Oh, that makes a huge difference. Good for you on trying to figure this out.
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Well, now that I know that the parents didnât pay for the siblingsâ college, I retract my statement and also disagree with it!
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Yes, I wrote and then saw he wrote. I asked the other day where the other slbling wentâŠI was wondering.
What Iâve learned is - dang, thereâs a crap ton of money out there for really smart kids.
And as I took my sonâs last withdrawal from his 529 this AM, I was thinking - what the heck am I gonna do with all thatâs left - and itâs more than I withdrew 
I prepared for college expense - only to find out in many cases - itâs not near that expensive !!!
And Iâm thankful for that -and for my son making the choice he did.
And I think for OP and I know itâs been said before - yes, youâve worked hard and if your parents have $375K to spend, and they want to - then wonderful.
But if they donât and you only have $150K or even $50K to spend, guess what - youâre still going to go to a fine program, seen by employers as of huge quality, and still going to do very well in life and in the long run, if youâre in a CS type job, probably make similar $$ no matter where you go - because companies pay by job and location, moreso than school.
Keep your head up - but itâs great you are setting yourself up for true discussions with your folks and the schools.
One other thing, they need to be involved in the NPCs and all the discussions with the aid office. Often times, parents have info that their kids either donât understand or that their parents donât want them to know about.
Keep up the great work.
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Does anyone know merit scholarships that schools give out during (EA)? I want to start looking into that.
If they are aware of the cost and tell you not to worry Iâd support the argument to just trust them.
But it seems like they may not be aware, and might not have done a financial feasibility analysis yet. You should insist they do this now, not later. Otherwise you might get accepted to schools you canât afford to attend, which is more heartbreaking than being rejected outright.
Again, if they look at their finances and then tell you not to worry then trust them. But not if they say theyâll figure it out later.
There are plenty including several from your list and the ones suggested to you.
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How do I apply to them? Is there a specific place to apply for them or is it just on Common App. Have they released the prompts for them?
OP, most people will say you and your parents can figure this out on your own, but if their financial situation is especially complex, if they can afford it, your family may want to consider paying for an hour or two of consulting time from a private financial aid advisor who specializes in college financial aid planning and who can review their actual financial situation vis a vis college costs. Our family did this and found it very helpful â and it wasnât excessively expensive.
Note that this is NOT the same as a CPA or accountant. They will not usually know enough to be helpful in this very specialized area.
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This varies from school to school so youâll need to check their websites. Some schools automatically consider all their early applicants for a scholarship without requiring anything additional. Others require additional information or a separate application. Some involve essays and/or interviews, etc. Itâs different everywhere.
Most scholarships come from the school - automatically.
Some may be apply by - ie Emory apply by it used to be Nov 1 even though RD was January - for consideartion.
Others, like Pitt, say the earlier the better because they have limited funds and when they pass them out, theyâre gone.
Some private schools that arenât elite - are giving everyone money. They have to in order to get kids in - especially top kids like you. Think of a Sewanee or Rollins, etc. Most kids wonât pay the same amount for these as they would say WUSTL or Cornell - so they have to discount the sticker. Some schools discount everyone and advertise that they do - vs. just lowering the full price up front.
Others like Vandy and WUSTL - have specific scholarships you have to apply to - and have essays involved.
And then others and from your list and why the entire money discussion started - donât have scholarships at all for merit - this would be, MIT, Stanford, CMU, Cal Tech, Princeton, Cornell.
So if you find out you are full pay (and my guess is you will), these will be full freight.
So when you say you worked hard and deserve those - others have too - but have chosen to spend $50 or $100 or $150K instead of $375K. Thatâs what their academic excellence provided to them and many colleges today have added Honors programs to heighten their academic experience.
But to answer your question -the easiest way to get money is from the school itself. And you need to see what each school wants but typically applying earlier will get you more (unless you are doing mid-level privates, etc.).
It looks like most your privates have no merit (except WUSTL) and your publics wonât most likely either - because youâre choosing the creme de la creme - and thereâs a price of entry for that (from OOS).
Good questions.
