He submitted a 1370 SAT and yes, he applied prior to Dec. 1st
You make a good point - I’ll see how he feels about giving them that feedback. Clemson may not see it this way, but he was putting them in the same bucket as Tennessee and South Carolina when he applied (OOS for all). Tennessee offered the max Volunteer Scholarship ($18K per year plus $2K from engineering, and with a Chancellor’s still pending I think). South Carolina did the max to waive the OOS cost ($21K per year), plus a smaller amount later too. Bottom line is that both schools at least helped the consideration by making costs even with or in fact slightly lower than in-state in VA where we live. Clemson had an unreal 65% increase in applications this year, which tells me all I need to know. It dropped rather quickly from our list.
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Why doesn’t Clemson give out good financial aid/ scholarships its a top public university, and very well funded?
We are OOS, but curious overall what a high achiever in-state with the top scholarship It seems like they’re giving (not national scholars) would end up paying overall to attend Clemson - tuition, room and board, etc. Not including honors college or anything extra…
I got $1,500 off per year. I also have our instate lottery scholarship off $6,700 a year and a special program from Clemson (Lyceum) that is $2,500 a year. It is still looking like I only got 1/3 off of total cost, and most of that is through the SC Commission of Higher Education. I also am accepted into Honors College as well, 34 ACT, 12 APs, 5.3 weighted GPA, acceptances at Notre Dame, W&L, and U Mich. Waitlists at Georgetown, UVA, Wash U. I’m just not sure that Clemson for 20K a year is an extreme advantage over the ~Top 20s at full price. Of course, that could all be forgiven if I score an acceptance from one of my last 7 top schools.
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@chimombye my cost for freshman year is around 10k. I get 6.5k from clem, 6.7 PF, & i have a florida prepaid fund providing 4k per year (u can figure out what my cost would be w/o this each year by adding 4k)
my cost for soph, junior, senior is around 5k per year, given i move off campus, and my PF increases to 10k per year due to the extension for being a stem major.
only room, board/meal plan, tuition, fees included
Thank you. At least it is reasonable for top scoring SC residents. Love Clemson so much and got into honors, just so expensive for OOS, even with the top merit scholarship, plus a random $500 scholarship that I have no idea what it is. Good luck.
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The 65% increase does say it all. And Clemson was very popular to begin with. They are on par with OOS for other top publics like UVA, UNC, UofM, GT. There’s no need for them to give lots of merits when there are plenty of students/parents that will pay and they are attracting lots of high stat kids. UTK and UofSC are not in the same situation. They are both hungry to boost their stats, so they need to entice the high stat OOS kids to attend. UTK and UofSC are great choices, but they are not “dream schools” for as many kids as the other universities are.
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I think I can answer the “why high stat OOS students attend;” like D20, the ones I know usually choose Clemson for a one of the following or combo of reasons:
- Legacy; some grew up Clemson kids. I know several who are 4th or 5th generation. Orange blood runs deep; hard to explain the draw if you look at it as “just another school.” If you were solely merit shopping, Clemson probably shouldn’t have be on the list. As a NE, LAC girl who married into this, I can say I’ve never seen anything like it; it’s like one large family. When DH told me he was turning down his Dartmouth slot 30+ years ago, I thought he was crazy. Some of our best friends turned down MIT, Duke…and the list goes on and on. Honestly, I’d never even heard of Clemson at the time, but the saying is “there’s something these hills;” people either get it, or they don’t. I drove through campus yesterday, all I saw were smiling, happy people. Maybe there’s something in the water here?
2)Small feel school with all the big school perks. D20s classes are all small (<40) and currently all in-person, except one hybrid. She works with a small cohort of students between engineering and HC; she has 2 advisors (engineering and honors) and easy access to professors and industry professionals. Granted it’s up to her to take advantage of the opportunities, but they are readily available.
3)They aren’t just a number. As a high stat student, they get a lot of attention and opportunities through HC, Eureka!, undergrad research, etc… it’s easy to start making a difference beginning freshman year. D20 has already worked on a research team and has been offered a paid internship this summer from an alumni she met through networking, not too shabby for an 18yo freshman heading into her “junior” year. - It’s about $42k/year the first year (with top merit level; that included HC and LLC fees of about $1.5k). It will be 4k/year less once they move off campus. However, most high stat kids come in with a year’s worth of credits. That means they could either graduate early or start their MS a year early, if they work with their advisors.
