I need college 101!!!

Parents Forum
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<p>Hello all. Thank you for all the help you gave me in my recent thread, "A parent, good guidance."</p>

<p>Now I know how much help I really need though! To get to my questions, let me restate (if you didn't read my previous post) that I have a very highly motivated 15 yo dgter that is gifted in many things, science and math especially. I was wanting to know how best to guide her to make sure she is ready when college time comes (she's a sophomore).</p>

<p>After some replies to my post, and a few PMs, I realize there's much to the college process I don't know, though I am researching like a crazy woman, lol! First of all, the college she was going to strive for (and a far reach I know) MIT, does not offer merit based scholarships. Oh well, there goes MIT!</p>

<p>My history.</p>

<p>Her father did not go to college, joined the workforce after HS. I never went to a 4 year university, but am a registered nurse and got my degree at our community college. My oldest daughter did not go to a university either. So now if you get the picture, everything I know about colleges is what I'm learning now!</p>

<p>Please direct me to places, books, anything, or tell me here, to find out what I need to know about colleges, such as:</p>

<p>How do you get good merit based scholarships (not one or two hundred dollars or so that the child has to jump hoops for, but good SOLID great scholarships), how do you find out if they offer them? What do you do to get them?. How good in school do you have to be to receive them? And that sort of thing.</p>

<p>How do you go about finding the best colleges for a child that loves science and math?</p>

<p>Anything you can offer me as far as suggestions will be greatly appreciated!</p>

<p>Thank you!</p>

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<p>Salem, Welcome! (Peace, a good name.) My son, an only child, is now a college junior. Your post made me think back to the start of his junior year of high school when we (I, primarily) decided it was time to take on this college thing. I am a university graduate and my son went to a high school where just about every one goes on to a four year college, but in spite of that clear advantage I was still absolutely clueless. I was just mind-boggingly naive. The good news is that you’ve a super star kid, plenty of time and access to a wide range of experience on this board. Although the process is confusing and the options are infinite, you and she WILL figure it out and this story will have a happy ending.</p>

<p>The first question I would ask is are you SURE your family won’t qualify for need based aid? Dependence on merit aid is much more restricting than supplementing costs with need based aid, so spend some time with an on line calculator and determine your estimated family contribution. If you’re right and your daughter’s going to need merit aid, then don’t despair, you’ve a super star kid, plenty of time, and access to this board.</p>

<p>Next, I would concentrate on what you outlined in your other thread i.e., guiding your daughter to expand her intellectual gifts and develop her involvement in extracurricular activities.</p>

<p>I would learn about the variety of college options available in America. Buy a few books and start reading. The Gatekeepers is a good place to start. There are a zillion others. Leaf through them and see which ones seem the most readable. </p>

<p>After you’ve read several books the acronyms begin to make sense and the same advice keeps coming around. Get good grades in demanding courses, do well on standardized tests, be an interested and interesting person. I’m going to repeat that last phrase because to me it trumps all: Be an interested and interesting person.</p>

<p>Find out what your daughter’s high school offers in the way of college counseling. Many schools have parents’ night around the end of 10th grade just to introduce the school’s policies and procedures. The caring and knowledgeable guidance counselor is invaluable; unfortunately they are few and far between. If the GC is on the weak side, never mind, I think you’ve already figured out the most important point: YOU must be your child’s advocate.</p>

<p>Don’t focus on a specific college. There are dozens of good choices. They may not be as famous as MIT (or Harvard or whatever big name strikes you) but they can still offer wonderful educations. Believe this. Educate yourself so you can help your daughter believe this. Finding good match and safety schools are the most important part of the college search process! If you require merit aid, then the complexity increases exponentially. I see it as basically schizophrenic advice: Aim high, love your safety. Believe that you can do both.</p>

<p>This summer, you and your daughter could visit a few colleges with different atmospheres – large/small, city/suburban/rural, coed/women’s, sporty, artsy, political etc. At this point don’t worry about selectivity. Just let your daughter experience different environments so that she can get an idea where to focus. </p>

<p>Once you have an idea of the general type of school that would fit your daughter’s personality you and she can compile a working list of about 30. Get a copy of USNWR’s college issue and start plodding through the statistics. I like the the Fiske Guide for information on individual colleges. By the summer before her senior year she'll be in fine shape to whittle the list down to about 10-12.</p>

<p>Good luck. Believe me, it’s a journey but it's fun and infinitely rewarding.</p>

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<p>salem - I have enjoyed reading your posts.</p>

<p>I don't know how she did it ;), but momrath managed to sum up just about everything in one post! Good job, momrath.</p>

<p>A couple addenda. You can search cc for some threads on good books to read. Reading The Gatekeepers is fun, imo, and offers real insight into the process. You don't need to read tons of books, and eventually I think you'll find that cc, right here, is a truly invaluable resource and "all you need."</p>

<p>Merit awards - the real and substantial ones - go to the applicants at the top (let's say top 10%, but it varies) of a school's applicant pool. At the schools which offer merit aid, that is. Some offer big packages to a very few students (handful), some offer decent sized packages to a larger group. I wouldn't worry about the specifics of that right now. </p>

