Another vote that going on official college tours are much different than drive by or self guided visits. My D hated JHU when we went through on our own but had a totally different impression after doing the official tour and meeting students. Conversely, she loved Cornell when she visited with us unofficially and then thought it would be a terrible fit after her official tour.
@PickleParent Exciting time for your family as you begin the college search! The way you describe your daughter, and her ideal fit, along with your financial targets sounds identical to my neighbors’ and her daughter. Their daughter ended up at Point Loma in San Diego, California and she had an incredible experience. She’s still in contact with several professors, and landed a great position right out of college, with the help and support of the University and their strong network. She was a straight A student also, as well as an athlete, and definitely found her people. I know San Diego is further than you’d like, but at least there’s a large airport 
. The campus/area is gorgeous and very close to the ocean. Good luck in your search, and if you make it out to California, definitely add it to your list!
While times are uncertain, I think it is imperative to do official visits and to do them when school is in session and students are around. We made the mistake of visiting 2 small schools over the summer and there were very few people around and D immediately took them off of her list.
We did not visit the school D attends until after she applied, we visited once in the fall of her senior year and then spring break as she was making her final decision.
It’s also ULTRA important to have a hand-full of safety schools - both for admittance and financial. Those would mostly be your NC state schools.
SMU is an outstanding school academically with a beautiful campus and a great location. However, the name “Southern Methodist” can be a tad bit misleading. It was originally founded as a private, Methodist university and still has a divinity school, but the overall vibe around campus is very secular.
The Greek system on campus is HUGE! SMU most likely would not be the best fit, socially, for a student who does not wish to rush. SMU’s campus scene would definitely not fall into the “quirky, coffee shop” category but rather the complete opposite: preppy and flashy.
Lastly, SMU does give merit aid to many top applicants, but the cost of attendance can still be extremely expensive even with a sizable “merit discount”.
I want to second what @Publisher had to say. I’m not trying to criticize your D, but I know another parent who has been very focused on finding the right intellectual peer group for her kids throughout their schooling. I think her kids lack intellectual humility and when they hit college and started getting a few Bs, they blame the teacher or the “mismatch with their learning style”. I think the mom has made a mistake in transferring schools multiple times (K-12) in an effort to chase down the best and brightest. The world is full of smart students who take school seriously. They exist at every school. Your D’s job is to find them once she’s there. It sounds like this, as much as anything, will the be the growth step for your D during later HS and college.
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Did your daughter apply to NCSSM? She definitely would have found academic peers there I feel pretty certain. If residential was not something you felt she could do for whatever reason, is she going to do NCSSM online?
My straight A, interested in science (physics) niece went to Guilford where she was in the honors program. She certainly found her intellectual peers there. She had serious financial aid at least part of which was merit-based. I have no idea what their current policy is on that. Guilford is very Quaker and so may be at the far edge of what your daughter would feel comfortable with in the Christian tradition. But it is small, not horribly far from home, and might be worth adding to your daughter’s look-see list.
This coming year will see many disruptions in campus life, and there is no way to predict now what higher education will look like when your daughter gets there. Some places that are on your family’s look-at-this-one list might not survive the pandemic. So do encourage your daughter to stay flexible. That way she will be as ready as she can be for whatever it is life throws at her in the next few months and years.
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Happy posted before I could- I think Quaker schools might be a good cultural fit even if not a perfect theological fit. The emphasis on service for example- even some religious colleges are more about single sex dorms and attending chapel vs. actually giving back and living the life.
It’s hard with a HS kid- but if you can get her to ignore (or to push down on the list) the actual “buildings” part of a campus tour and focus on the culture, academics, social and religious offerings, I think you are going to have a much more robust list to choose from. I know it’s tough if a kid is fantasizing about green, manicured lawns and ducks swimming in a pond to pivot to urban… but truth be told, the physical elements of the campus are much less important once you get to college than they are when you are doing those visits. I don’t know anyone who has transferred out of a college because the library had concrete instead of flagstone paths-- although surely one fits the mythology better than the other.
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@PickleParent Hi! I forgot to mention that Point Loma is a Christian school and known as being one of the most academic Christian schools in the US. They’re also known for having an extremely high admissions rate into Med Schools Should your daughter continue down that path. Good luck!
Lots to think about. Thanks so much for the input.
@Publisher not sure exactly what she didn’t like about Furman, other than the fact that the campus was fairly isolated with no walkable town (like Davidson). It’s also a possibility that her 14-year old self didn’t love it because I did.
I’m not sure why you would read her as judgmental and suggest that she be more accepting of differences based on my descriptions. She gets upset if I so much as say that I don’t like someone’s hairstyle – she’s about the kindest, least judgmental person ever, and she has a stack of character awards from just about every school and team she’s ever played for. The only people she categorically doesn’t like are mean people who knock her out or tell her to kill herself, nor the adults who look the other way when those things happen (to protect their friends’ kids). Yes, she gets frustrated by “slackers” who interrupt her learning environment and she prefers manicured grass to concrete jungles. If that makes her narrow minded, then so be it.
Otherwise, this post is a bit eye-opening for me in that she may not be as solid of a candidate as I thought – it seems from these posts that perhaps I am reaching too high for her anyway. The 1300 PSAT was strange to me - she’s scored in the 99th percentile in any test she’s ever taken until this. One teacher described her as “the most gifted student I’ve ever taught.” She was arguably the top student in her class at one of the top charter schools in the state and is the top student in her current class. She works very hard and takes rigorous classes. When I say that she’s not challenged, she’s just not intellectually stimulated by her peers, though she loves her friends and the social atmosphere of her school. She wants to raise her hand and ask questions that stimulate discussion. I have never been concerned about her ability to handle a challenging academic situation. FWIW, I graduated from an Ivy League school (Brown). I realize that those were different times, but she is ten times more driven, curious and focused than I ever was. Academically and intellectually, she’s completely out of my league. Having said all of that, there seem to be much more brilliant students on the CC forum, and that’s OK. Budget reasons prohibit us from aiming for the top schools anyway.
