Is there an up-to-date list? I keep finding ones started in 2014. Maybe they’re still pretty accurate or maybe I missed a newer list. I’ll have to go back and looks again. So many lists, LOL!
I believe that most kids are ordinary and it shows in the Merit offerings to the same applicant, some schools offer a lot and others offer close to nothing or nothing at all. You just need to know where you would get the most, Research, Research, Research, very worthwhile!
That’s kind of why we’re all here. We’re all researchers. But as the parent of one high-stats student and another who sits at the bottom of the bottom quartile, the merit offerings couldn’t be more different.
I was indeed thinking of the List for Schools under $25k - S Dakota, N Dakota, several in Louisiana. I agree that often an instate school may be both cheaper and higher ranked on some arbitrary scale, but for students who just HAVE to leave their state, these schools are options. Utah has great scholarships and rates, and makes it easy to become a state resident for years 2-4.
My daughter is happy at her school but admits she could have been happy just about anywhere. She could have picked a much higher ranked school, but then she’d have been giving up one thing that was important to her, a decent lacrosse team. She sees that classmates who weren’t in the top of their high school classes do very well in college, and some of the stars from high school don’t do as well because of stress or drinking or just having to do it on their own without tutors and parents helping. I know so so many kids who were immediately unhappy at the ‘perfect’ school they chose and have transferred after a year or even a semester.
I spent a lot more time looking for schools we could afford and where my kids would be happy than worrying about rank or name recognition or what others thought about our choices.
@MiamiDAP - I am confused…I never said anything about limiting searches to flagships, I simply said schools that “most” would consider a particular state’s “flagship” seem to run around $26 - $28K. As far as Ohio State being Ohio’s flagship, I think most would say that Ohio State is the flagship…gonna guess you would say Miami U (which is $30K)? Look, I’m an Ohio U ($27K) alum, so maybe I would say OU. 
The average stat kid from a non financial aid eligible family should not count on any amount of merit aid.
@me29034 My son was high stats but we had friends with lower stats that were offered approx 15000.00 in merit at 2 privates.One of our state schools that is fairly generous and not extremely expensive is Winthrop University . It is in SC but right over the NC line from Charlotte. Francis Marion University may also offer merit, and they have one of the lowest tuitions in our state. Also don’t forget to look at departmental scholarships. They are often overlooked.
Maybe we are all at odds on what defines the “average” kid, stats wise. If your kid scored over 28 on the ACT, they are not average, if your kid has a GPA higher than a 3.5 they are not average. If your kid is above 28/3.5, your kid is in the exceptional range! In fact, the national average for college bound seniors ACT is 21 (Fairtest 2015). The national average for HS GPA is 3.1 for females and 2.9 for males (NAEP 2009) We can safely assume that college bound kids have a slightly higher GPA. So, lol, the good news is… for most of us on CC, our kids are above average! Perspective is everything!
PS. Hey look, I used concrete scources! 
@LucieTheLakie no, it’s not updated. I really wish if CC “stickied” something there was a way for the originator to update their original post, or any post beyond the 15 min time out. Any kind of list is really only good for that year. I’ve got 4 levels of stats kids, it’s all over the board and you bet, the merit offerings are quite different.
@twoinanddone to me, that’s the key, is could they be happy there. It is a simple fact that the options are limited when you are not a high stats kid. Or even, by CC standards, a medium stats kid. The B+ student is welcome at a lot of schools, full pay. Which I completely understand from a business model standpoint. That said, when one is looking at lower ranked schools, which may be the perfect fit for your child, it is frustrating to try and solicit feedback on those options on CC and have the choices, for lack of a better word, insulted and a myriad of alternatives suggested which are perceived as “better” but are unaffordable to you. Or worse, the CC suggestion, as if the B+/A- kid shouldn’t go to a 4 year school. That’s not this thread mind you but it definitely happens and one can feel like they are beating their head against a wall. I have zero issues with finding the best fit for my child at the price that works for us and not getting hung up on rank or name recognition but would love to be able to gather information on said schools and it isn’t always possible. It’s a skewed audience and I get that, it’s just a bummer sometimes.
@carolinamom2boys I am impressed! Those are some nice options. Granted we’ve focused on some specific geographical areas and but I have probably run NPC’s on over 100 schools and have never ever seen anything OOS come in under 20k. At least not at this child’s stats. 27 for private is I think the best we’ve found, 22 for OOS public. However they were lower sticker prices to start with. 40-45 down to 27-28, 28 down to 22, that kind of thing. Sadly, 15K annually can sound really fabulous but if the starting sticker price is 61, it doesn’t help much. Or not enough at any rate. And none of it helps if said picky child rejects the affordable options lol. Good thing he has a safety. I just wish there was more than one.
