Any parents of ordinary kids here?

Parents Forum
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As an average kid, I’m digging this thread. I had a low GPA (2.7 I think.) 23 on ACT, and an SAT score so low that I’ve blocked it from my memory. I picked a school I knew I could get into, still managed some great scholarships, and am happily working towards my paramedic certification.

Sometimes this site gives me a warped view of what was expected of me, which sucked as an insecure high school student, but these days I understand that this is just a small window. There’s a lot of vocal above average students/parents of on here, but that doesn’t mean that I have to give up my dreams or anything. I can succeed on my own time and that’s totally okay.

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@cycleride, #58, when you say that your regular kids rec’d merit from these schools,did they have an ACT above 25? Most schools do not even consider merit until that point, even for student from different regions. If that is so, I wouldn’t necessarily consider your kids ordinary. I would like to understand realistic options for merit for “ordinary”’ kids (ACT 20-25), and so far have not found ANY schools, even with a high GPA. Thanks.

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My son had a 25 and got $28,000 (7k per year).

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@Portercat there are several schools that will give some OOS merit under a 25 ACT. I believe Colorado State University (specifically referenced in post 58) used to go below a 25 ACT but they have changed that.

Oregon State is GPA based and starts at a 3.0. http://oregonstate.edu/admissions/main/nonresident-scholarships. I have “heard” unofficially that there is a GPA/Test score also matrix used but it isn’t published.

University of Wyoming goes down to a 21 ACT. http://www.uwyo.edu/admissions/scholarships/non-residents/rms.html.

University of Maine has a tuition match that has two tiers but goes below a 3.0 and a 22 ACT https://go.umaine.edu/apply/scholarships/flagship-match/

U of Vermont awards at lower levels, you can run their calculator here https://tcc.noellevitz.com/(S(1nkq4kxfdl2spsz4wbneuppb))/University%20of%20Vermont/Freshman-Students

Ohio University starts at a 22 ACT
https://www.ohio.edu/admissions/tuition/scholfinaid/signature.cfm

Temple used to but they haven’t updated the info yet and are now saying it will be mid Sept before it’s up

We currently are looking at the following privates, all of which show merit in their NPC’s for my 24 ACT kid (25 superscore, some of them superscore, some do not).

Allegheny
Ithaca
Ursinus
University of Puget Sound
Bradley
Goucher
McDaniel

Ones we have looked at previously (now not on the list) but that did offer merit included

Juniata
Rowan
Lawrence
Beloit
Kalamazoo
Muhlenberg

There are others out there, this was a geographic specific search for merit as we will not qualify for any FA. It’s out there, you just have to dig. Most of the merit posts around here are for high stats kids but it does exist.

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Thanks @eandesmom!

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Interesting that a few of those (Juniata, Muhlenberg, Allegheny) are test optional. I wonder if merit is available without submitting scores?

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@Portercat My sweet girl was accepted to The George Washington University after applying test optional and received a sizable Presidential Academic Scholarship. She was also admitted to GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the University Honors Program.

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@HappyFace2018 That is amazing, and may be the way of the future. Did she not feel comfortable submitting scores, and had high stats otherwise?

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@Portercat I suspect it can be, for test optional if stats are otherwise high. In our case, the GPA is not high, 3.45 UW but pretty decent rigor. Of course the calculators can’t tell rigor or upward trend on the gpa lol (or the hoped for OOS boy from a geographical “target” state applying at a less selective LAC “hook” lol). Generally test optional requires supplements, usually writing gut that can be a great thing for certain kids. Muhlenberg still came in too high for us which is why it has fallen off without even applying as there was enough data out there and even at their top award (which my S would never get) it was still over budget for us.

I thought someone asked on how do you know if it is merit versus FA. On the FAFSA schools, if you are over 99k in income it’s pretty clear that it’s just merit and most of these are published merit amounts already. If under, that could be more difficult to figure out but a lot of the NPCs are pretty clear on what is what. For PROFILE schools it will vary based on how they determine your EFC. I would have to double check on the privates, a few do add in a small “need” amount. Need is defined differently so any that show it have the higher total COA and seem to be offering a slight bump (looks like maybe 2k at a couple and 5k at one other.

Ohio is vague, all you can really guess at is estimated minimums but their are stackable, an OOS one + a merit one. The between published merit monies and NPC’s and I’ve run, our list (outside of the in state option) show my S receiving 3k-26K. Substantially larger at the privates BUT they are higher to begin with so all that really does is level the playing field.

Public award average is 5-8K, Private shows as an average of 18K. Annually and renewable on all (or I’m not interested!). And all seem to have a 2.7-3.0 requirement to keep but it does vary.

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@Portercat We knew early on that the standardized tests would be the most difficult part of her application.

