Trent University is in Canada, over the western border of NY State. That might be too far to roam, but the cost is in range (checking this table here in Canada dollars, so its cheaper for US students – https://www.trentu.ca/futurestudents/international/tuition-awards/tuition-and-ancillary-fees ) and they accept 3.0 and above average for US students.
The size of the school is 7000
I think you said that you’d consider Ohio. Miami U of Ohio seems like a possibility and they are offering some automatic merit money–
http://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-grid/
I think that a 91 average is a 3.6 and with a high 20s ACT she would qualify
@lexluthor5 merit aid is available for out of state students at JMU. They do not give as much merit as some schools, but it is a possibility. She should look at the Dingledine Scholarship. It requires a separate application, and is competitive, but is the largest merit award at JMU currently. Being a finalist for the Dingledine (and not receiving it) also keeps you in consideration for Madison Academic Excellence Awards. There are students who receive Madison Academic Excellence Awards who are not Dingledine finalists (or applicants), but many of those are awarded by specific programs/ departments.
Ps…
@lexluthor5 JMU is not a commuter school. Freshman live on campus (unless they are from the Harrisonburg area, and choose to live at home). About 1/2 the sophomores live on campus (incoming freshmen have the option of signing a 2-year housing contract which guarantees housing for sophomore year. Other freshman who decide they want to live on campus as sophomores once already at JMU can apply). The other 1/2 of sophomores and almost all of the upperclassmen live off campus in apartment complexes which cater to students, or in houses surrounding the campus.
Currently 75% of the students at JMU are from VA (it generally seems like the range is 70% - 75%). Northern VA, VA Beach/ Tidewater area, and Richmond area probably have the largest student populations, but kids come from all over the state, so I am not sure there is a specific “VA” vibe. I have taught here for 11 years, and am from the northeast. The biggest thing I noticed about the vibe is how friendly most students are :-). Most of the OOS students come from MD, PA, NY, NJ, and New England, although there are kids from all over the country… I have had students from CA, Iowa, TX, Alaska, GA, NC, SC, etc…
Since the OP’s daughter is interested in Greek life, do you think it’s harder for a girl who has no connections to anyone to get into a sorority? This question is of interest to me, as well. I just wonder if it helps when you know people from your town or high school, etc. Thanks.@KatMT
@citymama9, that is a great question, which I think has the potential also to highjack this thread, so I’m going to start a separate thread on the Parents’ Forum with it. That will also probably generate more responses. I’m curious what people say as well.
^ I think it’s definitely true at some colleges and in the South, so it ought to be investigated. Will move other comments to other threads.
I think the sorority issue depends entirely on what campus one attends. One can’t generalize across colleges. There are many different kinds-Some are more service oriented, some care more about social status and which prep school you attended.
The note about having sororities was just to keep options open. She’s not necessarily set on joining one and having greek life is probably just in the “nice to have” bucket. There is some concern with the some of the southern schools for this reason.
We can move on from this topic, it’s really a different discussion.
@Dustyfeathers It doesn’t read as if it’s “automatic” merit money at Miami of Ohio, but that does look very interesting if she were to pull out a 30 on the ACT. $48K minus maybe $15K gets it into range. We probably will keep that one on the side if/until she gets a 30 on the ACT. I think the negatives of both distance and size would rule out Trent.
@KatMT thanks for the additional info on JMU. Sounds very interesting, though seems like the opportunity for merit might not be great. Our daughters stats probably won’t be on the high end for JMU. Still very much on the list and will try to learn more.
We’ve gotten off to a great start here. I know we are very early in the process, so we’ll be taking it slow and will evaluate what we have and go from there. We’ll hopefully get to do some visits in the spring, so we’ll have to figure some of this out by then so that we don’t waste trips. Maybe we’ll try to get to New Paltz on a Saturday this winter to kick off the visits. It’s close enough to make a day of it there and back. On the other hand, it could be better to pair that with Albany, Oneonta or Cortland, if we felt any of those were good options too. URI to UNH to UME could be a possible trip if we feel all of them are possibilities. Somehow we’ve never been north of Rhode Island on the east coast, so that could be fun. We probably also should look a giant school too, just to get a feel of what that’s like. We’ll be in Miami (FL) in December, so we’ll probably take a tour just to get a feel of a large campus, though their starting price point is too high, so that’s most likely out.
Please keep the input coming. Many thanks so far.
I did a quick match on Naviance and many of the ones discussed here popped up high. I also took note of UCONN, The College of New Jersey and West Chester of PA. Will give those 3 a little further look at some point as well. I don’'t know much about any of them.
Coming to this thread a bit late, but Denison U might be one to consider. She is on the borderline for merit aid, but they are pretty generous so might be worth a shot. A bit smaller that the others discussed, but a gorgeous campus and strong in the humanities like Psych. Believe me, if she visits, she will like the campus.
