My older D said our best gift to her was getting her out of college with zero debt.
U of Denver is midsized and in a city. I’m not understanding why Madison is too small a city - what does she want a city to have? Theater, sports teams, big business?
Does Bryn Mawr give merit aid?
As a suburban Chicago resident, this give me a chuckle. At our high school, UIC, Loyola and Lake Forest are not considered desirable schools. UIC has major budget issues, and I would not trust any merit aid to be there for four years. The quality of the student body is very poor.
Loyola is a good school if she wants to be in health services, but outside that field its reputation wanes. They do give good merit aid. Lake Forest has a reputation for being a country club school for rich North Shore kids whose parents don’t trust them to go too far from home.
In contrast, Madison is one of the most popular schools for both academics and social reasons, easily outranking UM-TC. If she can get in, she should take advantage of the reduced tuition. Frankly, it is the best school on her list.
Run the NPC’s on Goucher, Muhlenberg, Dickinson, American U, St Lawrence; Mount Holyoke, Smith, Simmons, Agnes Scott, Bryn Mawr; depending on interests WPI, RPI, Bryant, Bentley . See criteria for Honors College and costs for UMass Amherst, UMass Lowell, SUNY Geneseo, SUNY New Platz, UDel, Temple, St Mary’s of Maryland, JMU, CNU, UMW, NCSU, UNC-W, Appalachian State, UNC-Asheville. Those are all very different but they’d allow her to be on the East Coast.
Considering her stats, she should add St Olaf and Lawrence.
I’m sorry you are feeling squeezed like this, that is stressful. Perhaps sit down with her and show her the NPC calculations, pull up the tuition pages at various schools (like Macalester) with $60,000 a year price tags? Some posters here use the car buying analogy – you shop for cars in your price range, if you can afford $30,000, you don’t spend time looking at $75,000 Lexus and Mercedes SUVs, they just aren’t possible. Show her the funds available plus any predicted financial aid on the NPC vs. the price tag of the schools, and then perhaps propose researching together schools which would give merit to close the gap, or suggest schools you have identified, and ask her to help find more. This is not the time for tantrum about wanting to go to a kind of school which is financially out of reach. For what it’s worth, our kid could only go to a LAC if he got significant merit, which meant a whole swath of schools had to come off his list. He felt kind of awkward about acknowleding his list, because it didn’t wow anyone – but we researched and knew he was likely to get substantial merit at those schools. We actually practiced how he could respond to classmates looking incredulously at him when he talked about his list.
UW is a great school, and I always thought Madison was perfect – busy enough to feel like a “city” – especially for kids interested in government and business internships (there are a lot of start ups and tech companies, it seems, in the area), but not so overwhelming or expensive that a student cannot participate. My kid is an OOS student at UW and has had a superb education and experience, world class faculty, close relationships with his professors, great internships, great food, great sports . . . all on a lake? What’s not to love? Also, it is as about as liberal a community as you can get – the US Congressman is a gay man, and he was elected after the then-Congressperson, a woman who was gay, was elected to the US Senate. Janesville – which is the area represented by Paul Ryan, is about 30 miles and an entire universe away, from Madison.
Maybe combine a Madison visit with a Marquette visit? Sounds like she could get merit at Marquette, though I’m not familiar with its merit practices specifically. UW, you’d want to schedule some of the extra add-on visit components, whether it is for sessions for research, Honors etc. UW is a well-managed institution – we were very impressed at admitted student days, as the events ran smoothly and the students, faculty and staff participating were impressive.
In terms of smaller schools, would she consider St Olaf? Small schools that, with merit, could get closer to a $30,000 price tag, might include Lawrence, Kalamazoo (both in small-mid sized cities). Others that are not in cities would include Beloit, Knox. East coast LACs like Connecticut College or Trinity College don’t do merit awards, so absent financial aid, the price is the price.
Hang in there, and keep us posted!
If you have any interest in Drury U or Westminster College in MO let me know. Springfield MO and Columbia MO are not exactly rural…more medium size college towns. My D has similar stats as yours and they are both on her short list. Feel free to PM me if you want me details.
Drake is another small college in a nice college town.
