<p>Keilexandra, you have been very nice through this discussion. Thank you. </p>
<p>I am not ignoring UA completely. As a matter of the fact, I have gone to their web site many times. </p>
<p>Based on their estimation, even with a full tuition, the COA is about $12K a year before personal expenses. If I took JYM626’s number, our son attending OSU will be about $14K.</p>
<p>If we add another $1K for transportation between UA and home, we are really not talking about much difference.</p>
<p>Also UA does not have an econ department in their school of A & S, only has a program. There is no link provided to the CV of their professors of the econ program. </p>
<p>So, academically, UA does not look like a good fit. </p>
<p>Based on previous experince, I need to put a disclaimer here. UA is a wonderful school which offers excellent education. It just does not seem a good fit for DS. Please, please, PG, please do not take this as any negative comment on UA.</p>
<p>Dad II…the Johnson Scholarship at Washington and Lee is a FULL RIDE (everything included) scholarship. It is very selective. The McNair Scholarship at U of South Carolina is a FULL RIDE (everything included plus a laptop) scholarship. It is also very selective.</p>
<p>Dad II, I’m confused. If UA and OSU are not financial safeties, then what is? I don’t think you could increase your odds any more than with those options. About the only school that will guarantee a few thousand dollars a year will be your local community college.</p>
<p>If you truly, truly deserve aid, then schools where your son is in the top 10% of their pool will want to attract him, and part of that is the FA package. The better the university, the more competitive both in terms of admission and FA, as thumper indicated above. Often lower ranked schools offer a combination of merit and need-based awards. SAT scores usually determine the scholarship amount.</p>
<p>But you keep returning to the top schools. And none of them can be considered safeties, especially not financially. Your son would be extremely lucky to pay only $14,000 for the top 25 of both research universities and LACs if he doesn’t qualify for a free ride at OSU.</p>
<p>Dad II - I totally understand the difficulty in searching for excellent need-based AND merit-based aid. I am in much the same situation, although my family can afford to pay a smidge more (sister 11 years younger, so essentially an only child, 20k EFC is a sacrifice). I recommend that you go through the huge merit-aid thread and research them individually, looking for full-tuition+ awards. They will be few and far in between, esp. guaranteed, unless your S is a NMF. Be prepared to apply to a LONG list of schools, since you should have reach/match/safety for both need and merit.</p>
<p>Dad II, sorry but you’ve lost me. Are you looking for a full ride based on need (and not on merit) for your son’s safety? That seems impossible unless you have great need (which based on some of your other posts, seems unlikely) or you are looking at the very top end, generous schools, which rules them out as safeties. I understand you may have need, but do you have the financial need to qualify for a full ride? Maybe I am a few steps back in this discussion. You still must be looking for some merit aid from the safety, right?</p>
<p>X-posted with momwaitingfornew. Seems we’re both confused.</p>
<p>Not Dad II, but since I think I understand him better than most here, this is my interpretation:</p>
<p>It is more worthwhile to apply to top schools with generous need-based FA than to apply to lower-tier schools for merit money but not enough to exceed the amount of need-based aid I would have gotten at the top schools. Let’s assume a 15k EFC is what Dad II can expect from the elites; even if you take total COA to 40k as at many southern regional privates, that still requires 20-25k in merit money. At a 40k-COA school, that’s around full-tuition, and full tuition scholarships are a LOT harder to get than smaller merit awards. Because of the truly-middle-class situation Dad II is in–and, incidentally, that I’m in myself–merit money is not “worth” the trade-offs drop unless it is very high, at least full tuition if “better” than OSU, and if “worse” than OSU, it would have to be a full ride to be “worth” it.</p>
<p>Even traditionally generous high-quality merit schools like Grinnell (one that I see cited a lot, but caps merit offers at 15k) are impossible merit reaches for situations like mine or Dad II’s. You have to spend a lot more time searching, and research every name thrown at you to see if the school offers BIG merit awards that would make applying worthwhile.</p>
<p>The benefit of this type of middle-class situation, of course, is that need-based schools are also within reach.</p>
<p>Except that a student has to get into the top tier, generous need-based aid schools – HYPMS. These are few and are difficult to get into, even for a top student.</p>
<p>Dad II’s son needs to skip a tier perhaps by applying only to reaches and then to schools that offer merit aid in addition to need-based. That’s why I suggested Dickinson as a possibility.</p>
<p>And that’s why I pointed out that Dickinson in all likelihood will do Dad II NO good. The highest merit award will not bring COA down to anywhere near 10k.</p>
<p>Keilexandra, thank you again. You understand my situation perfectly. Some of these rich people just do not seem to see it from our point of view.</p>
<p>The only thing I would like to change is: it is “less risky” instead of “more worthwhile” </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For example, OSU’s presidential is a full ride but they only give out 10 a year. The chance of getting one is about 1%, much lower than getting into any school. </p>
<p>One other aspect is outside merit$$. In our situation, it is again not worthwhile. Assume the COA is $50K and our FA package is:</p>
<p>grant -30K
loan - 5 k
work study - 2.5K
Student contribution - 2K
parent contribution - 10.5K.</p>
<p>The first 2.5K outside scholarship goes again the work study, grant is the next. SO, unless DS could get more than $32.5K outside scolarship, it does not reduce the EFC by one penny.</p>