@labegg our flagship price just dropped this year thanks to state legislation. In some ways the drop (25 from 28) makes some of the private school “deals” a bit harder to swallow.
@coloradomom2015 I have the same question. I have heard many a tale of folks successfully asking for more $$. We may need to try it. We are looking at a 6k-20K delta between any schools outside of the directional and while we can definitely pay more than the directional, those deltas are hard to swallow. There is one that comes in higher than that but based on our schools track record I really do believe the offer will be better (and if not, their loss!). Not to mention the 6k one is a school quite likely to fall off the list anyway lol, so in reality it is a 14-20K delta. And those are the more “affordable” options! Which, as long as my S knows that he’s really limiting himself to only one financial safety and is completely comfortable with that (he says he is) then it is ok I guess. Not my preference but… I do confess to hoping that OOS male at a second (or 3rd depending on your opinion I guess) tier LAC is a very small hook. One can hope!
@guyfromflorida I think that works well for many. For some however, they may not be able to even get into their state flagship or the state schools available are not well suited to the child in fairly significant ways. A large state school with a vibrant greek system and sports sounds like a slow painful death to my current senior. Others of our brood would be just fine with it and either work around it, or with it. My average kid will be fine if he ends up at the directional. As his mom and knowing the environment he will thrive in best? I feel I owe it to him to explore every option I can. If he ends up with only one at the end of the day, then so be it.
@labegg lol. Too true. CC’s definition of average and true national averages are at odds. I agree that their is a big difference between a 26 ACT and a 28 for merit. With a 3.45 and a 25…you fall short. Sure…you can have a great first semester sr year and maybe bump it up to a 3.5. You might be able to bump the ACT 1-2 points. Maybe. Even with that effort. I’ve run the numbers on what the bumps will mean and well, at this level, it’s really not much. You’ll get into a lot of places that will be great fits…they will just be full pay. And for some, that works out great! For me…honestly, I am hard pressed to find any school at any ranking (and I do mean any, and not just this kid) to be worth 50-60k+ a year. Even if I had it to spend. I guess for me, it’s a “can’t” but also a “won’t:”
@eandesmom wrote
I think you are a little guilty here of falling into the CC trap you warned about, of only thinking the highest ranked schools are acceptable. Your son has looked at a lot of schools that ARE safeties both admissions wise and financially, but he’s rejected them. It’s fine that he’s decided WWU is a safety and he’d prefer it to any other safeties he’s looked at (Wyoming, CSU, any Catholic school, any school that is too hot - and let me tell you, Baltimore is HOT and sticky for a good portion of the year so I guess that factor is flexible?). I’d make the same choice to apply to the safety I preferred over all others and not apply to the other safeties once I got into the one I liked the best, but that doesn’t mean he only had one choice. He’s had a dozen choices, he just made his choice for WWU in that safety category.
My kids did their sorting and picking before applying and each only applied to one school. That didn’t mean they had no other choices, just that they eliminated them before spending the 50 bucks on the application. Would they have been accepted? I think so. Would those schools have been affordable? I think so because we did a lot of weeding at the beginning and most unaffordable schools came off before they were really in play.
@twoinanddone I wouldn’t call anything on his list highly ranked lol. I don’t disagree that he’s made choices and is self constraining (although CSU and any Catholic School are not at all in the same financial category as WWU or Wyoming, they are squarely in the 36 ish range at his stats). I would absolutely be fine with him at Wyoming, CSU or the Jesuit schools that would offer enough merit. I can also respect and agree that they really are not good fits for him, for a variety of reasons. Frankly, in my mind, Wyoming is still a backup if the only real affordable option once things are in is WWU and he “has” to get out state, it’s still an option and a darn good one in my mind.
I have zero issue with his choices, they are his and he is the one going to school. As long as he has a financial safety and anything else at least has a chance at being affordable I don’t see the need to constrain him to only applying to one school. There is nothing on the list that doesn’t stand a chance of an affordable offer, and some of the LAC’s are free apps. Matching WWU’s price tag is another story and so affordable is relative in comparison. If once is completely in love with a school and it is a financial and admissions safety, then applying to one school only makes sense. I don’t think most kids fall into that category though.