<p>Besides doing a little reading, I think your two jobs right now are (1) to continue supporting your daughter's growth as you have discussed in your other thread and (2) beginning a slow, no-pressure exploration of the world of college and what appeals to your D. Visit a few college "types" , as momrath outlined, near where you live so she and you can get a feel of what atmosphere appeals. Things will start to fall into place more after that.</p>

<p>Once you and she have more of an idea of her criteria, come back here (and to your GC if you are fortunate to have a quality one) and we can begin to help you focus on specific schools which meet the criteria and which would be merit-aid possibilities for your D.</p>

<p>Btw, have you told us what state you are in and whether your state U is a viable option for your D in terms of its quality and price?</p>

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<p>Salem,</p>

<p>I did my own college applications over 30 years ago and didn't realize how things had changed. We didn't even start thinking seriously about college until second semester of my daughter's junior year. A friend gave me a few books and I realized how much I didn't know. I devoured them all and joined here in March. Now I know more than my daughter's college advisor (which really isn't saying much ;)).</p>

<p>You are starting at a good time. Read the threads here and do searches on topics and schools your child may be interested in. In no time you'll be one of the cognoscenti giving others advice.</p>

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<p>Momrath - what a super post!!!</p>

<p>Salem, The parent's first job, as Momrath said, is to learn as much about college financing as possible, figure out how that relates to your own personal situation using the financial aid calculators, then convey that to your children - be open with her on what hte money is going to look like.
Dartmouth has a good online calculator, and so does ?Penn. You can also go to the FAFSA.gov site and printout the FAFSA worksheet. Taking a tax return and actually cranking out the numbers will give you a much better idea of whether you have to go the merit aid direction. If the EFC (what the family is expected to pay) from the FAFSA makes you faint, then you are probably going to look for merit aid. If you don't own a lot of property, or a small business, or work in sales/real estate, etc. the FAFSA will probably be pretty accurate for your situation at actual college time.</p>

<p>If you find that merit aid will probably be the way to go, look at the websites of Southwestern in Dallas, ?DePauw University, and the Univ of Alabama, searching under scholarships. It may take some digging, but these are 3 schools that have formulas for scholarships - X money for Y grades and scores - whic is one way merit aid is stretched out among many students. Other colleges give fewer, but larger scholarships to superstar students - Emory is somewhat like this. I'm not suggesting these schools as schools - more as concrete examples to look at and compare your child with.</p>

<p>Parent's job #2 - don't let you or your child fall in love with any school right now! There are many good schools, honestly, the big names are excellent, but MIT is not the only great place to get a science education, and may not be the right place for your child.</p>

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<p>Salem:</p>

<p>Momrath provided a great summary. A couple of additions. Since you mentioned that some summer programs would be too expensive, I have the feeling that your daughter would qualify for need-based aid at some of the top colleges that do not offer merit aid. For example, at Harvard, the average family income for students on financial aid is 80k and some students have families making 150k. Some 70% of Harvard students are said to have some financial aid. It depends partly on family circumstances. The financial aid package will include grants and loans.</p>

<p>Your daughter should apply to some schools that are excellent but not as selective as HYPSM. A couple of years ago, Evil Robot got admitted EA to Yale, but eventually settled for Vanderbilt because Vandy gave him more financial aid. He came back on CC to report he was very very happy at Vandy as a comp sci major.</p>

<p>Some state universities' honors programs offer full rides to some of their admits. Many state universities have rolling admissions, so it pays to apply early (in September and October). </p>

<p>All this is down the line. I would not exclude super-selective schools from your D's list, especially if MIT is her dream school, but she should have a well-balanced list that includes reaches, matches and safeties. As other parents have said many times on CC, a safety (or good bet) is a school that a student would be happy to attend and parents can afford to pay for. For excellent students, there are quite a few of these, fortunately!</p>

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<p>Not to keep harping on the MIT point (obviously I'm biased ;) ), but one of MIT's financial aid officers keeps a very helpful and informative financial</a> aid blog.</p>

<p>While there's little merit aid offered at top schools (eep, who would get it? too many smart kids!), financial aid at schools with large endowments can often be very refreshing. Around 75% of MIT undergrads receive some form of financial assistance.</p>

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<p>Great advice above. In addition to the books metioned, look at "Colleges that Change Lives." Once you have an initial list the best advice I can give is to poke around on each college's admdission's site. A world of informaition is waiting for you to hunt it down. You can also find details on merit aid and sometimes even profiles of past winners of specific scholarships. Several state uni's are very generous with aid for National Merit Finalists. There are threads here with a lot of that information. </p>

<p>I have also found that when asking questions here, the more specific your question the more useful the responses as posters can get right to the issue rather than generalizing. So doing a little research first may yield more helpful information, plus you'll be learning more about this whole process. </p>