Our state requires the elementary and middle school students take ISTEP tests. When she took these tests we noticed that she did very well on the English, language arts and social studies sections but not so well in the math.
In middle school she earned a PASS+ on several sections of the test which earned her a spot in a program called NUMATS (Northwestern University Midwest Academic Talent Search). Being chosen for this program earned her an opportunity to take both the SAT and ACT twice in middle school. The results of these tests followed the same pattern as the ISTEP…difficulty with STEM topics.

We decided to take her out of public school and put her in a private full IB program for high school. Surprisingly, she tested into Higher Level (HL) Math and did well. In 9th and 10th grade the students took 10 classes which included math, biology, chemistry, physics, history, English, history, digital technology, a language (her language is French) and PE. While the program was definitely STEM heavy, it also allowed her to focus on her the liberal and performing arts. By the end of their 10 grade year the students had met the state requirements for math and science. In the 11th and 12th grade the students choose which science and math level they would focus on (she choose SL Biology and SL Math).

She graduated from the IB program with a 4.16 GPA and just earned the IB Diploma in July (the students earn their Core40 with Academic Honors by the end of April, then sit for three weeks of IB exams in May…they receive the IB exam results in July).

While her SAT/ACT scores increased, they were not good enough for all of the schools she was interested in. GW was her #1 choice based on the Elliott School, the University Honors Program and the location of the school. When she initially made her list of schools, GW was not test optional, but American University was. She was accepted to AU’s Global Scholars Program which is a 3 year BA/MBA program but received no merit which prompted me to contact admissions. In a roundabout way they said that she did not receive merit because she applied test optional AND she was admitted to a 3 year program…inferring that we would only be paying for 3 years not four (to which I responded “well, you have a good day”). GW did not go test optional until August 2015.

What set her apart was the resume she built throughout high school. While the highly selective schools she applied to reported ACT/SAT scores well above her range, she actually made it from EA to RD for several of them because of her resume. Wellesley College has an “early evaluation” process which gives the young ladies a “Likely, Possible and Unlikely”. She actually received a “possible” then was waitlisted even with her SAT scores.

I don’t believe high selective schools will ever move away from high SAT/ACT’s. She also applied to UChicago and the admissions officer was perplexed in his discussions with her and our guidance counselor. On the one hand her resume and on the other her scores. She made it from EA to RD but to accept her would pull done stats. She was accepted to Loyola University and received a sizable Damien Scholarship and was admitted to the Rome Start Program (1st year spent in Italy). She was also admitted to the University of Georgia where they add a full point to your GPA for each IB course but…she received no merit because of her test scores were not in their range for merit (UGA is not test optional).

I’ve come to learn that each test optional school has their own internal methods.
Here is the test optional list:
http://fairtest.org/university/optional

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Thanks. I am not familiar with IStep, IB, EA or RD.

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IB= International Baccalaureate
EA= Early Action admissions
RD= Regular Decision admissions

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My apologies @Portercat . Thank you for clarifying @cameo43. The ISTEPS are standardized test for Indiana elementary/middle and high school students.

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@Portercat

i’m literally looking at a mailer for ** Rider University** with the various Early Action Merit offerings and with the exception of the full ride (Trustee–and there are only 10 of them anyway) it says:

All other awards:

Apply by Jan 15
** Min. SAT of 950 (old Cr+M) 1030 (New) or an ACT of 20**

awards appear to range from $12,000-$24000.

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Don’t forget legacy awards which do apply to all kids regardless of scores - for example, students who had a parent or grandparent attend U of Nebraska-Lincoln can receive anywhere from $8000-$14000 per year, renewable for four years. I believe Kansas State has a similar program.

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@Portercat Re: CSU, Merit was offered even without reaching the posted cut-offs…

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Merit awards, at test optional schools LACs we researched:

Lawrence, Beloit, Earlham, Knox, Kalamazoo and Denison all give merit awards to students who apply test optional, indicating in conversations that merit, like admissions, is holistic evaluation.

Dickinson only awards its “lowest tier” currently, I think, $10,000 a year, to students who apply test optional.

St Lawrence requires test scores for merit awards (as best as we could determine, my student wound up not applying, so we can’t verify).

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Ohio U offered my D16 a legacy award which brought the cost of OOS tuition down to the in-state cost and then a merit scholarship on top of that.

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One thing to note is that regardless of the size of the award, what does that mean to the bottom line for the kid and the family? One school offered to knock off $6K from $48k/year. Another was $4k off of $22K/year.

Um, yeah.

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@T26E4 Good point about the bottom line – one of the things we appreciated with several midwest LACs was the tuition AND room and board were already lower than some others. For a full pay family, the difference between $42k tuition and $50k is real money.