help putting together potential college list

Myth. No easier or harder than after 4 years at a university. In both cases, what will matter most is what you have done during school and over the summers.

Sewanee is probably not going to give you enough money to be affordable. If you search “college data sewanee” (you can do this for any college) and look at the “Money Matters” tab you will see that the COA is ~$60K. Go down further and you will see that indeed 35% of incoming frosh who don’t need financial aid get merit aid- and the average amount of merit is ~$15K. That leaves ~$45K for you to cover. From the Sewanee website you can see that they do give 4 full tuition scholarships a year, so it is possible that your daughter would get one of those, but obviously not something to bet on; otherwise the most she will get is $25K (Wilkie Scholarship).

In general, merit aid is a trade between the student/family and the school: we reduce our price by this much and you bring something we value (most often high GPA/test scores compared to the schools average). The best merit aid is going to come from colleges where your daughter is at the way high end of the admitted student spectrum- which is often schools that are less prestigious. For example, your daughter’s stats automatically qualify for free tuition at UAlabama-Huntsville. As noted by @Camom, the fancier the name of the school, the less they have to do to attract highly qualified students; ditto schools with exceptional financial aid.

If your daughter wants to be a teacher the biggest criteria imo is no debt. Early stage teachers don’t make much, and in many school systems a Masters is essentially essential- and in some school systems w/in 5 years of starting teaching.

I would look within the SUNY system, which would probably be the most affordable. Based on liking smaller, LAC type schools, take a look at SUNY Geneseo. 10-15% of students receive merit scholarships and I think your daughter’s stats would make her very competitive for those scholarships.

I agree that if your daughter’s end goal is to teach (and kudos and thanks to her), she should look at getting out of school as debt free as possible. And, if she wants to live in NY after graduation, staying in state will help.

If she wants to look at private schools, we found that the schools that gave the most merit, were the schools where our dd was academically well above the 75th percentile on test scores and GPA for admitted students. Competitive programs just don’t have to work as hard to attract applicants.

Hiram College offers merit https://www.hiram.edu/academics/undergraduate/

If you do not qualify for need-based aid and your affordability numbers are $20-$30K, your best bet (and maybe your only bet) is the SUNY schools. You are lucky that your state has so many good options.

You can use the government’s College Navigator site https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/default.aspx to get a sense of net price paid by different income brackets. Your daughter has excellent stats and though the net price is average price paid per income bracket it can give you a ball park sense of what aid is available. Once you have an aid package you can also use it to guesstimate whether your particular package is above or below average.

Hiram’s Average Net Price for $110k+ income households:
2014-15 $27,669
2015-16 $29,258
2016-17 $29,090

@aquapt I heard of Sewanee and Vanderbilt, but do not know they have partnership. Do you think Vandy is also an option for her? Also if she goes to an oos high ranking education program, what is the pro/con compare with instate?

NYS has free tuition for lower income family. Does it still provide merit aid for family income higher than 120k?

@ladyof2kids , if she’s interested in Vandy, I would suggest applying to both Vandy and Sewanee. She’s a strong candidate, so I think she has a solid chance of getting into Vandy, and some chance of getting merit aid, as substantial merit scholarships do exist there. They are very competitive, though, so attending Vandy for an under-30K/year out-of-pocket is not something anyone can count on. The competition for big merit awards at Sewanee isn’t quite as stiff. If a masters from Vanderbilt’s education program is her goal, then she’ll have the Vandy prestige at the end whether she goes there for undergrad or not. So the smart strategy would be to apply to both schools, visit and see how she feels about both, and then see whether she has both options and what the cost differential turns out to be. From the way you describe her, she might end up not only getting a great merit offer from Sewanee, but also loving the small LAC experience and the beauty and expansiveness of the setting. It could turn out to be best-of-both-worlds to follow the Sewanee-to-Vandy path rather than going to a mid-sized, urban research university like Vanderbilt for undergrad, especially if Sewanee were to give her a great scholarship offer. It’s worth considering, anyway.

