I’m hoping for the same. 2 days to go. Of course, here were are still dealing with the last little bit of AP summer work - nothing like bringing it right down to the wire . . .
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While figuring out a major, school, etc., it may be valuable to just pick a local college and visit/take a tour/etc. It can help get into the “college search” mindset, and questions other students ask can trigger things you/your son might want to think about.
When my oldest started the process, we just picked a local school with Saturday tours (a small LA school when she was looking for engineering) and it was valuable.
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This will be changing as of the 2023-24 academic year to the parent who provides most support. @kelsmom is that correct?
Yes, that’s correct. Mark Kantrowitz explains changes for divorced/separated parents on the Saving for College website:
“There are several changes to the treatment of dependent students whose parents are divorced or separated, to better align the FAFSA with federal income tax returns.
If the parents have an informal separation, they will be considered to still be married, following IRS rules.
The parent responsible for filing the FAFSA will be based on whichever parent provides more financial support to the student, not the parent with whom the student resides. This will be based on financial support provided during the prior-prior tax year, not the 12 months ending on the date the FAFSA is filed.
Family size will include the student and parent. However, children and other people will be counted in family size only if they are dependents according to IRS rules.”
Great suggestion. We looked for archetypes (big state school, urban campus, small LAC, etc) that we could drive to that were close to people we wanted to visit. Our son initially said he wanted a small college, but changed his mind after visiting two.
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It only took my daughter one! She knew immediately it was just too too small and all the others we looked at were at least 3000. After a semester at one that had about 3500 undergrads, 3000 grads on campus, she kind of wished she’d gone to FSU or at least a school with 10,000.
Other daughter also wanted small but ended up at a D1 school. She now claims she loves football (but I think it is the hotdogs and Chick-fil-A that she really loves).
Just wanted to say thanks so much to everyone who chimed in here! SO much valuable information.
This has helped us get a little more focused, with son managing to decide he wants to stay on the west coast, and that he will at least start as a music major, since that is the one thing that makes him stand out a bit. And we decided that going out of state or private will be entirely dependent on aid packages, so thanks for the discussion of financial considerations (the one tuition calculator we tried for a private school here in WA came up with just 14K in merit money, which barely out a debt in the tuition 
). I felt bad telling him that, but he understood that coming up with 100K plus for four years of tuition wasn’t a reasonable expectation!
Again, thank you very much. You all rock!
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All of our kids’ public schools were $100,000+, even with merit, but we are on the east coast. Room and board can be $60,000 alone.
UPS stacks talent (music) and merit scholarships. COA was less there than at our state flagship.
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In many instances, he does not have to be a music major to benefit from submitting a music supplement (if talent justifies the supplement). Some schools even have music merit for non-majors. Unfortunately you have to really dig into details. And some privates may surprise you with merit aid.
On the other hand, majoring in music does not mean you have to have a performance career. Music majors can do lots of other things. So if that is what he wants to do, great. Not clear if he is going for BM or BA,
Good luck!
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