@woogzmama I realize that. But, if the OP’s D got “need based aid” to boarding school so that the net cost was $5k, and UDenver expected them to pay over $40k, that just seems to be two big extremes.
The boarding school essentially was charging nothing for the education - only about $5k for what would be (I imagine) the R&B? or not even the whole cost of R&B.
It would seem that income would have to be quite modest for a BS to expect nothing for tuition. But, maybe I’m wrong.
I realize all LACs have math and science, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a particular strength. I just had a chance to look up Truman State in my old Fiske Guide and the two STEM subjects it’s noteworthy for are biology and chemistry.
@mom2collegekids, OP said that family income increased recently.
Also, I think @mom2collegekids started a thread on schools coming in under $25k that may be helpful to you.
Read the links in this thread. The under $24,000 colleges are listed there.
^. thanks…it was @Lenitus !
Actually if you go to the links…and look at the first post in the <$24,000 cost for colleges, you will see that THAT thread was started by mom2collegekids.
The thread includes links to a number of threads that relate to scholarships and lower cost college options. Lenitus simply consolidated them in one place. He did not start any of those linked threads.
thanks!
So did your daughter want to apply to other schools?
So if you were in charge of admissions at College X, and almost everyone applying had worked as hard as your daughter, but some had accomplished more than your daughter, and those some ones were enough to fill the freshman class, would you choose the ones who worked super hard and got a 3.75, or would you choose the ones who worked super hard and got a 4.0? Do you think lower performance should be preferred to higher performance?
OP, a few years ago a girl at our large, public high school, a top 5% student with good SATs (maybe 2000?) applied only to Brown. Just Brown. Just Brown even though she would have been an auto admit at any of our fine Big State Us. She didn’t get in to Brown and she had nowhere to go in the fall.
I remember being shocked that this girl got shut out. Where was the GC? Where were her parents, two PhDs? I still don’t know what happened, why this girl didn’t have a broader list.
But I do know that she took a gap year, traveled, worked, and applied to our Big State Us in the fall. She was accepted and happily attends.
How did she come up with this list of schools? It doesn’t make any sense.
@lostparent So after all of this input, what are your planned next steps, and what other questions do you have?
@lostparent wrote:
One can be enough if it is the right school.
But it makes no sense for a student who has excellent but not amazing stats and will not qualify for need based aid to only apply to two super-reaches known for their strong need-based aid,; and apparently 2 other schools where there no guarantee of admission or significant financial aid.
A student who will need to rely on merit aid will have to target applications schools where there is an extremely strong chance of admission and the prospect of a significant amount of aid. And probably have a bigger list because the hunt for merit aid is more uncertain, and the student will want to be able to compare offers, or even use a strong offer from one school as a negotiating point with other schools.
I haven’t read this whole thread, but I agree with others: the problem was an inappropriate college list. The best solution is to develop a better list – one which can leverage the students interests and strengths towards colleges likely to admit her and to offer significant financial aid.
But would you have been able to afford those schools even if your daughter did get in? Your post seems to indicate though you were lower income in past years, your current income puts you out of range for much need-based aid. No merit aid at Columbia, and very limited merit money at Chicago. The problem isn’t that your daughter didn’t get into college – the problem is that you simply couldn’t afford the one school that admitted her (which apparently she would have been quite willing to attend).
Your daughter did not miss out on Chicago or Columbia because of test scores - those schools are extremely competitive for admissions, but also use holistic processes. They are looking for the whole package.
You can’t look for a reason why she didn’t get into a super-reach school.
Higher scores might have helped with merit aid… but a high score isn’t much of a tip factor at a super-reach schools that have thousands of high score applicants to choose from.
The University of Denver is a very poor fit for students from lower income families, and substantially less generous with merit aid than they were five or ten years ago. Quite a number of the lower income students who attend DU do so on either Boettcher or Daniels scholarships, which are awarded by those respective foundations, not DU. Tuition Tracker shows a net price (after college-awarded grants, scholarships and federal /state grants) of $21,513 for families with family incomes of $30K or less.
After reading all of the posts, I feel like this has to be a joke. I know that a lot of parents are not very involved in the whole college application thing, and don’t understand how difficult admissions can be, but lostParent just doesn’t seem to understand how unreasonable his comments are, even after all of the input by other parents here. Her grades were good and her SAT was good- but not great. She only took the SAT once and did no prep work. If her GC helped her come up with her application list of colleges, the GC should be fired.
I guess what really strikes me as weird is the whole…“But she is an adult now. It’s all up to her at this point.” attitude. WOW! This is an overwhelming process for even the most savvy. This poor girl has received horrible advice up til now and now it seems it is up to her to figure it all out. Dad seems to have what I call an “Eeyore complex”- poor, poor me, everyone is against us and nobody wants to help us. I find it hard to believe anyone can be this naive- especially after finding this site and reading what is here.
OP was just not quite up to speed with the college application process. It happens. In his case, he probably thought his daughter’s school would take care of it and it turned out they let them down. To answer his question “how many is enough”, I’d say if they want to have a good number of reaches, sufficient chances to be considered for both need based and merit based aid, and more than one or two safeties, 20 is a good ball park number. some may think it’s a little excessive, but think of it this way, if you are not qualified for as much need based aid as you “want” and yet you need the additional money, then you have to to make extra effort. The kid’s performance during her HS career is set and done. You need to get more “potential buyers” who might be interested to pay the premium.
How was the GC supposed to know what the family could afford to pay? I find it hard to believe that the family would have no involvement in developing the list or checking the affordability, especially a family that evidently cares enough about their daughter’s education to fork over $5K a year for high school on a lower income.