I don’t think merit at Elon is out of the question, either. Another beautiful, up and coming school. Bit more of a party atmosphere than Denison based on our visits.
It might be better to re-visit the options after she gets here ACT scores back, as that could be a big factor on merit offers.
Good luck to D2!
@ColdinMinny thanks for the suggestion. Denison is way too small for D2. We (D2 didn’t come on this trip) actually did visit Denison for D1 and loved the campus (other than Kenyon maybe, it was probably the nicest campus that we saw). I was routing for Denison for a while and D1, who has much better stats and ECs than D2 and had a phenomenal on campus interview wound up getting an offer for $24K merit there. I actually thought she had a great shot at their top scholarship, so that was slightly disappointing. Probably better off because a good bit more merit would have been so hard to pass up and it probably wasn’t a great fit for D1 anyhow.
Elon is on the list at the moment. It’s a much lower starting point than Denison, for example, but hoping for $10K+ from there could be a stretch. It’s slightly on the small side, but that wouldn’t exclude it, I don’t think.
When merit is hoped for, it’s got to be a wide net to cast. I always hear “experts” saying to apply to only 5-6 schools or something like that. Sure, if you are going to go in-state or willing to pay full boat, that’s great. But if you are hoping for a merit aid, you just never know, so you better have more options available. We had some surprises, both ways, with D1, but she wound up with some great options that met our family budget.
Ohio University?
My kids only applied to one school each and both got merit aid, one got athletic and one talent, a few misc. award. It is possible to figure out what you are going to get before even applying. Both kids knew that if something happened and she couldn’t go to that school, she’d have to take a gap year. Both agreed to that as they’d found the schools they wanted to go to (both within the safety range) and didn’t want to consider other schools (at that time).
lexluthor5, I agree with the wider net fishing for merit. My S applied to 10 schools, accepted at 10, had 10 merit offers to compare, so that allowed for “good shopping” for the best combination of fit and price.
Sorry Denison too small. Glad you agree it was as pretty as we thought it was. Runner up for our S, too. Hope the ACT goes well for D2 so you have more good options.
@mommdc Ohio University is interesting. Fits the initial profile (other than distance by a bit). Stats to get in might be a bit lower than some of the others. Starting price point is only $37K though and they do give merit, so quite likely it would fall in budget. Wish there were more schools with a similar profile within 5-6 hours of home.
@twoinanddone very happy your process worked for you, but there’s no way we’d go with a similar process unless we knew she’d be very happy (and would get in) at one of the state schools. As far as figuring out what you are going to get, I don’t think that’s so easy. We did fairly well at predicting what D1 got, but she had a huge SAT score that we knew was going to pull merit offers (and even there was surprises), but the problem with D1 is most of her schools were starting at $60K+, so she needed to get a lot of merit. D2s stats are different and I think that will make merit much more of a “crapshoot”.
I agree that the way financial/merit aid works makes it rational to apply to more schools to get a better deal, which results in more competitiveness and uncertainty, which results in the desirabilty of applying to more schools. A vicious cycle.
You mentioned in #18 that you had looked at Elon and thought it might be too competitive of an environment. Is that academically/intellectually? We know the school fairly well, including about a half dozen students currently at the school. In terms of admissions, I know one had a 30 ACT and the other two were just below the 28-30 range where you are projecting D2. At least two received some financial aid; I don’t know about the third, although I’m guessing they did.
They seem to be enjoying both classes and social life at the school. Neither seem too competitive. I personally wish more schools were more “intellectual,” like Chicago, Carleton, and Grinnell. Even very highly ranked schools don’t have an “intellectual” vibe. I would put Elon in the category, with the vast majority of schools, in that it does not seem particularly intellectual.
It does make the lower end of your range (6000-20,000) with just over 6k undergrads and is only about an hour-drive below VA, which I consider the southern-most mid-Atlantic state. It has a pretty fair number of OOS, so not too southern and not much of an issue in students arriving there knowing lots and lots of people from their high schools.
I only come back to it because it seems like such a good fit otherwise.
@ttg yes, Elon is very interesting, though it’s on the small and far end of what would be optimal. I just did the NPC tool and put in a 3.6 GPA and 29 ACT and it put $5K merit. I don’t think that would do it and I think getting more there could be tough. D2 is a very different student/person from D1. I think she’ll do pretty well on the ACT, but the GPA and ECs are much more modest and she’s not nearly as driven. Will keep Elon hanging around for sure. We do have a friend who’s daughter is a freshman there, so we can find out more from them if need be.
We only spent a weekend at Elon, but definitely did not get a competitive vibe there–at all.
$5K is pretty modest–barely covers books and incidentals. Maybe D2 pulls a 31 and gets more.
Our S was projected to get $1k from Carleton, which I laughed at. Why bother with tuition, room and board at about $70K per year! Told him not to bother applying. That price is ridiculous for undergrad. Back in the stone ages when I attended, I though $7K per year was a lot–so did my Dad!