If she stretches her wings geographically, I think she will have many options for fit and budget. There are several that have been suggested in this thread that we’ve not considered.
And speaking of budget, I do need to touch base with our financial advisor to see just how much he thinks we will have to work with. In my mind I am thinking we would want to be in the $40-$50k range. We have $ in a 529 for both kids, as well as some additional investments that were mentally earmarked as college savings. Our career and retirement outlook is unusual and complicated, however.
@PickleParent The reason I asked about NCSSM is for many kids in the state, they are the top in their respective school but once at NCSSM they meet kids that are much more advanced than they are (not saying smarter necessarily, but years beyond)…and for some this is a very tough thing to deal with. If she has not had exposure to those kids she might find it wonderful or find it very intimidating.
If she is a rising junior, hopefully she might either be headed to the school or at least planning on taking a few of their online courses. Good luck to her!!!
@PickleParent: I tried to highlight the portions of your earlier posts which led to my assessment. Delighted to read that I misjudged your daughter ! (I read your initial posts several times before I posted on this thread.)
Posting on the internet is tough. Seems clear that you are sharing in an honest fashion.
@yearstogo she did not apply! She had this on her radar for years, but once she moved to her current school she didn’t want to leave. We really didn’t look at the online classes closely enough until the deadline had passed. She will definitely be considering that for senior year.
Finances should not be as big of a hurdle or obstacle as you may envision.
Why ?
Because honors colleges at most Southern public universities offer significant merit scholarship awards which drastically reduce the annual COA (cost-of-attendence) while rewarding qualifying students with priority course registration, superior housing option with other honors students, small class sizes for honors sections, research opportunities, special advising & special events with deans and potential employers.
If your daughter performs as expected on the SAT or ACT, her numbers (GPA & standardized test scores) should yield a full non-resident tuition & fees scholarship. The remaining annual COA–food, housing, books & transportation–should be under $20,000 per year.
The honors colleges or honors programs at the universities of Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, College of Charleston, & Auburn are worth investigating.
Ole Miss, for example, offers a variety of awards and permits stacking of scholarships. The Univ. of South Carolina takes honors students majoring in finance on an expenses paid recruiting trip to Wall Street each year. Georgia’s Honors Program students have Ivy League type qualifications. The deeper one looks, the more one learns.
Many of these public universities offer programs not available at smaller schools while offering significant amounts of personal attention & small, discussion based classes.
And honors colleges / programs at large Southern public universities is just a starting point. Many small schools offer merit based scholarship awards as well.
Simply put: Paying more does not necessarily mean that one gets more.
P.S. Another benefit of attending an honors college or honors program at a large university is that the transition from high school to major university is made much easier by the personal attention & small groupings.
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I am pretty sure that if you do not apply as a sophomore to begin in junior year, it is not possible to apply as a junior for her senior year. I strongly recommend it for your younger child to consider when the time comes.
Also, if either of the kids are mathy, look into the Charlotte Math Club as it is a fantastic program that offers a set of academic peers for everyone, in addition to exposure to math that your kids will probably not get at their charter.
I will clarify…finances were the only reason we changed schools from the first christian school (husband lost his job and couldn’t commit to private tuition, and we just so happened to get into the charter school that year). We only left the charter because of her injury - she was terrified to go back because things had been escalating and we got no apologies from staff, students or involved families (who we knew). We had discussions both before and after the incident, but the school was clearly more interested in covering their you-know-what than they were ensuring a safe environment. “Boys will be boys” is not what a head-injury victim wants to hear. I wouldn’t say that we’ve school-hopped trying to find a perfect k12 school, though it may look that way without knowing the full story.
Thank you! I’ll look at that. She will run out of math at her current school (and would have at the charter as well). We will definitely look into the math club.
I hope that’s not the case for online at NCSSM! I think the opening of the Morganton campus will open things up for the 22 class. It is scheduled to open their senior year. She wasn’t ready to go away, especially since she was enjoying her current school. And she was more interested in the Morganton campus as my parents live about 30 minutes from there.
If you can go as high as $50k that opens up a lot of places. Case Western Reserve would be an example of places that could get in that price point. Grinnell and Macalester would be smaller LACs. As others have said, URichmond and Rhodes should be on your research list.
Don’t worry if your list changes a lot over time. That isn’t an issue. I think that it is better than the early dream school. My DS was still unsure of the school that he is going to attend at 11:30 pm on the day applications were due. His view has changed a lot in the last 5 months. He almost didn’t apply.
We had/have the same concerns as you. Daughter with 36 ACT and we in full-pay situation with inability to pay $70K or more per year. We did not have the added religious preference so I can’t offer you much there.
Has your daughter taken the PSAT? That earned my D20 status as a National Merit Finalist and had I found out sooner what that means it would have been really beneficial in our college search.
Many schools offer free rides or significant discounts (free tuition or 1/2 tuition) plus automatic entrance into honor programs. That will help make some of the reach schools a little more palatable. Also be sure you apply early for scholarships like Stamps and Jefferson Scholars. We missed deadlines because they were BEFORE regular admission deadlines.
We really liked UTD and it was our second choice. I think that will be a fabulous school in 3-4 years when they are done with construction. It was almost too nerdy for my daughter who isn’t about greek life or sports but didn’t want to spend weekend playing e-games either. Nice honors program there with free symphony and opera tickets.
With a $40K budget she’ll end up having a lot of choices. That seemed to be the sweet spot that many private schools got down to with merit awards.