(I second Madison, perhaps just go for a visit, have a burger and shake at a student hang out, I’d be surprised if she won’t budge. :s)
@runswimyoga my neighbors D had higher SAT scores than this student’s ACT, and similar grades. GWU offered her 2K a year. That’s it! And that was after begging and pleading for more. Maybe they are closing the purse strings for whatever reason, but it don’t think it is affordable. Or it could be that was just merit aid.
Sometimes it helps to explain it in terms of how many new BMW’s you’d have to drive into a lake to make up the difference.
Or if your house is modest, how many houses you’d have to dynamite.
I’m from small town Wisconsin. Told D16 last year we would pay up to cost of UW Madison (about 24k last year). She had higher stats than your kiddo slightly, and wound up at Pitt on full tuition scholarship. She wanted urban. School was NOT allowed to be in Minnesota or Wisconsin. Madison is an awesome, and definitely not conservative, place to be a young adult.
Her final affordable choices were Pitt, Kansas, Truman State, Temple. The slightly unaffordable choice she loved was Tulane. It was hard to say no to them, but we were afraid of the projected increasing tuition over 4 years. No regrets 1 semester in.
Doesn’t “uber opinionated” often go along with “poorly informed”?
Perhaps getting her to be more informed (about college costs, net price calculators, etc.) may get her to recognize reality.
Really, she isn't in line for merit at any school that is better than Uminn, she really doesn't have the stats to be so picky, so where had that come from? Does she understand how merit works? I would guess that any school that gives her merit is going to be inferior to Uminn. I think I would be wary that picking an OOS with merit is more like getting into dodge than out. I get her desire to go OOS, but I wouldn't have encouraged such an idea without stressing the need (time now passed) for a minimum stats package.
Remind her that she can study abroad to mix up her living experience while in college.
Some privates, including some in the Northeast, may be less expensive than publics, even in-state. I think you may be unnecessarily limiting, while she may be too dreamy. Perhaps you could meet in the middle.
Some of the reach type schools have financial aid for relatively high incomes, meaning for instance, 10% of all costs for a family making up to $150k. If you make more than that, maybe you could consider paying just a little more, depending on the number of kids coming through high school after her.
Her ACT is not high, but there are some amazing, top top schools, that are test-optional. Under B’s alone on this list, you will find Bryn Mawr, Brandeis, Bowdoin, Bates, Bard and others. http://fairtest.org/university/optional
Her EC’s probably won’t get her any merit aid on that account. I do wonder if financial aid might be more accessible than you think. I urged a friend to let her daughter apply to some privates, and they were surprised.
Geographic diversity is important to some schools and may be in her favor.
I would let her research and apply to wherever she wants, as well as an affordable public, and just see what happens. She has already been cautioned that the budget is limited.
Lindenwood U in STL would also be a private that would give her merit to get within your range. Not really urban, but definitely near a large city.
I am most familiar with MO ones…but I would think there would be similar privates elsewhere.
What we did with my daughter (who wasn’t particularly obstinate) was tell her that her list had to include one “Mom’s Choice” - a school I chose that she had to apply to and visit with an open mind. She did not need to attend, and once she applied and visited there was no pressure on her to choose that school. You might want to do something like that to get your daughter to Madison to see UW.
If she thinks Madison is too small, wait until she sees Lake Forest. We live really close to LFC and I can tell you that the City of Lake Forest, although an hour’s train ride from Chicago, is not exactly a happening place for a college student. And I can’t imagine anyone choosing UIC over either Minnesota or Wisconsin, although none of them seems to fit her small to moderate criteria.
Her opinions might change once she starts visiting some of these schools. I would lay out the finances for her, give her an absolute budget, make sure she applies to a couple affordable schools and let the chips fall where they may. Sometimes that’s the only way to maintain the peace at home with a strong minded child.
BTW, my daughter graduated from, and is now attending graduate school at, Mom’s Choice.
OP, if you are in Chicago, look at DePaul also. Some people prefer DePaul over Loyola, others vice versa. It is in a more fun part of town (Lincoln Park) than Loyola.
Don’t forget that the tuition reciprocity with WI applies to all the schools, not just Madison. If she wants to be in a big city, take a look at UW-Milwaukee. She should get into the Honors College. She needs to make the best of the budget she has.
What about UW Eau Claire Honors?