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What we did was apply to some safeties where we knew for sure that they would be affordable, and waited until all of the acceptances came in and selected what was perceived as âbest fitâ from among the affordable acceptances. We ended up getting lucky and what we thought was the best fit was in both cases affordable.
For us âaffordableâ included in-state public universities, and universities that gave good merit based aid. In some cases (eg, UVM) the NPC did accurately predict merit aid. In some other cases we knew that merit aid was possible, but did not know how much we would get. We however also had a couple of other fortunate details which do not apply to you. One is that we live in the northeast of the US not all that far from the Canadian border, and the other is that both daughters were born with dual US/Canadian citizenship. This meant that anything in Canada was also affordable for us.
We had the same âproblemâ. One daughter under-ran the budget. We have been using it for a graduate program (and it will be gone long before we call her older sister âdoctorâ).
We saw a lot of this, but yes it does vary from university to university.
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You need to go to each schoolâs website to see what merit scholarships they offer, and if one needs to apply separately to them, and the various deadlines. For essay prompts, whether for the general app or for scholarships, again you have to look on each schoolâs site. I suggest you build a spreadsheet/google sheet with all the info that you are going to have to keep track of.
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Also - you might set up a college only email - such as An_d@gmail.com
You go to any college you have interest in - so not just your list but any names people throw at you that seem interesting and get on their mailing lists.
You do nothing but college in this email.
You will get emails every day and schools that have $$ to give you will make you well aware of it - and what you need to do to get it.
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You can google âPurdue merit scholarshipsâ and be directed to this page
While you may receive some need based aid (difficult to tell when parents own businesses), what you are really looking for is the merit based aid/scholarships. Those are not dependent on your familyâs income, but are based on your merit.
Go down your list and google ââschool nameâ merit scholarshipsâ Read the small print about what you need to do to be considered for those scholarships.
For example, USC requires students who want to be considered for their merit scholarships to apply EA (by Nov 1). Students who are selected for a merit scholarship are notified of admissions in January. They interview and find out the exact dollar value of the scholarship in March.
USC Merit Scholarships require students to apply for admission to the university by either November 1 or December 1, depending on their intended major. Most majors require students to apply Early Action and submit a complete application by November 1.
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So this means they are the property owners if they are paying for the land and buildings. If so, the equity in the land and buildings could have an impact on need based aid. But you said your parents can afford your collegeâŠso make sure that is trueâŠand put the affordability issue aside.
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Perhaps you should consider these colleges.
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It doesnât have a good CS program.
You keep saying this.
Which school?
How do you know they (whoever it is) donât have a good CS program?
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Thank you for all the advice. I will be looking into the merit scholarships and make a list. Are there any spreadsheets that would be very beneficial to use?
I have been playing around with the net price calculator for several colleges and filled in estimates of info that I know and most of them are around 25k with UMich at 57k. However, I see a bunch of people saying that they assume that I will be paying full price. Why is that?
You can make your own on excel of google sheets - with each column a heading you find important.
Or do you mean are there lists of merit scholarships in spreadsheet form?
There are lists - not sure in spreadsheet format - on line. However, Iâd figure the schools of interest and google the name + merit scholarships.
And once you come to a final conclusion on what you need, if you ask here youâll get names and more names.
As for your sheet - Iâd highlight whatâs important to you. It may be size, average temperature in January, male/female ratio, we had a list of 4 or 5 majors each with a column so we knew which school had which major of interest. We had Jewish population size and another column for percentage of students that are jewish. We had distance from major airport.
It really would depend on which categories matter to you.
Not sure if I answered your question.
Hereâs one type of list but not sure if it would be helpful to you.
And again - please set up an email address for college only and start getting on the mailing lists or additional info lists of each and any school of possible interest. My daughter started with 109 but as she eliminated, we unsubscribed to reduce the amount of junk.
This is a all about sales. Just as you are trying to sell yourself to the college, they are trying to sell themselves to you. After all, many more say no to most every college than say yes. So they will be letting you know all the great things they can do for you, including affordability. They really really need you - but you only need one and can accept only one even if applying to 10 or 20. So let them grovel to you.
Good luck.
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