- They live in states where their in-state rates are higher or the same. That’s why so many kids are from MA, NJ and PA; they love the weather down here, and from what I hear their main flagships have gotten pretty expensive.
D20 didn’t earn enough scholarships from her in-state options (UNC or NCSU) to sway her to actually like and consider them; maybe if they’d given her full tuition, but that only happens for a handful of students. She applied to several other OOS schools like UGA; like Clemson, they only offered the merit amount from the NPC. They also offered her HC and other small departmental awards, but again, it wasn’t enough to sway her. I didn’t fault UGA for that. They offered; she declined, no hard feelings. She still roots for her friends on the swim team. We also know a lot of high stat kids who, like D20, turned down much higher merit offers from other OOS schools; in the end, they just felt Clemson was the better fit for them to spite the cost savings at other flagships. Hopefully your students will find their perfect fit; good luck on your final decisions!
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Points well expressed and well taken - and the other school we find fell into this category is Texas A&M, where applications were also up (it’s a ginormous school to begin with) and merit aid for OOS seemed to be similarly sparse. In the end, he’s 100% excited about his choice (in-state at UVA) and we’ve def. learned a lot for when D24 goes through this in a few years.
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i 100% agree with you… the alumni connections is a main reason i’m leaning toward Clemson over UF it’s crucial to have shadowing opportunities for premed students and that’s provided by clemsons alumni network easily
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D20s best friend is at TAMU and loves it; my nieces are at UVA and love it there. They each need to find the right fit for them.
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Indeed. My responses above were certainly not meant to run down Clemson at all - the fact that there was a 65% increase on top of an already large application pool speaks volumes about what it has done over time to build its programs and culture. S21 has grown up with UVA as his dream school, and it’s hard to argue with that (and he knows he’s fortunate that the in-state cost is manageable for us). It was nice though, to get to know other places during this process.
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We truly thought D20 was picking a different school; we made a concerted effort through her HS years NOT to promote Clemson. I wanted her to choose the school that was best for her. That’s actually why we moved to NC, thinking she would have so many more options. We guessed that one wrong.
Glad he found his match; if he comes down for games, the Clemson mom fans will probably invite him into their tailgates and feed him. They love to feed everyone (maybe it’s a southern thing?). I remember the first time Louisville came to town. We were at a friend’s tailgate, and they invited the Louisville fans in for drinks and food. I was talking to a couple guys who sat down, and they asked me why everyone was being so nice. Like me 30+ years ago, they thought it was an act. I had to reassure them there were no ulterior motives. I admit as an “outsider,” I don’t always “get it.” I’m learning to just go with it at this point.
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You made good points with NE schools. Rutgers is about $30,000 and gives very little merit to in state students, even high stat (they say they don’t have to). Add nice weather and much fewer covid restrictions, Clemson is very attractive to my daughter.
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Regular decision honors come out on April 1.
Hospitality and nice are a southern thing. Just watch out for a “bless your heart” 
.
Where I live has lost a lot of its southerness over the last 20-30 years and I miss it, but at least we can still venture outside our immediate area and get a dose of it.
I will say that Texas A&M takes care of its best OOS applicants very well. It offers OOS tuition waivers for NMFs. Clemson does nothing like this.
The issue that I see for really high stats OOS applicants is that they have their pick of T20 schools for the same (or less) money. I do believe that Clemson’s merit aid approach is leading several of these students to choose elsewhere. Having said that, Clemson is a special place!
Quick question and I apologize if this was already covered somewhere. We are heading down for a visit in a couple weeks. I understand admissions is only doing virtual tours still but we need an in person visit before committing sight unseen. Any suggestions or work around a for this? First timers here!!! Thanks 
Have you joined the Clemson Class of 25 Facebook page? I’ve seen several posts about students offering unofficial tours. You should definitely check it out. We had a family friend show us around when we visited last month. Good luck!
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