<p>I agree, he should spend as little money as possible to get his undergrad… He doesnt want to go to a large public inst. because of the TA’s teaching. We still want him to have a great Undergrad experience. He is not set on being a dentist, and I think the LAC route will help him decide what to do. So, given that, I dont want to rule out some of these top notch schools.</p>
<p>Thanks, We are in nebraska, JRZ mom. I guess I best be looking at what sort of need based spectrum we are in if Hamilton and Dartmouth and Midd really interest him…</p>
<p>If you can’t get to a given school see their admissions representative when the rep comes to your town or your child’s school. In addition to that, if you can’t make it out to a school (in addition to seeing the rep) maybe have your son drop his region’s app reader an email – that may not be very effective with big universities, but I know that a lot of LACs keep track of email correspondence. Demonstrated interest is really important now given how many kids are just throwing out like 20 applications to a bunch of schools.</p>
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<p>What GTalum is talking about: <a href=“https://www.amherst.edu/offices/financialaid/calculator[/url]”>https://www.amherst.edu/offices/financialaid/calculator</a></p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~finaid/fao/need/parent.html]Parent”>http://www.dartmouth.edu/~finaid/fao/need/parent.html]Parent</a> Contribution Estimator<a href=“Dartmouth”>/url</a></p>
<p>And so on.</p>
<p>“He doesnt want to go to a large public inst. because of the TA’s teaching.”</p>
<p>He might look around a bit and ask the question about TAs teaching. I don’t think DD had any TAs for lecture at all this year.</p>
<p>Three threads on merit aid worth reading (along with the whole Financial Aid Forum):</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/148852-what-ive-learned-about-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/148852-what-ive-learned-about-full-ride-scholarships.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/291483-update-what-i-learned-about-free-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/291483-update-what-i-learned-about-free-ride-scholarships.html</a></p>
<p>To get an idea of what the colleges/universities will expect your family to be able to pay, run the EFC calculators at [FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org%5DFinAid”>http://www.finaid.org) and [College</a> Calculators - savings calculators - college costs, loans](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>Calculate Your Cost – BigFuture | College Board)</p>
<p>My Iowa niece visited a number of close-by colleges and universities, and applied to a number of far-away institutions as well. When the acceptance letters and financial aid offers were on the table, she flew out to visit the place that offered her the most money, looked around at things and said, “I can be very happy here.” It is OK for your son to do the same.</p>
<p>Wishing you all the best.</p>
<p>Some schools that aren’t quite at the Amherst/Swarthmore/Williams level are really great and can give more merit aid. For instance, Denison has a very highly regarded honors program that offers scholarships.</p>
<p>Lafayette is a very good LAC, and I’m quite sure they give out merit aid. Also, check out Hobart and William Smith College in Geneva, NY.</p>
<p>With both sons visiting was as likely to eliminate a school as keep it on the list. Son1 applied to 8 schools, 6 of which he had visited. He got into 6 schools including the two we hadn’t seen. We had time to visit 1 of the two unseen schools before he had to make a decision. He ultimately chose the school that was the last minute visit. Moral of the story, it’s OK to wait and see where he gets in especially if he/you have done your homework about the places. Visit schools close to you and then research places that have similar set-ups. For S1 he wanted a self-contained campus in or near a big city, (e.g., Boston College, Northwestern, Miami) that made it a lot easier to eliminate places sight unseen.</p>
<p>The day my daughter got her scholarship letter from the school she did end up attending, she held the letter in the air and said: “If I don’t get any money from Chicago, I’m going to Pitt.” Site unseen. She got no $$ from Chicago. I insisted she visit Pitt before she accepted the offer and she had the same attitude of happymomof1’s niece.</p>
<p>You can at least visit schools in your own region to get a handle on preferences with respect to size, setting, and atmosphere. For the ones you can’t visit, consider ordering the Collegiate Choice Walking Tour videos. [Collegiate</a> Choice Walking Tours Videos - college videos, campus tours, virtual college tours, college planning,](<a href=“http://www.collegiatechoice.com/]Collegiate”>http://www.collegiatechoice.com/) </p>
<p>With respect to aid, as a very rough rule of thumb, the more selective a school, the more expensive the sticker price, the better the need-based aid, and the less likely it is to offer merit aid. There are regional differences, too. The New England (NESCAC) LACs generally do not offer merit aid. The Midwestern (ACM) small colleges generally do; their full sticker prices tend to be a few thousand dollars cheaper as well. Detailed information about financial aid patterns is available in the Common Data Set published by many colleges (section H). Google [school name] + Common Data Set. Examples of LAC costs before and after aid:</p>
<p>Bowdoin College (NESCAC)
Total Costs (before aid): $51,700*
Average cost after need-based aid: $19,909*
Average cost after merit aid: $50,700* (grants little or no merit aid)</p>
<p>Middlebury College (NESCAC)
Total Costs (before aid): $51,380*
Average cost after need-based aid: $22,072*
Average cost after merit aid: $51,380* (does not grant merit aid) </p>
<p>Colorado College (ACM)
Total Costs (before aid): $48,156*
Average cost after need-based aid: $20,458*
Average cost after merit aid: $33,770*</p>
<p>Grinnell College (ACM)
Total Costs (before aid): $45,912*
Average cost after need-based aid: $19,991*
Average cost after merit aid: $35,203*</p>
<p>*Source:
