College Suggestions for Junior

Parents Forum
1

Hello!

I am a new member and am seeking help for my homeschooled junior. He wants to major in Finance and Accounting. His stats are:
SAT - 1540
GPA - 4.0 UW (Outside classes assign the grades)
AP’s - Microeconomics (5), Macroeconomics (5), Statistics (4), taking Calc BC, and Chemistry this year. Will be taking a couple more next year.
Has taken challenging classes in Science, English & Philosophy. Reads widely and deeply.
He loves history and has studied Military History and Civil War deeply. He reads Shelby Foote for fun.:slight_smile:

EC:

Woodworking, CNC work
Creates and sells wooden items on Etsy. Makes a small profit
Legislative coordinator for the Youth and Govt. program - 3 years running
Fund raises for the above program to help send more students to Austin for the Annual Conference in Austin
Awarded Best Chairperson 2 years in a row.
Learning some basic financial modeling tools from Udemy
Has put together a History Bowl team with some of his friends for 2019.

We live in TX, and will definitely apply to UT Austin, A & M, University of Houston, UT Dallas.
Our help for his college fund exceed $20- $25K a year.

Any suggestions for other places that might offer good merit aid? We would not like him to burdened with loans. Thankyou very much in advance.

2

Rice?

3

Oh, it’s a lovely school, but I am not sure that our budget of $25K max would cover the cost of Rice. We ran the EFC and it shows our contribution near to $39K.

4

25K/year that is…

5

Yikes, yeah I can see how that would be off-putting. However, they also consider everyone for merit upon acceptance & they are 100% need met. Average aid pkg is $46k.

That being said, I think where your child may find the most $$ are places that don’t typically see kids like him. What are some of the schools alot of his peers, and those in recent years, matriculate? I’d stay away from those, if possible. One of the best pieces of advice we got when we first started looking at schools was “find where you will be a unicorn.”
Ok, I know that sounds odd, maybe even corney. But it makes sense! If a school hasn’t seen someone like your child before, they’ll be intrigued from the start. And often… throw some incentive ($$$) to get that child to come to their school.

  • Edited to add. There's also a thread at the top of the Parents Forum all about schools w good merit aid. Probably some really great suggestions there as well.
6

Does Rice stack merit with need based aid? If they don’t, then it likely doesn’t matter if they offer some merit. Also, as with all “meets need” colleges, it is the school’s definition of need that they meet, not necessarily yours.

7

Thank you!I will be sure to check out the list on the Parents Forum. To be honest, we didnt even investigate further if Rice stacked merit with need based. Just the EFC and its COA put brakes on going further. Perhaps I should look more closely.
Most kids around here want to / go to UT Austin, or A & M, Texas Tech. UT Austin is considered a target school for investment banking, which is what he wants to do.

8

Thankyou for the “unicorn” suggestion! I am sorry I lumped my reply to you and another member together. Newbie!
Yeah! It would be nice to find a place where he would be a different student from what the institution is used to. The trick, it seems, is in finding one that also fits the budget.

9

If you are looking at Texas schools then let him apply to UT, Rice, A&M, Baylor, SMU and see how much aid and merit is offered to find out whic one is best for your child.

At 16 he may fancy investment banking but in few years, he may learn it’s not his interest so don’t arrange your ducks for that.

10

He would be a good contender for the SMU Presidential Scholarship. SMU gives a lot of merit aid and has a very good business school.Trinity in San Antonio is also worth a look and gives merit aid. https://new.trinity.edu/admissions-aid/financial-aid/academic-merit-scholarships-first-year-students-trinity

11

He can major in any quant rich field to get a job in investment banking and some firms love philosophy and history majors as well. And Econ is a solid major as well. Many firms run their own finance “bootcamps” for new hires to learn the accounting/finance piece, so he doesn’t need to focus on that in college unless he wants to.

If he’s actually interested in accounting (i.e. becoming a CPA) than UT Austin is one of the top programs in the country. If he can get in and it’s affordable, for my money he’d need a compelling reason to go somewhere else if that’s what he wants to do.

12

Richmond offers great merit and has an excellent accounting program

13

I’ve noticed kids and often parents too, see Investment banking as powerful, exciting and lucrative activity to do wearing expensive slim fit suits in sexy towns like NY, London etc while most see accounting as a meanial task of book keeping for some boring old folks in a store room in Tennessee.

14

Thank you for all the suggestions! We will explore Trinity, SMU, Richmond in addition to UT Austin and other TX schools.

15

With his stats he would receive a 4 year automatic merit award (Presidential scholarship) at Alabama of $26k a year. OOS tuition is under $30k so it should definitely be within budget.

https://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.php

Alabama’s undergrad accounting and business school are well regarded.

https://culverhouse.ua.edu/our-college/mission-vision/points-of-pride/

16

We will add UA to the list. Thank you!

17

TCU and Baylor offer full tuition scholarships with those scores. TCU scholarship deadline is Feb 1 and Baylor is March 1 respectively. I believe University of Alabama is past the scholarship deadline, but it’s good to make sure.

18

Thank you! That sounds great!

19

Hi there,

We must have some things in common! My daughter is a homeschooled senior with very similar stats. We live in Austin and she’s heavily involved with Youth and Government too!

I can tell you what we’ve seen so far:

  • admission to UT (waiting on Plan II)
  • top money at the following schools:
    1. UT Dallas (full tuition plus 6k stipend per year for R&B)
    2. Trinity U (26k per year merit plus a chance to compete for the full tuition scholarship in March)
    3. SMU (30k a year merit plus we are waiting to see if she will get a Presidential scholars invite to compete for a full ride. Also she applied to Dedman Scholars and could potentially get to to 10k more through that program.)
    4. Top scholarship at Southwestern (have forgotten the numbers now!)

And we’re waiting on: Rice (dream school, also with a NPC of around 38/39, which is why we did not ED), Vanderbilt, Duke, a few Ivies just for fun

She wrote a lot about her Y&G experiences, and a political internship she did last summer. Also wrote a VERY out of the box essay for her Coaliton app. (VERY, so we’ll see how the elite schools like it. It was great, but unconventional.)

So far, our cheapest option is UT-D. Their AES awards are phenomenal. And they have fast track masters programs that can be covered under the 4 years of the awards.

UT Austin will likely be full pay, around 25.

SMU is still too pricey unless she gets Presidential.

Trinity would be around 32 after that Murchison scholarship but if she wins the full tuition, that will be super compelling. So she’s excited about that. (By the way, they really wine and dine you. Just went to an accepted students dinner at Maggiano’s on their tab. It felt quite indulgent. They have a huge endowment).

I don’t know a ton about finance, my daughter wants to study public policy. The social policy analysis major at Rice is her dream scenario.

Feel free to message me. This process is involved! (not sure if you will be playing the school counselor like I did, as the homeschool parent, but it was a bunch of work. I think the counselor letter helped sell her though. Along with killer letters of recommendation.)

20

Thank you for sharing your experience. Your daughter sounds like a very hardworking and accomplished young lady! I am glad to hear that she has all these schools open to her. Very encouraging to hear from someone whose experiences have been similar.:slight_smile:
I will be playing counselor for his application and I am quite nervous about it; I fear I will some how come up short and under serve my kid. ?
How many letters of recommendation did your daughter have to submit? Did the UT’s require them as well? So many questions! How do I message you?