If an LAC is what he really really wants and he would prefer out of state, his best chances at finding an affordable option that meets the criteria (and yes, I hear you on Baltimore humidity, he’s spent time back east so is aware and clearly has changed some parameters) is to apply to more than one. I don’t (personally) see anything wrong with wishing he had more than one financial safety that met his requirements. I can be ok with the reality of it and still wish it was different. Are there more likely affordable LAC’s out there that he has rejected for location? Yes. Do those choices always make sense? Maybe not. Beloit will be the one that got away. But again, I’m not the one going to school and if he’d rather choose WWU as the sole financial safety over Wisconsin…or wherever the solid yet affordable LAC is (Ohio Wesleyan is another) then to that extent, he is saving me application fees.
My real gumble is it that would be nice to be able to get feedback from folks on the schools he has chosen without being told how inferior they are. That’s my frustration with CC, not his list.
I agree with your son that if he doesn’t want X, don’t apply there. What I disagree with is your characterization that he only has one choice as a safety. He has lots of options even within his financial limitations, he’s just rejecting them. It’s the Goldilocks syndrome where he’s looking for the best of everything and getting frustrated when he can’t find it within his budget and his likelihood of getting accepted. If I were him, I’d pick WWU and be done with it, but then I’d taste the first bowl of porridge and eat it even if it was too cold as long as it was filling (and free!). I think WWU is in a beautiful area, is a good size, is easy travel, and if instate very affordable. It would be MY choice over almost every other school on his list, and not as a safety but as a first choice. I’ve been to a lot of the schools on his list, would feel claustrophobic in many of them, but I like big. I graduated from a high school of 4000 and thought I’d died and gone to heaven when I got my hands on a big school catalog. I loved having a lot of choices in classes, professors, sections at the time I wanted, activities on and off campus, big football, big excitement.
My kids both wanted to go to school in California, so I told them to research the schools, the cost, and how they would pay for that school- with scholarships, FA, my budgeted amount, their savings or earnings, or willingness to take out loans? Neither did the work to make it happen. Honestly, I wanted to go to Berkeley when I was 16 and I didn’t do the work to make it happen either, but I was happy with the instate options I had.
Oh he’s not frustrated, he’s perfectly fine with his list. I didn’t mean to give that impression at all!
He is well aware that he is limiting himself to one known financial true safety option. He does only have one choice, because he has made only one choice. That’s a fact, not a complaint, but just a statement of where he is at. And it’s a lovely choice. He is absolutely fine with it. “I” get frustrated that I can’t find the magical LAC that meets what he thinks he wants at my budget. It’s the mom thing, I want to find the perfect thing for him, but I know full well that “almost” will do just fine! His HS has 1200. The smallest school on his list only has 1500. That is small! But he loves knowing everyone (and at his HS has known most since kindergarden). He loves being connected and involved. He likes small. Is 1500 too small? Maybe. Maybe not. I went to a big school and it never really occurred to me to look at the super small ones. And then when we toured one, well, the difference in him was palpable. Night and Day. Which, as a mom, was motivating from a search perspective. As he said, even if it is 1500 he won’t have known 1/4 of them since kindergarten and the rest almost as long. He would die (and struggle, and likely fall behind) in a huge lecture hall. He cut the two remaining really large schools off the list this week and for him, it’s the right call. WWU is officially the largest school still standing. And it very well may be where he ends up and we are all ok with that. It is bigger than he would like but it is a livable big if it has to be and to your point, it is smaller than many others would ever want. In the big picture of life, if I let the kid apply to more than one school to try to find that LAC that is affordable that works for him, that seem to stand a chance at being affordable, why not try? At the end of the day it is going to come down to money and his willingness or not to have skin in the game. If he wants to consider that, and knows it going in, then I have no real reason to say no (in my mind anyway). I put myself through school and while it is not remotely the same thing these days, I have no objection to him choosing to contribute if he really feels that is the best option for him and the offers are more than I am willing to pay but within a doable amount for him to consider. He is well aware of the math and what his choices may mean, or not mean. And, he will have to convince me, at the end of the day, that it is worth the price differential and he has done his due diligence on program etc and that there is enough variety there for the 4 years.
