eyebrows when I read how some parents are limiting choice based on that issue. Unless you come from states that handle things much differently, our experience is from Minnesota.</p>
<p>By all accounts the U of Minn is a very reasonably priced Big 10 university. For us “in-staters” its about 23k all in. We qualify for nothing from them and D received no merit aid offers.</p>
<p>U of Mich (D’s #1 choice and she’s been accepted EA) is 50k all in.</p>
<p>When running the net price calculators and against our families EFC, and after talking with a ton of financial aid officers and considering the merit aid and scholarships she’s already received; we are only 10k apart between the 2 AND we haven’t even seen U of Mich’s financial aid package yet (due this month).</p>
<p>Is it really that much different elsewhere? Even the “reliable” choices D applied and was accepted to (the 50k/year LAC’s with 50-60% acceptance rates) discounted their prices 30+% through merit offers, right out of the box! Maybe we’re lucky, but my experience has been, if you’re on this board? your kid is an achiever with similar stats.</p>
<p>Long story longer; our experience has been - In state or out of state, public university or private LAC; 6 in one/half dozen in the other. We’re not going to let a few thousand be the deciding factor.</p>
<p>When running the net price calculators and against our families EFC, and after talking with a ton of financial aid officers and considering the merit aid and scholarships she’s already received; we are only 10k apart between the 2 AND we haven’t even seen U of Mich’s financial aid package yet (due this month).</p>
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<p>When you include merit scholarships in the equation, that does change the instate vs OOS pubics issue. I know that a good number of high stats OOS kids attend my kids’ flagship because their merit awards made the school much cheaper than their instate…however, it was having the high stats that makes the difference. For most kids, getting those big merit scholarships are out of reach.</p>
<p>The problem is that many of the highly desirable OOS publics don’t give much/any merit. UMich can be very “hit or miss” for getting 4 year awards for merit without very high stats or maybe a “female in engineering” award. how much did UMich award your D in merit? Sounds like she’s been given $10k. For many folks, paying $40k per year for UMich would still be high.</p>
<p>Did your D receive any private scholarships or is UMich awarding the scholarships? Are the scholarships for multi-years? (many private scholarships are one time only). Obviously, if any of the scholarships are one year only private scholarships, then the cost difference will be more than $10k per year.
It doesn’t sound like you’d have much/any un-met need left at UMich (after scholarships) since you say that UM-TC’s cost is below your EFC. Since scholarships get applied to “need” and you say that you’re waiting on UMich’s FA pkg, I doubt you’d receive anything else except a 5500 loan…which you’d get at UM-TC as well. As you know, UMich doesn’t meet need for OOS students. </p>
<p>It’s great that if your D has merit awards that reduce UMich’s costs to a $10k per year difference…but for some paying $40k more (total) would be a difference.</p>
<p>Giterdone, you have hit the nail on the head. With the caveat that there definitely are exceptions, middle-class income parents that do their due diligence in seeking out good value for their high-achieving kids (meaning a school that challenges them) should end up paying $20K a year on the low side and maybe $35K on the high end, out-the-door cost of attendance. This is if the parents & student have done a good amount of comparison shopping, A/B’ing, finding the right fit for the money.</p>
<p>That is where I suspect we’ll be (in the 25k+/- out of pocket) no matter what the final decision.</p>
<p>@mom - good points on the multi-year vs. 1 year scholarship, I’ll have to look at the “renew-ability” if any, on these. Right now, all of this financial “gobbelty gook” is sitting in a pile sorted by school, until the end of this month, when I’ll actually spread them on Excel and see where we’re at. My main point is/was - with the FAFSA and CSS profile and all the schools knowing where each other is at? unless you’re a “full ride” athlete or scholar? your out of pocket expenses are going to be surprisingly similar no matter where S/D decides.</p>
<p>I know a large number of very high stats kids, who were offered OOS admission to UVA, U-Mich, etc, and not a one of them has been offered any merit money. </p>
<p>There is a perception that there are merit scholarships there for the picking for high stats kids, but in reality they are rare.</p>
<p>S2 is OOS at UNC-CH. He has met two OOS kids who are there on Moorhead Scholarships. They literally turned down admissions to Ivy colleges for that scholarship. They are not “high stats”, they are brilliant. Not a lot of those kinds of kids exist in the real world.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Personal pet peave…please don’t use the word “SETTLE”…her instate universities are fine choices for an undergrad. As you noted, her intended field of study is usually offered on the grad level anyway.</p>
<p>If you tell her she is “settling” for her instate options, she will always feel they are second rate. They are not…and MANY students attend their instate public universities for undergrad studies…especially if the finances don’t work out elsewhere.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Both schools meet full need for INSTATE students with need. The don’t for OOS students. Also both are Profile schools…and neither offers much in merit aid to OOS students.</p>
<p>I will say we do know a couple of outstanding students who got a top UMich merit award for OOS students…I don’t think they offer very many of these per year.</p>
<p>UVa currently meets full need of both instate and out of state students. Aid at UVa is primarily need based. There are about 30 Jefferson Scholars a year but that program is not administered by the university.</p>
<p>Thanks Sevmom…wasn’t sure about that.</p>
<p>My main point is/was - with the FAFSA and CSS profile and all the schools knowing where each other is at? unless you’re a “full ride” athlete or scholar? your out of pocket expenses are going to be surprisingly similar no matter where S/D decides.</p>
<p>======</p>
<p>No…that would only be true if the schools “meet need”…and most do NOT…especially OOS publics.</p>
<p>If another Minn student was in the same financial situation as you are, but didn’t have the stats for the merit, then that student would be paying for all of UMich’s costs…the whole $50k…which is a lot more than UMinn-TC.</p>
<p>In your case, UMich has given your D $10k…which brings cost down to $40k. That’s still a lot more than UMinn…so for many families that would be a make or break situation.</p>
<p>However, an oft under considered issue is; time to graduate. U of Minn graduates under 50% in 4 years. Throw a 5th year (or even a 6th! year) on top? and total costs move a lot closer together.</p>