[Personal</a> Finance Tools and Calculators – Kiplinger’s Sortable Rankings of Private College Values - Kiplinger](<a href=“Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts”>Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts)</p>
<p>Franklin and Marshall has some scholarships for $12,000. Also, University of Richmond and Washington and Lee give out some full tuition scholarships.</p>
<p>Shoresea–what CAN you afford to pay? And have you figured out your EFC yet?</p>
<p>This is all so very helpful… We can probably afford 10,000 plus room and board… I had to go back to work full time since I received a cancer diagnosis a year and half ago, and was only working part time, because we needed the insurance my company offers. Something I am trying to figure out now, is whether to keep working full time and whether I need to step it up and go back into full career mode, after being a part time worker for years (except for recently). This is all so very helpful. I like the poster who said that the more prestigous the school, and more selective, the higher the amount of need based aid (generally).</p>
<p>shoresea -</p>
<p>What you can afford, isn’t what counts. What the colleges/universities think you can afford is. That is why you need to pull out your financial records and run the EFC calculators at the links I posted earlier. Many institutions won’t meet that EFC, or they will meet it with a large number of student loans, so you also need to think about how much more than your EFC your family could pay.</p>
<p>In our case, we can’t afford our EFC. This means that Happykid’s best option is our local community college for the first two years. Fortunately they offer her major and the department is particularly strong for that major. We will only have to struggle for the last two years.</p>
<p>Echoing many others: many schools give only need based aid, so merit money requires research and careful calibration of how your son stacks up against the particular school’s applicant pool. Keep in mind too that although some excellent schools do offer merit money it isn’t always as much money as you might think–it is quite common for it to tall into the $5,000 to $10,000 range and that may not be enough to really help you, though its nice if money isn’t super-tight</p>
<p>Re TAs teaching at large universities, public or private: keep in mind tht TAs generally do not give lectures or teach independently–they teach the discussion groups/quiz sections that are part of the course. And some TAs are on the verge of getting their PhDs and are excellent teachers themselves with several semesters of experience and a gift for conveying information. As a graduate of a Big Ten university who learned a lot of from TAs in quiz sections (and as a proud parent of a current PhD and former TA who got great reviews for teaching), I would not consider the fact that TAs teach some sections to be a reason to avoid attending a large university. And a state university may well be less expensive; see what if any reciprocity your state has (for example, I believe Minnesota and Wisconsin are reciprocal in terms of in-state tuition, but I may be mistaken or out of date.).</p>
<p>As far as visiting goes I do think it’s useful to visit a few schools before applying to confirm what kind of place feels best and possibly narrow down the list of schools a bit. There’s a big difference in how Wesleyan and Middlebury may feel even to visitors if on paper they seem similar. The flight to the East Coast isn’t necessarily the expensive part–it is the accommodations and food and gas that will really add up in a week. But it might be money well spent if you can also make a bit of a vacation of it. Or what about visiting some schools closer to home that maybe you can drive to?</p>
<p>Yes, I think the chances are small that you will get enough merit aid from a selective LAC to bring the total cost below $20K. On the Kiplinger site I linked, 2 schools (Wesleyan and Swarthmore) show average costs below $20K after merit aid. However, that is misleading because Wesleyan only awarded merit aid to 11 students in a recent entering class. Swarthmore only awards merit aid to a few applicants from the local area.</p>
<p>So you need to qualify for significant need-based aid, or apply to some much less expensive schools (such as your local state university), or apply to much less selective schools that do grant large merit scholarships to highly qualified students.</p>
<p>Shoresea, I’m very sorry about your cancer diagnosis and I hope you are in better health now.</p>
<p>Seriously, what other posters told you about the top LACs is right. If you have finished your tax return, it is easy to plug in the numbers into the Swarthmore or Princeton or Amherst calculator and find out what your Expected Family Contribution is. If it is higher than $10,000 (or $20,000, since that’s what room and board will cost) then it is very likely that you will be expected to pay the rest. If your EFC is $40,000, say, you will only get $10,000 in aid, most likely. I was shocked at what a high EFC we had, considering our modest finances–I think a lot of other people are, too. Of course, your son can borrow a certain amount of money, too, about $25,000 total. So that may help things out.</p>
<p>Visiting schools often helps answer the question “why xxxxxx” in the essays. Some schools reportedly (Washington Univ at St. Louis) for example pay special attention to the visit, to make sure that the student is really interested. So are the schools you are interested in those that pay attention or not. I
f not, are they in the local region as others have suggested? If they are on the other coast, you may as well wait till you get admission. We visited only two schools more than about 350 miles away and my son did not apply to WUSTL (one of the schools that we had visited). We did visit starting from the end of the freshman year and it was the school that he is going to so, so we revisited it after he got admission. My son got admissions into schools he had not visited.</p>
<p>So visit the schools you can and if you can’t visit a few schools, do not worry about. Most schools do not need or insist on a visit.</p>
<p>Once you receive your acceptances, you can visit any that you haven’t visited before having to make the May 1st decision.</p>