D2 is a good student who wants to ultimately study Physical Therapy. She has been pretty definite about the qualities she was looking for in a university and settled on Ohio University as the school that best met her needs. She applied in late September and has been accepted as a pre-Exercise Physiology major. She had originally chosen 3 other schools to apply to Miami University, Ohio State University and Purdue University. Since receiving her acceptance she has asked me if she can just not apply to any of the other schools. The only other school I am requiring her to apply to is Wright State University as it is a guaranteed financial safety if not a true safety (she really does not want to attend there) as it’s in the city we live in and the guaranteed scholarships would make it something we could afford without loans. She would have to major in biology and they have no dance program other than a BFA. She really wants to continue dancing which is one of the strengths of OU offerings.
I guess my question is whether or not I should require her to apply to more schools? The question will be scholarships and financial aid. She has a 4.43 W GPA with 9 AP courses including AP Chem, AP Calc BC, and AP Bio and AP Psychology all of which will be of use to her in her major. She has a 33 ACT. She should be in the top 5% of OU’s incoming class. Our EFC is expected to be around $6-$7k with 2 kids in college (our oldest D attends Purdue). I say expected as we are self employed and those numbers can change from year to year. We have enough in saving and earnings to cover the EFC. My concern is that by relying on her current acceptance and Wright State her choices will be the school she most prefers and a school she doesn’t want to attend. While the chance of financial aid at the other schools would likely not be much better than OU it would give her more chances and options. I am just curious as to others thoughts.
My daughter is in the same boat and we are also in Ohio. (OU is actually one of my alma maters) She is convinced that Otterbein is her choice (she’s going for nursing). She applied to OSU and UK as well. I am encouraging her to add Capital and Cinnci to her common app because, from what I understand, you can use the merit awards from like schools to ask for additional merit at the one you have chosen. YMMV.
@lvvcsf, do the other apps require any special essays or is it simply"pushing a button" on the common app (and paying the fee)? If it’s just pushing the button, I would insist on applying to the others, just too see what your options are. Perhaps in turn, removing Weight since she hates it…
The other three are common app and only require the common app essay. That is my logic. If OU wouldn’t provide what she needs Wright State is her only other option. If she applies to the others then their are more chances. Her logic is that at the other schools she would be in competition with many more students with like stats so her likelihood of receiving scholarships and financial aid would be less. We need to get the cost down to preferably about $10k per year before loans for her to be able definitely afford it. With work study and summer jobs that might go up. She also might seek an opportunity to be a RA. The ideal situation would be to be able to afford the school with out loans as she will likely need loans to attend a DPT program.
What happens if she decides by the end of Freshman Year that she hates PT? She may be absolutely convinced that this is what she’s meant to study- but that’s what every other kid who changes their major thought when they were in HS. Ask her how she’d feel if she decided she wants to study something else… maybe leaving a few options open is a good idea. Kids change their minds.
As a mother of the Miami graduate who was attending there as a pre-med on full tuition Merit award, I would strongly recommend applying to Miami. My D. had very similar stats to yours and her ACT was exactly 33. her experiences at Miami were well beyond our expectations. She obtained a solid academic background, she took advantages of great opportunities there to participate in Medically related EC’s including Med. Research lab, she traveled abroad with the group from her college, and she had great choices of Med. Schools after graduating, And if your D. is interested in exercises, mine took full advantage of great rec. center there with awesome pool. Well, the beauty of the campus was another major attraction to my D. On the other hand, OSU offered my D. very small Merit award, nothing to be seriously considered. I do not know anything about Wright State or Ohio U. Cinci was another of D’s schools, but again they did not offer much at all. Oh, Case has also offered a lot, actually, their monetary offer was higher than at Miami.
If she really wants to continue dance, it doesn’t sound like Wright State is a fit for her, no matter the finances. Would you make her go if the finances were best for you, but she didn’t want to go?
Tell me though - if she applies to other colleges, and there are better FA packages, will you pressure her not to go to OU, even if her heart is still set on it?
I’ve been in the same boat… My D had a school picked out in her mind (OOS) and I wanted her to apply to others as well. Ultimately I decided if she was willing to works full time in the summers and take out loans herself to help cover the costs, I would not push her to apply elsewhere. This way her college experience was her decision. I would never hear “you made me go here”. If she didn’t like it, it would be on her to figure out options. I figure any extra financial aid we missed out on was worth letting her own this important life decision.
I would absolutely ask her to apply to a couple more schools so she has some options come spring. Kids choices can really change a lot. Kids I know (from OOS) love Miami. If she is such a top student, she may get merit aid and good financial aid at private schools too. How are the PT acceptances from OU vs OState and Miami or others?
You post 4 sums it up - it is about having options. No harm and little effort (and cost) in applying to OSU and Miami and even some other schools.
I’m going to apologize in advance for what I’m sure will be construed as offensive to some.
Why is she aiming so low?
There are kids at Princeton with worse stats than your daughter.
Ivies and some little Ivies (Amherst, Williams) have the best financial aid, so that can be a reason to apply. A family with income under $65 pays nothing at Harvard and those with incomes up to $150K pay little. 70% of students have some aid and 20% are free. This is not relevant to the original poster’s daughter, who wants to study PT, but just wanted to say there are good financial reasons for applying to these schools.
Ohio State U. has a wonderful dance program, but for those not majoring in dance, not sure it the presence of the dance program is a plus: best classes and performance opportunities might go to those in the dance program. Still, I have met a lot of great dancers who went to Ohio State and were very happy with it.
@soze I’m not offended by the question. She visited a number of schools including some I saw as very good fits. She wanted a school with over 10k students, less than 5 hours from home. While the school having a DPT program wasn’t a requirement those that did went up in her esteem. OU had all of the qualities she was looking for with a couple of unique opportunities. First, they offer a “Dance Somatics” minor and a campus group called The Movement for her to dance without majoring. Some of the other schools that offered minors required her to start with dance 101. She’s been dancing since she was 4 so that really turned her off (one such school was
CWRU). OU also has something called the SHAPe Clinic, think athletic training facility for the Arts (theater, dance, band, orchestra etc.). She is also interested in finishing her degree in three years rather than four though I think that might be an option at a number of schools. OU does have the oldest DPT program in Ohio though she understands graduating with an UG degree from the school doesn’t necessarily give her an advantage in admission to the program. Her favorite HS subjects have been biology, anatomy and physiology and English so while I can see her potentially change her mind just about anything she would do would likely be in Allied Health.
If you are focusing on in-state options, would your daughter be interested in a liberal arts college? I don’t know the specifics about PT or pre-PT programs at each. I do know that College of Wooster has dance scholarships and you can stack merit aid, leading to fairly generous packages. I think that she would be very competitive for merit scholarships from Ohio Wesleyan and Denison as well. I don’t know what their combined FA/merit packages look like but they might end up costing less than a public university. I think that OWU has a Human Health and Kinetics major. OWU also has dance scholarships but I believe they are only available to majors.
If PA is an option, there are multiple possibilities there as well.
Not everyone who can be a doctor wants to be one. Not everyone who could get into an Ivy wants to go to one. OP, I would ask her to still at least do the Miami application. I agree that things can change in 6 months, and having options until May 1 is good. If she ends up wanting to transfer from OSU, it can be a lot easier to do if she was accepted at the new school, even if she turned them down the first time.