Agree with @insanedreamer. Don’t underestimate how much you’ll be spending on travel to and from school, especially the first year, when your son will likely come home for Thanksgiving, Christmas and spring break. That’s three likely costly flights since many of these schools aren’t near areas with competitively priced flights, and since those are peak times for travel.
In my experience, after their freshman year, many OOS kids limit going home to just Christmas. But that first year you’re likely shelling out $$ for travel, especially if your son won’t have a car or is too far from home to drive.
So check flight costs as part of your financial planning. They can be budget busters!
This family lives up near the Oregon border though, any on the decent CSU’s would likely involve a flight. SDSU may be nearly 1200 miles away depending on exact location, so travel will be expensive regardless. I’m still rooting for WUE schools for this student, there are a lot of awesome campuses on WUE with a lot to offer at a reasonable cost.
If SUNY schools are a viable option, check out suny.edu, which will give you access to all of the schools and their stats and majors. I agree that the ACT is light for Geneseo but it might be okay for Albany, which I think is stronger in the areas mentioned by OP than New Paltz. Those stats are a little light for in state at Binghamton or U Buff (though Buff State is almost a guarantee) but I don’t know what they are looking for in OOS students.
Am I mixing this up with another post? Maybe… sorry, I thought this family was near the Oregon border, I must have read that in a different topic. Still in favor of WUE schools for this student
I just can’t see travelling across the country for any of the SUNYs. I don’t think they have anything you can’t get on the west coast, if not CA, then the Pacific NW. Albany has an ugly campus even if the academics are good. Even the best SUNY’s aren’t worth the travel, imo. If you are going to go that far away you should be getting something amazing whether it be a great city or a beautiful locale or a great school or a school that offers something you can’t get closer to home. Again, just my opinion, as someone very familiar with the SUNY system
If you are intent on going out of state, I second the Minnesota-Morris idea: it’s the University of Minnesota’s LAC, essentially. U of M has some pretty low OOS costs relative to quality.
Most of the WUE won’t come down quite low enough at the stats (we’ve done tons of similar research with similar stats)
Western Washington University
Alfred University (NY)
Bradley university (IL)
University of Wyoming
University of Ohio
Northen Arizona
On the LAC side your best bets will be in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan for merit at those stats, there are some great schools in PA and MD that Will offer money, however they’re going to be in the bed 30s. Look at the colleges that change lives website for ideas most of the schools will be a good fit for the stats and most will offer some merit.
I’m overwhelmed - in a great way - with all the help. Thank you all so much for the time and attention to detail. We’re still working over here. I’ll aim to update with some details down the road. And keep 'em coming.
Hi all. Just wanted to add an update. Hopefully you all know how this process can have one zigzagging all over the place. We just got back from a trip to the northeast and looked at a few schools while we were there. Leading up to the trip, and then gleaned from the trip, seems my son is backing off the idea of going very far from home. He has applied to a bunch of CSU’s and some UC’s, and a few out of state schools, mostly WUE’s. Now that we can rule out all the far away schools, we’re still going to do further research on some of the neighboring states’ schools. I just wanted to update in case anyone finds this thread, and wants to know more about decisions/outcomes. Oh, and he has already received acceptances from NAU, UofA, SFSU, and U of Montana. I’ll update again down the road. Oh, and one final thing, going back east was very fruitful. My son gleaned that certain areas were for sure not for him, and others very much may be in the future, but not this next year. I consider that trip a success.