LOL on California. My youngest wants to go there (his step sister is there now but at a “relatively” affordable OOS option). He would love Berkley. There is NO way that will ever be affordable, or any UC school for that matter. In any situation I can possibly imagine. But he could handle the hugeness of it. And so for him the message is research all you want and figure out how to pay for it (obsession of the moment is Chapman) but know the odds are NOT in your favor. That kid though, he may well do the work and pull it off. He’s capable but it’s too early to tell. He also knows the flagship is his financial safety. It’s not his first choice either but he would be just fine there and that he will have to apply. For him, the flagship is a better fit than WWU but if things aren’t where they need to be, he will have 2 safeties and WWU will be the admissions backup!
@LucieTheLakie wrote
Same boat here. I think my younger one is going to be limited to in state, or maybe an affordable out of state like U Central Fl and we move to get in-state after a year or two. Unless she ends up crushing the PSAT this year (which is potentially possible, but her gpa will never get her beyond NMSF).
We’re in the south, so there do tend to be more options at an affordable price point for my younger one (a junior this year).
" As far as Ohio State being Ohio’s flagship, I think most would say that Ohio State is the flagship…gonna guess you would say Miami U (which is $30K)?" - I really have no idea about any kind of labeling / ranking. I guess, the OSU is a flagship. Miami U was much closer to meeting my D’s criteria and as an “icing on the cake” it offered full tuition Merit. She did not care much about OSU at all and it offerred only $3k / year. One private offered more $$ than Miami U, but again, it did not meet all of D’s criteria.
It just shows that one need to be open and consider options, but at the end, the one that closer matches the student will work the best. For some, it will be OSU. But my point was that there is no reason to limit yourself to state flagships. The other colleges may be much better fit for a particular student.
i think it bears repeating that sure, while there IS merit out there for the ordinary, often it is at some of the priciest choices, which for some of us, still makes it completely unaffordable in the end.
i personally wish that the colleges and universities section here was a bit more complete…its too bad that there are no subsections for schools that many of the ordinary do end up attending.
you know, those that arent in the top 100.
There is a thread about colleges that are very well known for Merit awards. I never understood why college applicants are so fixated on rankings and dividing their lists into safety / match / reach. All of these has no meaning to me, it had no meaning to my kids either. I guess we never reached the level of sophistication of many college applicants.
@eandesmom, you seem to be really on top of this stuff, so forgive me if I’m stating the obvious at all, but your posts bring up a lot of great points that I think are likely applicable to a “silent majority” of CC parents.
I’m assuming WWU is Western Washington. Is Evergreen State a possibility at all, at least as a second safety? That’s a school, along with UMinn-Morris, SUNY Geneseo, Truman State (MO), and a few others that shows up on a lot of “great value” public options for out-of-state students. In-state, I would think it’s quite the bargain, and I think it may be smaller than WWU too. (And since your son’s preference is for a smaller school, taking a peak at COPLAC members might be a good idea too: http://www.coplac.org/)
While some who post here apparently think it’s crazy to follow ANY advice received on CC (although I have to wonder what on earth they’re doing here if they believe that), I received some GREAT nuggets of collective wisdom that may or may not be applicable to you and others in a similar situation, so I’ll pass them along:
- **Make sure your student has at least two viable options they'd be happy with. Everybody wants to feel like they have a choice.** Even if the safety is the clear frontrunner, it's still good to have an "extra" or "super" safety in place JUST IN CASE. Because when April rolls around, if there are any second thoughts about the chosen school, it can help to have another school to compare it to. And it's really pretty late to add another option (although it can be done). Some kids even end up choosing that alternate safety. (Mine did. And he's quite happy today.)
- **High school seniors mature in remarkable ways. What a senior wanted in October or November (when most of the applications are being sent), may change drastically come April.** That's why ED is a big gamble for a lot of kids. We still allowed our son to apply ED to one of his top choice schools (a small LAC), believing he needed the extra bump he'd get from committing up front. It was also a school we thought we could afford based on the NPC. Alas (and thank God!), he was flat out denied admission. It was upsetting at the time, but a lot of smaller LACs don't really do the waitlist thing at the ED stage. They rip the Band-Aid off so the kid can move on. I'm grateful for that. My son had several other terrific LAC options, but once he received that rejection, he sort of started over and became much more open to all his options. He also had concluded by that spring that he didn't want a small school at all. He'd had his fill (even though he'd loved his HS years.) I had told him in no uncertain terms over the summer that he was applying to Alabama because I wanted him to have more than once choice if our in-state flagship became the only affordable option, which leads me to the third excellent piece of advice I received here on CC...
