Chiming in to say I get it. Am in similar boat with D21 (just with a different engineering school than GT).
It doesn’t matter how close or great or inexpensive, if they don’t think it’s for them, no point in pushing it. We have a great engineering school and a public ivy close (accepted at both), but in all likelihood will end up paying a little more $ for her to attend an out-of-state option. 
All kidding aside, HOPE has done wonderful things for the state of GA. UGA is a completely different school now than it was before HOPE started. The program has done a fabulous job of keeping high stat kids in state.
@Dis3456 , your daughter sounds like quite an accomplished student. She has lots of great options available. We used to live in ATL so we know how good GT and UGA are.
My daughter is a freshman at ASU Barrett. NHRP recipient so similar deal to NMF. She’s really happy with the school and therefore, we are.
I can answer anyone’s questions to the best of my ability about the school by PMing me. Hoping everyone’s kids find the right school for them. It’s all about individual fit.
Don’t know about SMU, but the full tuition scholarships at Baylor and TCU are very very competitive, especially at Baylor. They both give out LOTS of half tuition scholarships, but unfortunately that wouldn’t meet OP’s budget.
You could definitely give them a shot though, just wouldn’t call them “very likely”.
Our S21 was going after a similar goal, getting the most merit aid possible for an engineering program, but he’s top 20% of his class. Your daughter’s stats make her options different from his in many ways but our strategy (that we worked out with a college financial consultant) was to drop down a tier in schools he applied to in order to ensure he was getting the best aid packages. He wants a Masters so the goal was to save more elite schools for that. We also had concerns about whether or not the engineering degree would “stick” with him - at some large public universities only 30-40% of freshman engineering students graduate with that major. Overall, engineering has a very high rate of students who drop the major. We wanted to make sure that whatever school he went to, he would be able to easily change majors without losing credits and/or adding more time on to get his degree. Getting merit aid wouldn’t help if it was going to take him extra years to graduate. He ended up applying mostly to private universities with their own engineering schools (no 3-2 programs). So far our strategy has worked. He’s been admitted to 9 out of 10 schools we’ve heard from so far, 8 of those offered merit aid and 3 of them offered him really good money. The OOS public universities he did apply to have not offered him the best aid, the private schools are turning out to be the most affordable and they also have the best chance of him graduating on time even with a change in major. So while this might not be a helpful strategy for your daughter given her stats, I mention this for those who might be reading this thread with students not in top 1%.
I am glad that everything is working out for your son!
Do you mind sharing which private schools your son applied to? I would love to add a few private schools to our list. Thank you.
Note that retention in engineering majors tends to correlate to admission selectivity, because stronger students are more likely to be able to handle the rigor of an engineering bachelor’s degree program. I.e. you probably have less to worry about a 4.0 HS GPA student than a 3.0 HS GPA student in this respect. Of course, some students change majors because of changing interests.
Some large public universities over admit engineering frosh and weed them out with progression requirements (e.g. Wisconsin) or have competitive secondary admission to major which leaves some students shut out of their desired engineering majors (many).
The ones I would recommend looking at that have impressed us are Trinity University in San Antonio, TX (I think way better private school in TX than Baylor and TCU), Drexel University, Northeastern, and Santa Clara (especially if she wants Computer Science). S21 had lots of other requirements for schools like music ensembles, location, etc. so these are really tailored to match his other interests outside of Engineering. They might not be a fit for your student but worth looking into. Drexel and Northeastern are not the kind of campuses she wants but their programs are really exciting for engineers.
Your points are very valid. We knew that our S21 came to the idea of an engineering degree late and we’re not entirely sure he knows exactly what he wants to do or what an engineering career would look like. We expect our kids to change their minds in college about their career paths because hopefully they are going to be exposed to new ideas and new career options. So part of our plan as parents was to make sure we steered him to schools that will allow him to keep his options open as long as possible. Some kids are much more focused and driven from an early age. We didn’t seem to get any of those LOL.
Ultimately, it will boil down to this perennial question asked again and again on this forum, especially in April when the decisions come out and the selection of schools for the following year begins, posed mostly by families in the top 3% income having top 3% kids: is it worth extra $200k to go for a more prestigious school, say $60k GaTech vs $260k MIT. I think its a personal value question, since nobody understands your family finance better than you. People’s opinion on this forum should matter very little. My own personal view is that HYPSM undergrad experience and degree represent something special. Its worth the consideration, because money can always be made and lost but the opportunity comes only once in a lifetime.
Except that when it comes to engineering and CS programs there are often state school programs that are higher ranked than HYP at least and in certain cases even SM. GT often being the highest ranked state school. Per USN, H and Y don’t break into T20 for engineering undergrad.
There was an interesting discussion I saw (may have been on CC) about hiring managers and regional preferences. I think there are people and areas of the country for which HYPSM is a bigger deal than for others.
Search for last year’s mega thread from @KevinFromOC. It was one of the top threads last year. His high stats daughter was looking for engineering programs. I think the budget was similar to yours. She ended up at the University of South Carolina. She won one of the top scholarships if remember…maybe McNair? (I went to USC for my MBA years ago).
That said, getting your cost to $20k/year will be very tough. Especially to schools your daughter would be happy to attend.
FYI. My S20 is at GT for IE and we’re OOS. So far so good. To have GT as an in-state option is a no brainer. With AP credits and dual enrollment my son walked on with 51 credits so 3 years is on the table plus study abroad if that ever resumes. Something to consider since your daughter isn’t wild about GT. Safety is a concern but don’t think that any campus is truly safe. Crime happens everywhere.
I hear this a lot including from my S20. He didn’t want to go to Pitt because it was HS 2.0. I told him that’s crazy talk. Large schools have so many OOS and international students that it’s very easy to find your tribe. Plus being within driving distance is sooo nice when you need a break.
Some of the crime at a residential college is perpetrated by other students. First semester frosh are often more vulnerable, particularly if they drink alcohol as inexperienced or naive drinkers. When drunk (sometimes unintended by inexperienced or naive drinkers), it is more likely to get into fights or become a victim of other crimes (ranging from theft to various forums of sexual assault/battery/rape). Accidental injury is also easier when drunk.
Crime statistics are available on College Navigator broken down by type of crime. We found it very interesting to see the trends.
Actually, it won’t be necessarily. My daughter received an automatic scholarship at ASU which would also be relevant to NMF’s. Out of state tuition is waived, college fees for honors and engineering would be $4K without any other scholarships (and we qualified for another $2K schollie), room and board is $15-16K. With books of $700 and spending money for the year, we are at $20K.
Whether @Dis3456 daughter wants to attend there is another question.
I will be taking you up on PM offer as unfortunately our tour guide was not very informative. Despite the weak tour ASU Barrett is high on D’s list.
For engineering, it would be very difficult if not impossible to find a school that is better than Ga Tech that offers merit aid. You would be talking schools like MIT, Caltech, Stanford, etc. Ga Tech is tough to beat in terms of excellence in engineering. There are three choices: 75-80K per year vs in state at Ga Tech vs going to a clearly inferior school that gives merit aid such as ASU or Alabama just to leave the state.
We live in Michigan and told our kids that assuming that they can get in to Michigan, the only schools we would pay for other than Michigan would be schools that are clearly better such as HYPSM. If they could get in to one of those schools, then we would consider paying.
Georgia Tech has a lot of crime, and despite what is reported here, the campus is near very rough parts of the city.
http://www.police.gatech.edu/crimelogs
Not all colleges are created equal when it comes to safety.