Hello. My d is looking for advice on which colleges to apply to. We hope you can offer some suggestions. Thank you CC!
Junior
High school - silver ranking with US News
State - Texas
Classes - most rigorous - will graduate with 15 AP
AP tests - 5’s so far
Class rank - 2 / 500
GPA - 4.0 UW and 4.8 W
Extracurricular - leader of 3 school clubs and earned over 2,000 volunteer hours since freshman year
Career Plan - physician assistant
Took PSAT and studying for SAT and ACT
Parents can contribute $9,000 per year
Does she like big or small? Urban? Location?
She prefers smaller or mid-sized schools to big schools like UT Austin.
Urban or mid-sized city (she doesn’t want to be way out in the country like A&M)
She prefers to stay in the southern states.
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Career Plan - physician assistant
Took PSAT and studying for SAT and ACT
Parents can contribute $9,000 per year
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Do you know what your EFC is? Do you likely have an unaffordable EFC?
Are you looking for schools that will give you large merit scholarship awards so that your remaining costs are about $9k?
Have you run any Net Price Calculators on various schools’ websites? If not, do so…try some instate, some OOS publics, and some privates.
Without test scores, it’s hard to tell where she should apply.
Tip: Be sure to look at the PA req’ts at various PA schools. Recently learned that many are now requiring applicants to have 1000+ hands-on clinical experience.
I was hoping you would reply mom2collegekids. You always give such thoughtful advice.
You are correct in that our EFC is not affordable for the Net Price Calculators we have run.
Yes, we are looking for large merit aid to make our remaining cost about $9,000 per year.
D scored high enough on PSAT as a sophomore without studying to have been commended if it had been her junior year. We are hopeful that the studying she has since done for the new PSAT she took as a junior to gain NMF status.
She is waiting it out for the new SAT in March since her studying has focused on the new test.
Her practice on-site scores are about 1370 (new SAT math + reading/writing) and 30 (ACT). She is studying to improve them.
For now, we are assuming all PA schools will have the clinical experience requirement when she applies. She volunteers at a hospital ER now, but what she is doing there would not be considered clinical experience.
Thank you.
The $9,000 won’t even pay for room at board at most universities, so you should either be looking for private universities that meet need – if there is need – or merit scholarships that offer more than just full tuition (if you/other parent have assets or other means to pay and are choosing not to pay). If the test scores are as impressive as the curriculum and GPA, there will be plenty of scholarship opportunities.
Look on CC and elsewhere for guaranteed or automatic scholarships based on GPA and test scores. Universities with guaranteed scholarships will typically have a grid posted showing combinations of test scores and GPA that receive various amounts of scholarships. Also look for universities with competitive full-ride scholarships your daughter can apply for that would pay for tuition, room and board.
Some urban Southern universities with decent scholarships (automatic and/or competitive) include University of Alabama-Huntsville, University of Houston, UT-Dallas, Georgia State, LSU, Central Florida, Miami and South Carolina. The #2 student at my daughter’s high school chose University of Alabama-Huntsville for the automatic scholarship and strong STEM majors.
If your daughter is willing to go beyond the South, there will be many more options. Re-post your question when you have test scores and you’ll get more suggestions.
Thank you mommyrocks. We will search for that and specifically look at the schools you have suggested.