Choice of Safety/Match/Reach Schools

College Search & Selection
1

Hi everyone,

This is my first post in CC.

Our daughter is a junior attending a large public high school in south Florida and our plan is to narrow down her choice of safety, match, and reach schools over the next few months.

Her goal is to get into a biomedical area of study (biochemistry/biomedical engineering) for undergrad and then figure out what professional graduate program to get into (medicine/law). Ideally, she gets into a school/program that can offer her full tuition. Based on her statistics, she would qualify for the Bright Futures Scholarship within Florida.
We are also open to explore schools that are ranked higher than the Florida schools and can offer her merit scholarships/grants that can cover at least half the cost of attendance (say $25-35k/year for family contribution). We don’t want her to get a loan to fund her undergraduate studies. We also have a younger child who is a freshman in high school.
Home State: Florida
Ethnicity: Asian
Family income: $300k

Her statistics are:

4.00/4.00 GPA Unweighted, 4.93 Weighted
Ranking: Top 1% among 725 students

Courses completed: AP Environmental Sciences (5), AICE Environmental Management, Biology Honors, AICE Biology, Pre-Calculus Honors, Psychology, Sociology, AICE General Papers, AP Calculus AB (4), AICE International History, Chemistry Honors, AICE English AS, Theatre, Spanish I, and Spanish II.

Courses Currently Enrolled in: AP Calculus BC, AICE Chemistry, AICE American History, AICE English Literature, AICE Global Perspectives, Debate Honors, Spanish III, and Physics Honors (Florida Virtual School for Physics Honors).

SAT scores (770 reading, 710 Math-first attempt after freshman year with 0 hours of preparation to get a baseline), (730 reading, 780 Math-second attempt with some preparation focusing on math only & taken after sophomore year). Superscore 1550.

She is planning to take the SAT again in March just for the reason that her high school administers it for free. She has also registered to take the ACT in February.

SAT Biology: 730

Extra Curricular: Senior leadership position in Model UN, Debate Club, Creative Writing Club, 150+ volunteer hours, Big Brothers & Big Sisters, Finalist at the Florida State Science Fair, and Mu Alpha Theta.

The colleges we’re looking into are:

Safety:
University of Central Florida, University of South Florida, and Florida International University.

Match:
University of Florida, University of Miami, Clemson, University of Pittsburgh, Purdue, UC San Diego, Univ of Texas, Austin, and Texas A&M.

Reach:
Georgia Tech, Univ of Southern California, UCLA, Vanderbilt, Duke, Rice, Cornell, Brown, Johns Hopkins (probably the last 6 are high reaches).

Now the questions…are we even in the ballpark on the choice of the safeties, match, and reach schools? Since need based financial assistance is not an option, how generous are the above schools outside Florida in providing grants/scholarships/tuition waivers, etc? Any other things to consider?

We appreciate any input & feedback. Thank you.

2

The UC’s gives no financial aid to out of state students so can you pay $65,000/year for four years?

3

Is she interested in colleges in the North? If so, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY might be worth a look. They offer merit aid.

4

Each college has a net price calculator on its web site that can give an estimate.

Since she is considering expensive medical or law school, you may want to consider that if she goes under-budget for undergraduate, you may be able to offer the leftover college money for medical or law school. Starting a medical or law career with a lower debt burden will give her more career and life options, as opposed to being forced to chase the money at every decision.

Medical school admission also involves interviews. Since Florida public medical schools will be her reaches (as opposed to everything else which will be super-reaches), it may be preferable to do undergraduate in Florida or within easier travel to Florida for medical school interview access.

5

Case Western would be a good match for her, and she has a good shot at merit with her stats.
Read this thread about Case and biomedical engineering: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/case-western-reserve-university/1988018-case-western-bme.html

6

@TomSrOfBoston …I thought it was mostly for UCB. Is that true for UCSD and UCLA as well?

7

@123France thinking about RPI because it has a good accelerated BS/MD program, but she is undecided on the MD part. The undergrad COA is $72k/year and the merit portion has to be a sizable one to attend.

8

@ucbalumnus Yes! That is the plan-to attend an in-state school for undergrad, probably UF, get Bright Futures scholarship and then look at other schools for graduate/professional programs.

9

@Genevieve18 Thanks for recommending CWRU…great option!

Thanks everyone for your responses/comments.

10

Your private reaches do not give merit scholarships. It’s all need based. If they aren’t affordable, I wouldn’t bother applying.

Purdue is very stingy with merit aid, especially for OOS students. COA for OOS is $40-44K/year depending on housing.

RPI does give merit $ but most students we knew, DD included, only had the COA come down to the high $30s/year.

I agree that Case Western is worth a look.

Honestly though you’ll be hard pressed to find a better deal than your instate options and if you have grad school on the horizon, I would go with most economical.

11

There are 2 Ivy League schools on your list- they give no merit money. A few other schools on your list may give little to no merit money- I suggest looking at the websites of the individual schools to get addititonal info.

12

All UC’s are public universities and give little to no financial aid to out of state applicants. The UC’s offer some merit aid but little in comparison to the OOS costs. The FA they give is mostly need-based for in-state students.

Run the Net Price calculator if you want to confirm but expect to pay around $65k/year.

13

Re: #5

UCs give no need based aid to out of state students except as part of the top merit scholarships, which should generally be considered high reach.

Re: #7

May want to re-evaluate the list to remove schools which have no chance of affordability, and move those where affordability depends on competitive merit scholarships to the reach or high reach category.

14

She has a good shot at a large merit award from Pitt as long as she applies early in their rolling process. They use up the merit money as they go, so applying in Sept./Oct. would be wise (merit committee first meets in early November). It’s always great to have an early admission from a rolling school, also.

15

@SolMar No UC’s give need based aid and minimal merit to OOS students.

16

If you’re pretty sure that your daughter is going to go to graduate school or a professional graduate program (e.g., law or medicine), then stay in Florida for the undergraduate degree as a means of saving money; spend that money instead on the graduate/professional degree. If you get a law or medical degree, or a graduate degree, no one is going to care where you got your undergraduate degree.

17

@momofsenior1 Good info on Purdue. thanks!

18

@Genevieve18 …Pitt is definitely on her list. Hopefully, there will be a merit award that is meaningful. Thanks.

@Gumbymom and @ucbalumnus …Looks like we have to take the UCs off the list.

@1S1Dforcollege …good suggestion-I will check the Net price calculator for Ivies.

@gandalf78 …precisely! The chances of undergrad within FL and graduate program in FL/somewhere else is pretty high.

Thanks everyone!