Any thoughts about my college search list (Nat. Merit Finalist hopefully)

College Search & Selection
1

My high school junior son and I are about to begin visiting colleges. While we obviously have the right to put in multiple applications, and will, we really want to have our mind made up as to where he wants to go by September and applications in the mail (or ether) by Oct. 1. He will be applying “Early Action,” at some schools to qualify for merit aid. This does not obligate him to attend. Obviously his ultimate decision will lie on whether or not he is granted various merit aid packages.

This is going to be long, but I’ve put together a list of a few colleges, as well as some pros and cons that I have either from research or from preconceived notions. We are after a free or nearly free ride, if possible. I’d love any comments or suggestions.

My son is a reasonably good student, with roughly a 3.8/4.15 g.p.a. He’s got a 34 on the ACT with a 35 superscore, and is taking the ACT again in February in hopes of getting a 35. We just got his PSAT score, and his selection index in 211; I’ve studied the numbers and believe this will be more than enough for Finalist in Mississippi.

I should note that politically my son is fairly liberal (not my fault!). He dresses nicely, though, and doesn’t look weird or anything. At one time he wanted to be a STEM major, but he now is interested in business with perhaps some type of STEM or computer minor. He does want to join a fraternity, though, and I’ve urged him to do so.

Listed below are a few schools, an explanation of why we are interested, and the pros and cons.

University of Alabama
Reason for listing: Massive scholarship for National Merit and ACT scorers of 32 or over.
Pros: Close to home, great aid package, luxury dorms, my wife and in-laws are from Alabama and they all have elephant trunks
Cons: I fear the school is just too conservative for him, particularly if he goes Greek; son not enthusiastic

University of Oklahoma
Reason for listing: The other National Merit powerhouse, five years plus summers, etc., great package. (Got to say, first thing comes to mind when I hear Oklahoma is the line from Officer and a Gentleman).
Pros: NMFs treated like royalty, seemingly better than Alabama; if trouble strikes, only need 2.8 g.p.a. to keep scholarship; never heard anything but good from those who have accepted;
Cons: Don’t know anything about them; son not enthusiastic

Miami of Ohio
Reason for listing: Solid school with full-tuition merit scholarship possibly available
Pros: Good business school, great college town, strong Greek system, family business interests in Ohio, so excuse to visit; this is first choice right now.
Cons: It’s cold

Tulane
Reason for listing: Good school with some full-tuition merit scholarships
Pros: It’s in New Orleans; national student body;
Cons: It’s in New Orleans

University of Iowa
Reason for listing: Good merit aid; I liked the vibe of the place when I visited on business; much like Athens, Ohio. So I just stuck UI on the list.
Pros: Great entertainment district; good vibe from students
Cons: Don’t know anything else about these people; cold as hades

University of Vermont
Reason for listing: Generous merit aid, plus my son is a damnyankee at heart
Pro: Presumably somewhat liberal but still has Greek system; kinda-sorta-but-not-really public Ivy;
Cons: Lack of knowledge; it’s cold

Auburn
Reason for listing: Because they were there! Almost full ride package, not as good as Alabama.
Pro: Close to home; beautiful campus; great town
Con: Likely too conservative for my son

OKAY, let me know if you guys think we need to add anyone, or any thoughts you might have. I’m sure some of you have been here before!

2

If a likely National Merit Finalist, do any of the schools in this list interest him?
http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/

Also, the following lists have other big scholarships:
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/

3

If he has uncertainty about his major, he should look into each school to see if there are secondary admission processes (e.g. high college GPA or competitive application and admission) to change into any of the majors he may want. Business and computer science are commonly restricted majors gated by secondary admission processes.

Tulane’s CS department is rather limited in its course offerings, unless he wants to go into CS theory.

4

Just a thought on Alabama. DD is a freshman there and is the token conservative in her group of close friends. Maybe there are many more like him than you realize. DD loves it there and the Presidential Scholarship is awesome

5

Have you considered travelling further out west to the great state of Texas? There are numerous schools offering generous scholarships for national merit. Business major is very flexible as far a finding a college.

6

LOL. I am trying to picture in my head what you must think of families with very very liberal children like mine! Do you think we all dress our kids funny?

7

@LKnomad There are children in my son’s school with blue or green hair. I kid you not. I think their parents should be put in jail. I just seem to observe a lot less of a super-clean-cut, Ralph-Laureny look among liberal students, who often have kind of a “hipster” look. This isn’t always the case, obviously, as my son dresses conservatively and has the look of the kind of guy who is about to come up to you and stick out his hand and say, “Eric Stratton, rush chairman, damn glad to meet you!”

@ucbalumnus I think my son is pretty set on business and feel like his test scores and g.p.a. will earn him freshman admission in those schools where it is competitive. If not, he may well treat that as being rejected entirely and go elsewhere.

8

What is your son’s list? Is he engaged at all in the process or are selecting all of the schools for him to choose from? On a different note. My niece who grew up in Orlando attends University of Miami Ohio and loves it despite the cold weather.

