i agree with this: "If the OP is real, he/she likely believed the hype heard by naive people: “Oh your child is so smart, schools will pay YOU for her to attend. She’ll get a scholarship to Harvard, for sure!”
we hear this all the time from my parents, neighbors and others; mainly people who dont have kids college-ages.
We have friends with a high stats kid --they did not research much, and were very disappointed with the scholarship offers at the few schools they looked at. So - i get OPs dismay.
@PurpleTitan yes you are absolutely correct. The New College would be a fantastic choice, especially since we’d get the in-state and Bright Futures.
But my twins have gotten a taste of what it would be like to go out of state, and have spent a lot of time in Alabama now and want to leave Florida, too. My daughter has fallen in love with Montevallo, and has persuaded her twin brother to go with her (they both want to be teachers.) That’s one gorgeous, historical campus, with a great teacher education program. And that would put them within an hour or so of their older brother. At least I would have them all in one state together, even if that means it will be my husband and I and the cats down here in Florida
The information DD and I have gleaned from the threads on CC about automatic and competitive scholarships has been invaluable. She has built her college list with schools known for very good, but not completely predictable merit aid as her financial reaches, those with competitive full rides based on her stats and EC’s as matches and automatic NMF (which her PSAT and SAT and grades all seem a very likely fit for when the letters come out) schools as her financial safeties. We still haven’t visited all of the schools on her list, but we also have a list of backups to add if she doesn’t like some of those in her safety list.
The thing we really noticed about the automatic NMF schools we visited, including ones that aren’t on her list any longer, is how much those schools were investing in building projects for dorms and especially science and engineering buildings. It was easy to explain to her how and why schools that are looking to move up the rankings are giving great scholarships and why being on the leading edge of that curve for a school is a great thing.
If the OP fell into the school at any cost because my kid is a real genius trap, that is almost understandable, if they did that after coming onto CC and reading the threads and doing some research, then it is either bullcrap or irresponsible if money matters to them. In any case, let me thank everyone here at CC because the advice given here is awesome and enlightening and I am sure has helped a ton of kids and families get to where they wanted and needed to be in a way that allows the child/student to succeed and flourish and the parents to actually be able to retire some day. (-:
Of course that would be the easy solution. The point is getting NMF is not as difficult as getting large scholarships at many schools. Note that the around the top 1% of each state (or approximately top 1% in the country) become NMF while many schools accept only students with scores within the top 10% (sat 2000+) in the country and yet only offer merit aid to the top few percent to the admitted student (top few percent of the top 10%). It is like around the top 20% of NMF may be eligible for those scholarship.
But you have to take what’s offered. Harvard, Yale, Stanford don’t offer anything for NMF. To say that one is disappointed and the NMF designation is ‘a waste’ is ridiculous. It’s an honor in and of itself, but it is not a free ticket to most schools. Some school do value the award, and they’ll pay for it by offering anything from $2000 to free tuition. You need to select the school that gives you what you want. If you select Harvard, you get to say you were a NMF. Hurray! If you need actual cash, you need to select another school.
No one can say School X should offer more to NMFs - that’s up to School X. OP obviously didn’t want what was offered by TAMU. Okay, lots of students are offered scholarships at schools and they decide on a different school.