As for the geographic question, my knowledge is secondhand, and I’ve heard both sides of the question argued fairly convincingly on CC. To me, that says that there are advantages and efficiencies to attending a credential program in the state where you want to teach, and going elsewhere for a comparable program, just for the sake of novelty or climate, probably isn’t worth it. But then again, the reciprocity process isn’t so prohibitively onerous that one should turn down a top-tier program that they love, in another state, for that reason alone. And honestly, what high school junior knows for sure what state they’ll want to teach in a decade from now, anyway?

As for the in-state merit question, I don’t believe there is merit that’s administered on a statewide level the way the Excelsior scholarships and etc. are. (New Yorkers can correct me if I’m wrong.) But if you look on the individual school’s websites, there may be merit opportunities that your daughter would qualify for. For example, SUNY Geneseo is the state’s top public LAC, and it has an education program in addition to its liberal arts offerings. If you check their Collegedata page (a very useful resource that you’ll want to consult about all the schools you consider), you can see that 21.5% of financial aid recipients also got merit awards, and 9% of the entering class had no financial need but received merit. But the average merit award isn’t large - only a little over $2000. https://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg03_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=98

The Sewanee collaboration with Vanderbilt’s Peabody provides a no-fee application and the possibility of finishing in 3 semesters. Peabody typically takes almost a calendar year, so that means shortening it by about a quarter.

Vandy is ~$65K/pa CoA, and ~8% get non-need based merit aid, with an average gift of ~$23.5K. Vandy does have 3 full tuition named scholarships, which are very competitive.

If your real budget is $20-30K, then both Sewanee and Vandy are only options IF she can win one of the named scholarships.

Agreed, @collegemom3717 - it’s only the big merit that would bring these schools into financial reach based on OP’s stated budget. And there are many applicants with stellar credentials competing for those Vandy scholarships. The Sewanee scholarships are competitive too, obviously, but if OP’s daughter continues her high-stats trend with strength in EC’s that the school values, and if she shows “fit” and strong interest, I could see a named scholarship potentially happening for her. Obviously there’s no such thing as a slam-dunk for things like this. I just think that a young musician who attended the summer Festival, showed talent in creative writing and specific interest in that program, high-stats, a real desire for a small, rural LAC, and so on, could be well-positioned to be in the running, enough so that it’s worth looking at. And I’m sure there are other LAC’s with similar strengths and similar merit opportunities that are equally worth looking at - this is just the one that jumped out at me based on the constellation of interests and desires described. Somebody has to win those top merit awards, and that somebody probably ends up looking a lot like OP’s daughter - the question is, of course, how many of those somebodies there are in the running at any given school.

If she wants a LAC, and you are residents of New York, consider SUNY Geneseo.

If your D is considering becoming a teacher, she should look at SUNY Plattsburgh. It has a 5 year, direct entry program where you wind up with both a bachelor’s and a masters degree. My D did this program and loved it. Since the tuition was so reasonable, I didn’t want to kill her when she quit teaching after one year. She is, however, employed in educational technology and teaches teachers, so she is making use of her education.

There is an honors program and Plattsburgh is one of the few SUNY schools that offers merit money. My D had a 4 year academic scholarship, plus she received departmental scholarships from the education and music (her concentration) departments every year.

My friend’s D went to Geneseo the same years as my D went to Plattsburgh, also for education. She had to apply to the education program in the second year after taking prerequisites. If she had not been accepted, those prereqs would have been for naught. Geneseo also doesn’t offer a masters’ program, so she had to go some place else after applying. One more great thing about the Plattsburgh program is that the masters is 3 semesters instead of 4 and the first semester is charged at lower UG rates. Plattsburgh also has good science programs. The on campus planetarium is lots of fun and the biology program is well-regarded. My son went there too and took some physics classes, which he really enjoyed.

