OP, yes, your daughter should be looking at schools just under the 50% acceptance rate for low match/matches. A few I’d look into include Dickinson, Union, Wheaton College (MA), Gettysburg, Connecticut College, Muhlenberg, Skidmore. Mount Holyoke for all-girls.
Safeties would fall below those acceptance rates. Try St. Michaels (VT), Ithaca (NY), Assumption (MA) for examples.
Bates and Vassar might be good reaches.
Again, it all depends on COA. No school is a good school if it requires you to mortgage your house or spend your retirement. She will get into a good school, and affordable, but it might not carry a household name. I’d definately look into your EFC. From my experience, that means your income is in six figures easily.
@Sybylla@Lookin4ward@mamaedefamilia I never said she was the poorest kid at her school; just that she is the poorest taking AP classes and that’s ranked in the top 10%. My gross income is between 150-160k. There are multiple multiple neighborhoods zoned to her school w/ homes that are 800k-millions of dollars. I have a small townhouse. My child is a little social justice warrior. While the demographic and landscape of TX is changing, she is extremely liberal and she has different views and experiences growing up in NY than a lot of her friends who live here.
I ran NPCs for the past couple years and kept coming up w/ 15-19k - I can afford that, but 41k will stretch me extremely thin. I was never married to her dad, and I’m not sure of his income but he says that it’s not much.
@Eeyore123 thank you for the suggestions. I will research and see if any of them offer any merit awards.
@allyphoe my daughter’s list sounds very similar to yours. It’s really unfortunate that we no longer live in the northeast because we haven’t visited many schools. The ones that she actually likes are the ones that we visited.
I agree with @lookingforward to make sure you have made no mistakes with the FAFSA because it can make a huge difference in calculating your EFC. I would also like to recommend looking at some of the top HBCUs because they would possibly give life changing merit aid packages to your daughter. My daughter is a freshman at Howard University in Washington D.C on a full scholarship when she had many other options and I have been surprised by how she has enjoyed it (assumed she would chose a PWI because those where the type of schools she has always attended) and she is in love with Washington D.C. HBCUs are not for everyone, but just letting you know that the merit aid for a student like your daughter would probably be tremendous. Has your daughter thought about Emory University and Rice University as they are both know for giving pretty generous financial aid packages (Rice just announced that they will be giving full-tuition aid for incomes between 65K and 130K and half tuition from 130K and 200K).
UT and Rice should be tops on your daughter’s list, despite her wanting to move to the NE. The money you could save with her going to either one of these great schools could fund trips to NYC. I would do cartwheels if my kiddos got into either school. (It would be quite a sight!)
Plus, you have to consider, what if you are not able to work two jobs? You don’t want her to have to leave school because you can’t pay. My son’s friend had to do that and it was the saddest thing ever. The friend was a great student and had arranged to become an RA but the family didn’t have the cash and couldn’t get more loans. Dreams delayed and possibly denied.
Also, can you afford to be full pay even in Texas? if your fafsa is truly 41K then you will be full pay at >25K a year. Make sure you target the non competitive schools if merit is a necessity. UT and A&M as safeties won’t need to give her academic merit.
Kid who wants to be a marketing major at UCLA and SJW set on a liberal arts education and the life of the mind in the Northeast is a big disparity. It’s hard to recommend schools that fit both.
What specific things did she like about the colleges she visited? What, if anything, did she dislike?
In coming up with my kid’s list, geography took a backseat to academics - better a midwestern school with stronger academics than a northeastern school with weaker ones, where both had similar admission rates. In looking for safeties, which one is more important to yours?
Spellman is not in the Northeast, but definitely worth looking at for students like your daughter. Another women’s college to investigate would be Simmons - much stronger business programs than other LACs.
I appreciate everyone’s constructive criticism and advice. We have already revised the list and added Barnard, Bates, SUNY Binghamton, Carnegie Mellon, Rice, UT Austin, Vassar, & Tufts. I’m not sure if anyone is familiar with parchment and how accurate the odds on there are, but they’re pretty high for a few schools.
@allyphoe The only reason she had UCLA on her list is because she knew two people with similar stats from her school who was accepted there.
@Sybylla I should be able to afford UT and someone recommended a scholarship for them that we’ll look into.
@TQfromtheU UT and Rice have been added to the list
IMHO you have a good list to start with. Nothing wrong with these reaches. Your daughter has very good stats. Yes, I would cast a wide net that includes these schools, as well as a few more matches and maybe 2 safeties that she is enthusiastic about. Also, visit UT and be like, “Isn’t this great?!?” Point out the benefits of in-state for undergrad and how that extra $ could come in handy for incidentals. If you do all this, she should have multiple, good options to chose from, and you can compare offers from each school. The one thing I agree with is to nix NYU if possible, since they are notorious for being bad about giving aid. Otherwise, you could likely end up with an acceptance and a potential $70,000 bill. Best of luck to her and to you!
@roycroftmom the EFC may be correct, but only the OP can determine if it is manageable. There are lots of people that can’t afford what a college thinks they can afford.
It’s not just about stats.
So other than UT, if she’s autoadmit, what do you think are safeties on your list?
And as a SJW, what are those activities? At the private colleges you note, they’ll look for that.
“Single, never married, divorced, or separated parents must execute a separate calculation for each household to estimate the combined contribution which will be used.” That’s one college’s wording.
@salma45
She should be looking for schools that are good for her major, that is the right size, and in a location she likes.
So what is her major? What size of school would she prefer? Does she want to be in the city or rural area?
@allyphoe Your student’s list looks like my sons (except for the 4 years of Chinese). Not to hijack this post, but if you could PM or post here any useful search criteria for finding those schools, I’d be grateful. We have mostly been doing “schools like this” or looking at the greek life size one by one as we locate a school (and then cross that school off the list - HA!)…and how do you find the student base that is interested in learning but not crazy competitive? He is I guess hoping to pick that up by visiting the schools…
I didn’t read the whole thread, but your daughter has lots going for her including a major hook. She is also from Texas. How many Texans go to college in the Northeast? I think she should apply to all the reaches she wants as long as you have some very good, sure-thing safeties. I would look at schools that are seeking diversity, that are generous with FA and have a decent acceptance rate. I think a 1370 is a very good score, personally.