<p>Academically, OSU has a very good econ department. I believe it ranks around 18th or 20th in the country. So, there is really not that many schools that is “better” than OSU.</p>
<p>Well, this sounds crazy but I am going to sell DS this idea:</p>
<p>Apply to OSU as early as possible and expect to go there. Apply Stanford SCEA, and RD to H, Y, P, and Penn.</p>
<p>Actually, the first scholarship would go against work study…the next would go against the LOANS…then the grant. This is the protocol in most cases.</p>
<p>However some schools allow “stacking” of scholarships up to the cost of attendance. You need to check with each school. BUT most decrease work study, then loans first.</p>
<p>Well, I’m still confused. You say you agree with Keilexandra but it seems to me Keilexandra (and most other posters on this thread) are recommending you go lower on the lists to look for merit aid and you seem to be saying the opposite: you think it is less risky for you to apply to the very top schools known for generous need based aid. Am I misunderstanding something? We are still talking safeties, right?</p>
<p>At nearly every single school, merit money is NOT stacked with need-based. So Dad II’s S gets 17.5k from Denison, let’s assume 50k - 17.5k merit = 32.5k effective COA. If Dad II’s EFC is 20k–which should be about accurate at non-HYPS, if his situation is similar to mine–that leaves another 12.5k to fill with need-based money. But the 20k EFC is not affordable in the first place, so Dad II’s S can attend Dickinson for 20k/year (many loans) or the slightly smaller stretch of 15k/year to OSU. The EFC is a magic number that cannot be changed by merit money, although some schools have been known to package merit-within-need (depending on how generously they can/want to interpret your financial data).</p>
<p>What I’m saying: apply to the FA lottery schools, all of which are super-reaches. Look for no-loan or capped-loan programs to lower bottom-line cost; many of these are easier, admissions-wise, than HYPS. Then you will need to cast a very wide merit aid net. Use CC as a starting resource but do NOT just take people’s word that such-and-such school gives significant merit aid. For the upper-middle class, significant = >10k. For the actual middle class, say 70-90k income with home equity, 10k is a drop in the bucket of a 50k or even 40k/year school.</p>
<p>Btw, the only schools I know of that definitely stack scholarships are U of South Carolina and Clemson (also in SC); and some LACs will stack arts/NMF stipends (but usually not enough to make a huge difference) on top of academics.</p>
<p>Keilexandra, Dad II has stated his income on CC, so I know that he’s above your definition of “actual middle class.” As he has said himself, the main reason for the EFC is lack of savings and, now, another child in college.</p>
<p>If his son is anywhere near as accomplished as his daughter, he is in line to get some great merit aid at the Dickinson level. It really doesn’t hurt to apply to schools that may combine merit and need aid (yes, I know colleges do it because I’ve seen it at Smith, where my daughter attends) because it might make the difference between going to college and not. Accomplished boys, in particular, are more likely to get wooed because of a general gender imbalance.</p>
<p>‘Apply to OSU as early as possible and expect to go there. Apply Stanford SCEA, and RD to H, Y, P, and Penn.’
Aren’t these the same colleges as your D applied to?? And haven’t you said that your D was a better student[ grades, STAT’s, EC’s etc] all around than your son is? IF that is the case, WHY are you having him apply to the same 5 colleges- 4 of which are, once again, the most difficult to get into? There are many other financial safeties than OSU out there. And what about letting your son pick some “matches”?? Or does he have a say where he would potentially like to live for the next 4 years?
And it is not “less risky” applying to top schools when the chances [ risks] are statistically not in your Son’s favor- in fact he has a 95% chance of being rejected and only a 5% chance he will be accepted. How is this not risky? I see you repeating the same “Ivy or bust” thinking of 2 years ago, only this time Stanford is now an “acceptable” choice.</p>
<p>Dad II…what about some of the other instate public universities in your home state? Are you a resident of Ohio? If so, there are a number of other very fine instate public universities…Miami, Ohio University for example which might be worth considering.</p>
<p>Well now I am confused again-- earlier in this thread you said, Dad II, that the list below was your ds’s current list of schools he is interested in. I think the list you posted in post # 129 is the list you might want him to apply to. Please. let this be HIS choice, not yours.
You said his current list was:
Amherst
Case western
Cornell
Duke
OSU
Stanford SCEA</p>
<p>H,Y, P and Penn are nowhere on this list. If you are fishing for the “no loan” tuition policy of H, Y and P, they are possible as your D got that from S, but they are hard to get, as you well know.</p>
<p>And it takes very little research to find lists of schools with the best undergrad economics programs. If I were you, I’d be focusing on that list, and then see which may offer good scholarships. Here are a few CC past threads on this topic with specific posts linked too:</p>
<p>From the OP: "I have seen a couple people suggesting to building a school list from bottom up. Just how do you do that for a “very good” yet not super “top” student? "</p>
<p>If the above is correct, then the son is not as accomplished as the daughter, and HYPMS is even more than a long shot.</p>
<p>But Dad II has said that he won’t consider more advice until after the SAT/ACT results are in. Maybe time will temper the list.</p>
<p>And in post # 129, with the #'s you cite Dad II, the oop expenses for you and your child (dk if these are real numbers or not) are about $12.5 k for you and your child, plus $5k in loans (which in truth is still an out of pocket expense) and then work-study. So, You/your kid are on the hook for $17.5k right off the bat, and then has to work as well. OSU is cheaper than that, so what the heck are you complaining about with respect to a financial safety?? It IS your financial safety.</p>