If you can find a LAC that is a better value than SUNY, then go for it. However, for an education degree, you can’t go wrong at a SUNY school. Also, to answer your earlier question - merit and need are totally separate for the most part at SUNY. My D’s academic merit scholarship was based on her stats, not our income. That said, there are some departmental and school side merit scholarships where need is taken into consideration, but that is very clearly stated in the criterion for each individual scholarship. I just told D not to bother applying to any which were need based.

@techmom99 I never heard of SUNY Plattsburgh. Will check it out. Thanks lot!

Your D’s stats will likely put her in the running for merit at quite a few places, but she’ll need to find merit that will be either close to full tuition or a full ride for it to be affordable. Many of thee best opportunities for merit will be in in the south or in the midwest. I would definitely have her consider Kenyon, Oberlin, and Grinnell (Oberlin’s Net Price Calculator asks for stats and includes merit in their in their calculation.)

SUNY schools are a no-brainer and will definitely in your price range. SUNY Oneonta has a great education program, as do New Paltz and Cortlandt; SUNY Geneseo is the most LAC-like. Would your D consider women’s colleges? If so, she might do well merit-wise at some of them.

Depending on her PSAT score (which, given her SAT score will likely qualify her for as a Natl. Merit Semifinalist or Finalist), which, in turn, might open up some possibilities for merit.

@ladyof2kids Here are some places where full tuition merit-based scholarships are possible (albeit highly competitive). Room/board/travel/etc will still cost somewhere between 15-20K, which fits within your budget.

These are very long shots, but assuming she applies to some affordable safeties that she likes, she could also give these a try:

Vanderbilt, Wash U St. Louis, Duke (Robertson scholarship), and Case Western are mid-sized universities with full tuition scholarships by separate application - very competitive! For LACs that “might” have full tuition awards, check out Mt Holyoke (women’s college), Rhodes, Centre, Denison, Hendrix, Knox, Earlham, U of Puget Sound, and Willamette. Things may have changed in the last few years so check out current information on their websites.

If she is serious about an education degree, your in-state publics are very suitable, as well as being affordable.

She sounds like a very accomplished young woman. I am sure she will land someplace good!

For teaching in NY, a degree from NY or CA has always been the smoothest way. I’ve known people who moved to NY with degrees ((even teaching experience) from other states who have been very frustrated by the extra hurdles they needed to jump through to get credentials to teach in NY. It’s easy to teach in other states with a degree from NY though. (CA would likely be too expensive for college with her budget).

In addition to the SUNYs, she may want to consider some of the small catholic colleges. They are very well regarded for education programs and some have very high merit. St. Bonaventure, Canisius, Niagara, Nazareth, St. John Fisher, LeMoyne are a few I can think of offhand. They tend to have nice merit for kids with those stats, they are small, friendly schools. She might want to tour one or two and see what she thinks of them.

I’m not very well versed in cost, but just looking at her stats, major interests, and environment preference, I’d suggest:

Carleton, Grinnell and Swarthmore are some of the top LACs for science, and are also ranked highly for teaching (Carleton being probably first in both). I’ve also seen Grinnell mentioned as having a good creative writing program.

Johns Hopkins has good science departments and a top creative writing program. They just received a huge donation that allows them to be permanently loan free and need blind.

Hamilton has fairly good departments in science, teaching, and creative writing, plus is in NY.

Bowdoin, Middlebury, Wellesley, and Carnegie Mellon are also fairly strong across science and teaching, and CMU and Middlebury have fairly strong creative writing programs.

How about the Honors College at Miami University of Ohio? There is definitely “space” there, and she would likely get significant merit, maybe full OOS tuition.

SUNY Geneseo should be a no-brainer. St Mary’s of Maryland (the state’s honors college) would likely work, too.
Women’s colleges would have merit aid.
Denison, Kenyon, Skidmore have science-related merit scholarships and excellent writing.
UIowa has a famed creative writing program, a strong honors college, and good science research.

D mention yesterday she likes to get a PHD of science to teach AP class. Is it going to affect her target school to go?