9

Miami of Ohio is a well regarded business school. It is not nearly as cold there as some of the other schools on your list but yes, it does NOT have Alabama weather. The student body is fairly preppy but I am not sure what elements you are using to define your son as “liberal” so I cannot comment on that. Greek life is a big part of campus life.

10

You’ve got a lot of large publics plus Tulane. Have you considered other private schools? I’m no expert, but with his scores I would think he could get merit at many private schools. One we looked at that comes to mine for business is University of Richmond. It wasn’t right for my D but may work for your son.

11

I’m with @me29034. Any reason for having only one private school? Is the merit aid/final COA the biggest driver with his ultimate selection?

I’m thinking of schools like Emory, Vandy, NEU, and Case. Throw in a couple lottery-type schools like Penn and Duke. His scores indicate that he’s a bright kid.

12

You might want to consider the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Good engineering college, good science departments; and the supply-chain management (“logistics”) program in the Haslam College of Business is one of the top-rated in the nation. Also, with your son’s statistics, he should qualify for pretty good automatic merit aid via the Volunteer Scholarship: http://onestop.utk.edu/volunteer-scholarship/, plus the $2K Provost Scholarship: http://onestop.utk.edu/scholarships/provost-scholarship/. He likely would also be in the running for other, competitive scholarships: http://onestop.utk.edu/chancellors-scholarships/.

By the way, LOL at the reference above to Animal House: “Eric Stratton, rush chairman, damn glad to meet you!”. Just great.

13

Plenty of people, liberal and conservative politically, have non-descript grooming and dress styles. Also, dyed hair is not permanent. Some [url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/wife-daughter-of-islamic-state-head-detained-in-lebanon/2014/12/02/f00c29fa-4fa2-4c6f-afd4-801279e22754_story.html]conservatives[/url] are not exactly clean cut.

14

Wow, just wow. As a teen I died my hair jet black and my sister had purple hair. We were that generations weird ones. Sure glad nobody wanted to put my parent in jail for allowing us to have a bit of creativity that harmed no one. Now both of us are normal boring parents with somewhat greying hair.

My extra liberal kid wears mostly Doctor Who and Game of Thrones t-shirts when he is not in his school uniform but if he came home with obnoxious hair I wouldn’t care at all, as long as he remained the caring kid he is.

15

Yeah, hair color is the least of my worries with my kids… That said, what others said … any interest in smaller / private schools? Some of them can be quite generous with merit aid.

We liked UVM – students seemed warm and engaged, definitely liberal, but overall vibe was a nice outdoorsy, environmentally friendly kinda liberal. Clean cut would work. Cold in winter, but very pretty.

16

@LKnomad I didn’t mean to offend. Back when we had an unsold house in the north we went back for a visit and one of my son’s friends had dyed his hair black. It really upset my son. I guess standards are different in different places. There is some style of dress called “emo” that my daughter views as a bit like leprosy. I think it’s kind of like goth. (It’s not like they mount a public campaign against emo and dyed hair, but I just hear them talking in the car; they are only a year apart).

@carolinamom2boys My son and I are working together on the list. I am insisting that he visit Alabama and Oklahoma, in a very eat-your-spinach manner. Auburn, too, since it’s nearby. I suggested Miami and he is very excited about it; he nominated Vermont. I suggested Iowa, but really just for a further look. We’re still adding to the list.

@me29034 I haven’t listed too many private schools because most don’t seem to offer full rides. I’ll continue to look. We certainly ought to look at Vandy, since my wife went there, but their merit aid looks very slim. Also the others that you mentioned. Given the generosity of the Alabama and Oklahoma awards, and the high quality of their honors programs, its really hard to justify paying half- or even quarter-tuition at an expensive private school. Plus we don’t have it, and no, we don’t qualify for need-based aid.

@jerzmaster The minute I say “Texas” my son just stiffens up. He says he wants to get out of the South. The funny thing is, he carries a Confederate general’s name, but he appreciates the irony of it. He goes by his initials, so nobody really knows.

@ucbalumnus Okay, I’ll grant that “conservative” has lots of different meanings. I’m a P.J. O’Rourke conservative myself.

17

As I recall, PJ O’Rourke is a Miami U graduate.

18

Alabama students are not as conservative as you or your son seem to think. I would say that there are probably a couple of fraternities that may be further right, but the rest would include the spectrum. Alabama just has too many OOS students.

have you visited?

(BTW…there are blue, green and purple haired kids at Bama, too. Nose piercings, eyebrow piercings, mulltiple tattoos, etc as well)

Auburn’s NMF is not almost a full ride for OOS students…not even close. It doesn’t even cover full tuition for OOS students. You may have misread it.

19

Has he thought about UK? Their scholarship for NMF is pretty incredible. Full ride plus, last time I checked.

20

Fordham has a strong B school and gives full tuition for NMF if also in top 10%. Room and board is very pricey, although they used to cover room (not board) also for at least a year or two.

I don’t think Vermont offers merit as generous as other schools on your list.

Bentley (near Boston) offers some competitive full tuition awards not tied to NMF.

U of South Carolina has top notch International Business program and Honors College. Must apply to get in both. With merit (NMF and other) your cost would be about $14,000 for Year 1 (with other very competitive awards a possibility).