We live in Austin, TX. My son (senior in HS) is going to apply to Texas schools: UT (Austin) - his first choice and Texas A&M. For the undegrad he wants to major in psychology with a future plan /maybe/ to go to the med school or law. He is all over the place at the moment, but STEM majors are out of the question.
We are not eligible for financial aid because of AGI.
His SAT is 1500 (760 math, 740 eng, 8/6/8 essay).
Unweighted GPA 3.89, Weighted GPA (w/AP classes): 5.05
He is in his HS swim team but based on his results might get to DIV 3 schools (i.e. no scholarship).
The rest is usual: clubs, internships, volunteering stuff. He is not national merit finalist.
We are not ready to pay over 25k (total school & board) for psychology major, so we’re hoping that UT Austin accepts him and that would be perfect solution for us.
However, we are trying to find any plan B schools (out of Texas) that he can possibly apply to, considering that we are not ready to pay 40 to 70k for psy major.
Are any out of state good schools you would recommend based on his scores?
I can’t find anything besides Univ of Florida at the moment.
So STEM majors are out but he might want medical school? You don’t have to be a STEM major to go to med school, but to eliminate them, IMO, means you don’t like them. You have to at least like them to go to med school.
You are going to pay more than $25k at Florida unless he’s NMF.
not sure about that. as per my wife (md) she was ok’ with stem classes, but no particular love for these . my son is taking ap physics this year. this might be his real test for future med school plans.
$25k all in, including books / travel / etc? Or $25k parent contribution plus $5k student loan plus $2k summer earnings for a total of $32k to cover just tuition, room, and board?
I ran a bunch of NPCs a while back, and got the best results from Southwestern University and Austin College, both in Texas, alas. In the middle of the ranges above, you might look at:
Earlham College
Lake Forest College
American University
Wheaton College (MA)
Kalamazoo College
Trinity University (TX)
Knox College
Ursinus College
University of Tulsa
Lawrence University
allyphoe: ‘only’ 1281 pages of recommendations :-). he doesn’t want to go to colleges that accept low SAT scores. and colleges with higher SAT averages have a bigger pool of students looking to get merit scholarships.
Muhlenberg, College of Charleston may be two OOS possibilities. Dickinson is a good possibility too, but may not offer sufficient merit - worth trying at least.
Hendrix’ Odyssey program would help establish a good resume in case he wishes to go into clinical.
Rhodes College in Memphis, TN. When I visited there 2 years ago with my child, there was a healthy representation of students there from Texas — many if not most, I suspect, were students in high-achieving/high stat schools who were shut out of the automatic admits to UT-Austin. Your son’s stats should get merit money from Rhodes College.
Also, look into the University of Tennessee at Knoxville; your son’s stats would get him a Volunteer Scholarship, here, https://onestop.utk.edu/scholarships/volunteer/, which would make his tuition only slightly more than an in-state student, here, https://onestop.utk.edu/tuition-detail/. Further, he would be a good candidate for additional scholarship monies, and he should be able to get into one of the Honors and Scholars programs, here, https://honors.utk.edu/.
Take a look at Ohio State. National Buckeye and other nearly automatic (have to apply early) merit awards put you very close to budget. Additional competitive scholarships available and the school allows stacking of outside scholarships up to CoA. Hillel very active not just on campus but connecting students to the very vibrant Jewish community in Columbus.
LuckyCharms913: Thank you! We actually visited Tulane in August as we were driving from Florida. He loves Tulane, and especially crawfish. Though, I doubt Tulane will be generous enough to give him half of the tuition $72,236 in merit money.
He can apply for the DHS and/or Tulane awards, which you probably know are quite competitive but do cover full tuition. And some of that $72,000+ is estimated (travel, personal expenses, etc.) so a $32,000 merit award plus $3,000 from a summer job plus your $35,000 might be feasible if he can keep discretionary spending on the low side.
