Help with College List - Outdoorsy School for low grades, strong SAT student

I missed the mountain part. U Arkansas if you do Honors to keep class small. Good scholarships

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Iā€™m not sure that many will do better than Eckard College with 75% off for tuition, since NC wonā€™t provide a Bright Futures Scholarship.

Itā€™s not 75% off Eckard tuition, but an amount equal to 75% of tuition at a Florida public, or about $4800. Plus there would be a resident grant of $2841.

Not exactly free at Eckard.

Iā€™d take a look at Ft Lewis College in Durango Colorado. It is a small (4k students), public LAC. The school is on a bluff and has stunning views in every direction. Small classes and easy access to profs and help for students that need it. Durango is a really cool mountain town of less than 20k and is on the Animas river, thereā€™s rafting/kayaking, fly fishing, hundreds of miles of trails for hiking and biking. The epitome of outdoorsy. Should be well within your $35k budget.

my son is a graduating senior and has loved his time there.

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Brevard College in Brevard, NC offers half-tuition scholarships to high school graduates from several states, including Florida: Scholarships & Grants | Merit, Fine Arts, IWIL & More | Brevard College

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How much would the Cost of Attendance at Eckerd be with a Bright Futures scholarship?

This is from Warren Wilsonā€™s website:

  • The average cost of undergraduate attendance after financial aid is awarded: $24,419 per year
  • 100% of our residential students receive some form of financial aid
  • Default rate: 5.3% (6% lower than the national average of 11.3%)

Our NC Free Tuition Plan and Milepost One Scholarship Programs go even further, offering eligible undergraduates the opportunity to attend Warren Wilson tuition-free.

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For the Milepost One, the family has to have an adjusted gross income of $125,000 or lower for parents + student. With an EFC of $35,000 for a family of 4, the OP likely has a parental AGI which is higher than $125,000. So there is a good chance that the OPā€™s son is not eligible for this. Besides, there are only 25 of them. The NC Free Tuition Plane requires NC residency.

If the OPā€™s son is eligible, it is definitely worthwhile applying, though.

Yes, you are correct - I looked at the actual amounts, and for Ekhard itā€™s even less. However, with his GPA, heā€™d also be eligible about 15,000-17,000 scholarship.

Iā€™m not sure HOW you are getting that! Are you privvy to some insider knowledge? Not going to put my finances out here except to say that our EFC would be larger and we are looking at the Milepost One.

Every student at Warren Wilson gets a scholarship. Itā€™s worth checking out and seeing if it would be a good fit overall. They really try to make it affordable for students and families.

Also, yā€™all, not to nitpick, but I guess I canā€™t help myself. Itā€™s Eckerd (E-C-K-E-R-D) like the old drug store chain. Named for the same family.

BF allows the school to determine how BF can be used - for tuition, for study abroad, r&b, etc. The residency scholarship can only be used for tuition.

My daughterā€™s school restricted BF to tuition only, so her FA office had to apply her awards in a certain order, but since tuition was way too high, it was never a problem to apply it to tuition first. Her school allowed stacking of all awards but would not pay out school aid to the student, for example for health insurance or off campus room and board. It was okay to use federal money for those (Pell grants, loans, SEOG, or in the OPā€™s sonā€™s case, his money from Americorps)

I always wonder when a school gives 100% of kids scholarships - why not just reduce the tuition. Yes, Iā€™m sure thereā€™s a marketing and psychological angle in there.

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I think that Birmingham-Southern College took this approach a few years ago; and I have heard of one or two other SLACs doing the same thing.

Seems like most LACs that are not super selective give everyone a scholarship. At least I know the ones D22 is looking at do. I donā€™t know why they do it this way either. I wonder if itā€™s something to do with the way they have to use their endowments or something else about reporting finances I donā€™t understand? I had to explain to my husband that the $50k or $60k or $70K was just the sticker price, but not the actual Cost of Attendance. Gotta run that NPC.

Hereā€™s a link to an article from 2015 listing 99 colleges that give everyone a scholarship: 99 Colleges That Give Every Freshman a Scholarship | Money Some of them I had never heard of, but there are some more well-known schools there too.

Or perhaps an attempt at some degree of transparency in how college is paid for? I donā€™t know, although that would be nice.

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There are sophisticated models which help colleges find the sweet spot of the discount AKA merit scholarship in terms of yield while not blowing their tuition revenue out of the water. And there are companies which help colleges figure out how to dole out merit aid for maximum efficiency.

This genie is likely not going back in the bottle. Which provides bigger bragging rights- ā€œJoanne got a merit scholarship so sheā€™s going to Muhlenberg- boy they really rolled out the red carpet for her!ā€ or ā€œWe are paying sticker price at Juniata but itā€™s ok because they rolled back their tuition to make it more affordable for middle class familiesā€.

Yes, psychology and the never-ending quest to give everyone a ā€œparticipation trophyā€ for showing up.

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Just an FYI, it is Eckerd College. I think it would be a great place for him. Lots of outdoor activities, waterfront, sailboats, kayaks, SUP, fishing, etc. Also offers a Peace Corps Prep Program. Well known for environmental programs, marine geology. Students are assigned a student mentor in freshman year as well as their professor/mentor. They take a year long course with that mentor and reunite back in senior year with those same classmates and professor for a course.

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Itā€™s based on the rough EFC for of a standard family of 4 with an annual income of $125,000, which, unless a family has a huge amount of assets, is around $25,000-$27,000. Further, as I also wrote, only 25, about 10% of the incoming students, get a Milepost One scholarship.

Yes, they do, however, according to their own cost calculator, a students from a family of 4 from Florida with an EFC of $35,000 would pay $40,725 a year, after grants and scholarships.

https://www.warren-wilson.edu/admission/tuition-and-aid/net-price-calculator/

I think @cristinm13 and her son will have to decide whether Warren Wilson or any of the other schools mentioned are worth exploring. I did get the impression that at Warren Wilson they do not want cost to be a barrier.

FWIW, the cost of attendance I got on WWCā€™s NPC with their EFC and the weighted GPA was $35,900 not including the Federal loans. If you add those in it drops to $30,404, but obviously weā€™re just messing around and they would need to put in their real parameters and talk to the folks there if theyā€™re even interested in it. I just suggested it as a school that is worth taking a look at since it ticks a lot of their boxes, small, in the mountains, outdoorsy, his GPA is fine, good for environmental programs.

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I would agree with this.

And Warren Wilson is test optional. Their Net Price Calculator doesnā€™t ask for test scores, just GPA, but they will consider the test scores if you want to submit them. Iā€™m sure that could only help in this case.

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