- **Tell your student that, as his parent and the one picking up the bulk of the college bill, you get to select a "Parent's Choice" school that he MUST apply to.** He doesn't have to go to this "wildcard school" if he doesn't like it, but he does have to be open to it and give it a fair shake. My son had REFUSED to apply to ANY schools in the South, which ruled out a lot of great LACs that I think would have been a great fit for him, but he had to apply to Alabama because, regardless of its location, it had everything he needed at a price we could afford (and at half the cost of Penn State).
Our kids will often surprise us, in a good way, and actually choose what WE think is the best thing for them. It might take some slick reconnaissance and “strategic planning” on Mom or Dad’s part. E.g., I booked reservations at the fancy on-campus hotels when we were visiting the safeties, to “stage” those schools in the best possible light. It was a minor expense in the grand scheme of things and helped put those safeties on a more even footing with the competition.
@LucieTheLakie thanks, I think we are in good shape but I do appreciate it! S17 is actually our 3rd to go through this process and each have been wildly different.
Regarding Evergreen. While it may be a darling of sorts on CC (which amuses me as people have been less than supportive of other schools that are also on the CTCL list) it has a different reputation locally. A whopping 0.4% of our HS graduates over the last 3 years have chosen Evergreen, and 74% of our kids stay in state. Locally it is regarded as a feeder school from CC (average age on campus is 25.8) and in general, the school you go to if you absolutely can’t get in anywhere else. And, in those cases, kids will typically do CC and then go elsewhere. The lack of a true major program (it’s a color your own parachute kind of major, general BA or BS in whatever you make up) is super attractive in concept but from an employer standpoint, locally, a degree from Evergreen hurts you. Big time actually. It characterizes the student in a way that could prohibit even getting the interview at a lot of places. Depends on what you want to do but in more traditional fields it can be a a liability. Which sounds harsh and in general I really do believe that it doesn’t matter all that much where the degree comes from but in this case, locally, it does. It may be unwarranted to be sure but it’s pretty pervasive.
It’s also too close to home and has some really ugly buildings lol.
I’ve made some similar rules for my S. At least one true financial safety. At least two admissions safeties (one of which has to be the financial safety as well). At least two that are in state in case he changes his mind about wanting to go far away. Anything on the list has to have a chance at being affordable. His current list of 5 checks all those boxes. I may exercise your point #3 with a mom’s choice although I do like all 5 on the list and it’s not a bad mix (3 LAC’s, 1 OOS flagship and WWU). There are 2 additional that I really like for a variety of reasons and think are worth including (and one is free to apply to) and adds some diversity to the list. Affordable is relative. Of the 4 on his list that are not WWU, 3 should come in at the mid-upper 30’s so often quoted here which is livable. It then becomes more a question of, is the delta worth it. WWU at 20K is hard to beat and at S’s stats we aren’t going to find 20K schools that fit him as well as it does, so how much more is better “fit” worth? Twice as much? While I don’t know the answer to that yet, I do know that is what we paid for the older 2 (or are paying) so it is a price we can live with. The older 2 refused to apply to any in state publics lol.
I don’t disagree with you on the true 2nd financial safety and S and I have had that conversation. At present there is one still on the “maybe” list that checks that box solidly. I am not sure it will stay though, I suspect it will not, the list will be finalized this weekend. The reality is other financial safeties have rolling admissions and he will do EA for all his schools (not allowing ED). Which means he should have time, if needed, to add another financial safety. I really don’t think it is. Where he may miss the boat is not applying to Fairhaven at WWU. Which in a way is sort of an Evergreen concept within WWU and would offer the smaller experience but with the strong Western framework. He thinks it’s too experimental and in some ways limiting for him and has employer concerns, but I could see it being a good fit and if he did end up there, applying into Fairhaven his sophomore year but we will see.
Just to make a point that the college / student match is much more important than any rankings, I checked (finally!!) the rankings of my D. top 3 choices. Of course, they changed, but I did not care to go back and searched the old rankings. The private that gave her the most $$ - Case - #37, OSU - #52, Miami U - #82. As I mentioned, the first 2 did not match well D’s personal criteria while Miami did. Looking back, it was right the the ONLY criteria that was used was the PERSONAL criteria. Ranking and everything else is somebody else’s opinion and somebody else’s criteria.
And, again, knowing much more now about all 3 of these, and knowing Case very closely, D. is very happy that she has chosen Miami. But it is NOT going to fit somebody else with completely different criteria list.