Help may need to transfer-need school suggestions/chances

Just received D’s FA award for this year, and it was drastically reduced. While there is a chance we could make things work, at this point it’s more a matter of value, is URoch worth that much more than other schools. And while we love it, and she loves it, we are thinking the answer is no. The FA award notice stated that when D is a senior, their tuition and r&b will be $85,000. That’s crazy. So, we will appeal the FA award, but in the meantime, we need to scramble to come up with transfer options. Any suggestions are welcome.
HS info: very good, rigorous Catholic high school, 3.7 gpa, 31 ACT, lots of extracurriculars, 3 sports, leadership positions
College info: double major in Public Health and Environmental Studies, minor in English, first year GPA 3.3. Played a club sport, has two leadership positions in clubs, and joined a sorority.
Wants to stay in the Northeast, prefers small to medium sized school, wants OOS (CT residents). UMass is of interest–she really liked it but never applied because of the size. Feels like now it could work. Max budget is around $45,000 so looking for some merit. Spoke with a college counselor today (huge public thank you to Mark at TuitionFit.org!!) who said we may be able to get her in for fall, but if not, we are okay waiting until spring. Any advice, tips, school suggestions, chances, would be welcome, as well as info on the transfer process as we know nothing. Thanks so much!

Merit-based aid is harder to come by for transfer students, so it probably is best for you to focus on places that are affordable with just the federal aid that your family qualifies for.

Best to consider your in-state publics as within-budget options that do not require (rare for transfer students) merit scholarships.

There are some lower out-of-state cost schools in non-northeast states like Truman State and University of Minnesota - Morris.

Well that’s depressing to hear. She does not want a big uni. She never even applied to our state school. I was told that schools on the NECAC list sometimes will give merit. Also, we researched transfer at a few schools’ websites and the ones we looked at showed merit opps for transfer students. I think the min GPA for consideration was as low as 2.7 and as high as 3.0. Also, one of the colleges she applied to last year said they would hold her offer for two years, so maybe some of the others would as well. Those were much higher awards; we wouldn’t need that much.

Some of the Connecticut state schools are not that big. Eastern Connecticut State University claims to be more of liberal arts college (it has about 5,000 students).

http://www.easternct.edu/admissions/majors-minors/ lists majors and minors:
Public health studies is a subarea of the health sciences major, and is also offered as a minor.
Environmental earth science is offered as a major and minor.
Environmental health science is offered as a minor.
English is offered as a major and minor.

Hi there! I would recommend you review our transfer guidelines to get a better idea: https://oafa.pitt.edu/apply/admissions-process/transfers/transfer-creditgpa-guidelines/
Let me know if you have additional questions!
-Pitt Admissions Staffer

Thank you @hailtopitt1787 She’s submitted her app and sent all supporting documents, so hoping to hear good news!

On the finances, be aware that both of your kids may have a somewhat increased risk of needing an extra semester to graduate. So you may want to set the price limit low enough that needing an extra semester (or two) would not be a financial crisis or force them to drop out one semester away from graduation.

Transfer students may have to catch up at the new school if their course selection at their old school did not match the new school’s requirements (major or general education) that are ordinarily completed in the first or second year.

Engineering majors commonly have high volumes of requirements. For example, civil engineering at CCSU requires 130 credits of courses, according to https://docs.ccsu.edu/curriculumsheets/CivilEngineeringBS_CurriculumSheet.pdf , compared to the more usual 120. This can be done in 8 semesters with mostly 16-17 credit semesters (see https://docs.ccsu.edu/academicmaps/CivilEngineeringBS_AcademicMap.pdf ), but a student with a HS GPA of 3.0 is less likely to be able to handle 16-17 credit semesters than a student with a HS GPA of 4.0.

Popping back in to update: D ended up applying to six schools as a transfer student: Quinnipiac, St. Lawrence, UVM, UPitt, Susquehanna, and Wheaton (MA). Was accepted everywhere and received very nice merit from most, making them all affordable. She was also offered FA from several of them, which I found interesting because we were offered so little at URoch, and they supposedly meet full need. I think they meet full need by calculating your “need” to be unrealistically low. Anyway, at the end it was down to UPitt and Susquehanna, but Pitt was too urban, too big, too far away, and lacking in green space. Housing was not guaranteed - she was on a wait list. Pitt only accepted 23 of her 32 credits. Susquehanna accepted all of them, and the major at Susq was closer to what she wanted. So she will be attending Susquehanna. I hope she has a great experience there. I was kind of hoping for Pitt but didn’t share my reservations; the decision was hers to make. For future transfer applicants, know that there is merit and FA available, even to very last minute applicants.

Fingers crossed that your D loves Susquehanna and has a great experience there! So glad that things worked out financially but FWIW, I still think it’s crappy that URoch increased their tuition so much and reduced the financial aid.

@taverngirl: Did the University of Vermont offer meaningful financial aid or merit money ?

Any thoughts about UVM that you would like to share ?

I am so glad this worked out! Why did Rochester come in so low as compared to other schools? Did you get any idea of what they do differently in institutional methodology for financial aid?

@publisher My daughter received $7,000 in merit and some FA, which was surprising because we don’t qualify (as far as University of Rochester is concerned, anyway) I wasn’t really impressed with UVM’s campus. I guess my expectations were high based on everything I’ve heard. The walkable area of Burlington is very pretty and full of great little restaurants and shops and the lake of course. There were quite a few homeless people on the streets. Nothing really stood out in the info session or tour. Well, the Outdoor Club is pretty awesome. Obviously it is a well-liked college, so my opinion is in the minority; I was kind of surprised I didn’t really like it.
@cptofthehouse if you mean do I know why Roch’s FA award was low, based on input I’ve received from other people whose kids applied there, their EFCs are unrealistically high. I’m on a homeschool forum, and there are stories on there from parents whose EFC at Roch was much higher than at other schools. I do not know how they figure it, but it’s apparently been a problem for several years, as I came across this article in the campus newspaper from 2013:
http://www.campustimes.org/2016/09/11/students-urs-financial-aid-theories-dont-always-match-reality/

Some of those homeless clear out of Burlington VT (and Madison WI, and Boulder CO) as soon as the weather changes, and that’s when the students are on campus.