<p>I would like to know what college/university your student applied to and how much is cost? My S is an incoming senior and was wondering how much of the budget applications will take up. Thanks. My S is interested in applying to the following:</p>
<p>Univ. of Florida
Florida State Univ.
Univ. Central Florida
Univ. North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Rutgers
SUNY Stony Brook
Syracuse
Cornell
Harvard (reach)</p>
<p>Thanks for all your words of wisdom. He is our first and this is all new to us.</p>
<p>While you are looking through those websites, run the Net Price Calculators to get a notion as to whether any of them will be affordable for your son. The application fees do add up, but compared to the cost of attendance, they are peanuts.</p>
<p>Typically costs around $50-$80 per school, plus the other SAT/ACT/CSS/etc fees. Some schools have waivers available for kids they want, kids who visit, etc.</p>
<p>We found that showing interest - asking for material, visiting the school, speaking to a rep at a College fair, often bought a free application from private colleges. Make sure to create a separate e-mail account just for your college student. We did one so he and I could both access it, and we wouldn’t get spam college mail on our personal accounts.</p>
<p>Agree with happymom-the application fees are nothing compared to paying tuition at an out-of-state public university. Running the Net Price Calculators now will help reshape his application list so that you are not wasting an application fee (and effort) applying to a college that will be financially out of reach.</p>
<p>If the OP is concerned about the costs of applications…I would think the costs of attending an OOS public, or an expensive private should be MORE of a concern. The applications are a one time cost…the cost of attending college goes on for four years. </p>
<p>Agree…run the net price calculator for ALL of these schools…and have a serious discussion about your bottom line college costs with your student. They need to understand how much you are willing to pay…and understand that if the money isn’t there for a school, they cannot go. This should happen BEFORE applications are sent. In addition, make sure there are two financial safety schools on the list. Choose those first. These should be places that your student will be happy to attend AND where you can afford to pay the bills.</p>
<p>If I’m remembering correctly, SUNYs are about $50 a school. While I don’t necessarily assume that just because someone asks the question, it automatically means that the costs are a major concern or obstacle…IF they are there are things you can do. As others have suggested, don’t be shy about asking the school counselor about the availability of waivers. Don’t be shy about asking individual schools about the availability of waivers. I don’t have the link handy, but there is a pretty comprehensive list of schools that offer no fee applications. And there are programs like QuestBridge that a student can apply to and gain access to free apps to member colleges as well as alot of other resources.</p>
<p>The “free apps” seem to have declined since my first applied in 2006 unless you get waivers for very low income. And yes, the app fees are only around half the application cost - there is the cost to send the test scores. With ACT there are 4 free ones, but none of my kids had there app list nailed down in spring of junior year. And there can be fees if a college requires the College Board Profile for financial aid. Only a couple of selective public unis do this and hundreds of the selective privates do. So a $60 app fee + sending test scores + profile charges will be the total around $100 a college to apply. My S1 spent only a couple hundred dollars for his 4 colleges and it soared to almost a grand for my S3 who applied to 8 colleges with no “free apps.” Another good reason to have kids do the RESEARCH before they shoot the apps out.</p>