<p>I agree that you should look at the FAFSA and use one of the online calculators to determine your eligibility for financial aid. However, be aware that your child's financial aid may consist only of loans and work study rather than grants or other money which doesn't have to be paid back. So when you read that a high percentage of students receive financial aid, or when a college says their school can be affordable, understand what that will mean to your family. If it costs $40,000/year and your financial aid is all loans, you will have to decide if that is affordable. What you think you can comfortably pay and what you are expected to pay may be miles apart. Good luck.</p>

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<p>Also, some colleges are extremely proud to admit and provide aid to students who are the first in their family to attend a 4-year college. </p>

<p>What you feel may be a liability now (because you feel you know less about the process than other families) may be the very thing that gets your daughter an extra look when it comes to award money, particularly if there are scholarships which have this as a qualification.</p>

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<p>School-based merit aid generally goes to kids that a college would not normally be able to attract. It does not go to kids who are good solid matches for a particular college. So the kid who could easily get accepted at MIT, for instance, might get merit aid from Duke. The kid who could easily get accepted at Duke might get merit aid at a state school, etc. That's why the very top schools (Ivies, MIT, Stanford) do not do merit aid. Caltech does some merit aid. Generally they are looking for the unbelievable superstar kids (international math/science plympiad medalists, Intel winners, etc). But they also have some merit aid for underpresented minorities, which includes girls.</p>

<p>Some of the specialized summer programs are free to participants. They tend to be highly selective, however. RSI, for instance, is harder to get into than any college. Look at that one, and and Women in Technology for summer after junior year. There's another one for girls only in Lincoln, Nebraska that you should look at for summer after sophomore year. Here's a list:
<a href="http://www.ams.org/employment/mathcamps.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ams.org/employment/mathcamps.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Salem: does she have any idea what she might want to major in? Is she more of a pure math and science type, or is engineering a possibility?</p>

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<p>Sorry, I just found and read your previous thread. Since she is considering engineering I would suggest looking at Olin College in Needham, MA. It's a new, small engineering school. Every admitted student is given a full-tuition scholarship. It's awesome :)</p>

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<p>Olin is an excellent suggestion. I've heard very good things about it, and they are committed to a 50-50 gender ratio, which would help girls. There's also a college in NYC that I'm blanking on the name of that has free tuition for everyone and offers engineering and art. Help on name?</p>

<p>I also want to reiterate the advaice you ahve already received about need-based aid. Colleges don't necessarily make it comfortable for families to send their kids to expensive schools, but there are certainly enough of them that will make it possible that there is no reason to assume that your child cannot go to an expensive school unless they receive merit aid.</p>

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<p>Cooper Union is the college I couldn't think of.</p>

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<p>I found this article to be very helpful in broadening my perspective on science education. It is by Thomas R. Cech, winner 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This is may be of some interest since many LAC's provide merit aid.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.collegenews.org/prebuilt/daedalus/cech_article.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegenews.org/prebuilt/daedalus/cech_article.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>
[quote]
cangel writes: Parent's job #2 - don't let you or your child fall in love with any school right now! There are many good schools, honestly, the big names are excellent, but MIT is not the only great place to get a science education, and may not be the right place for your child.

[/quote]
I think this is wonderful advice! Too many kids grab onto a well-known name early in the college search and it can be hard to shake this attachment even when it was formed without a lot of consideration. Cialdini (well known researcher in persuasion) writes about "committment and consistency" that takes over once we've declared a choice for something. </p>

<p>So cangel hit it right on the head; don't let a kid (or yourself) pick any particular school at this stage. What's appropriate now is researching. Learn about the options out there, and visit samples of each to get a feel for what might be right. This means a large U, a smaller U, and a LAC. It means urban, suburban, and rural. You don't have to visit the exact ones you may be considering, just a representative one to get a feel.</p>

<p>Also since you're early in the education process about schools, I'd recommend "Looking Beyond the Ivy League" by Pope which makes a persuasive case for LACs, and "A is For Admission" by Hernandez who was an adrep at an Ivy.</p>

<p>For the College101 part of this post, my advice is to make your search a top-down one instead of bottom-up. Already you'll see posters supplying names of colleges to consider, but that's a hit-or-miss bottom-up approach. Instead once you've done some research and learned about the college landscape, start to put together a list of criteria. List the "must-haves", "would like", and just and importantly the "not for me". For some examples of items that might end up on a list: a study-abroad program, guaranteed housing, each student assigned an advisor, a greek system, music classes open to non-majors, an active internship program, alums available to advise current students, class size, profs available to help students, whether TAs are used and if so whether they are fluent in english. Give some time and attention to the list, and check out the ideas when you visit the sample colleges. Only then, when you know what a good fit would look like, should you begin to look for names of colleges. A systematic search at this point will turn up many more colleges than just the names that may be suggested here (and all those as well), with the added benefit that you'll know a good match when you see it.</p>

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<p>I think that the idea of not falling in love with a school is (in theory) great. At the same time, it's been my experience that deciding not to fall in love with a school works about as well as deciding not to fall in love with a person. </p>

<p>Of course, I'm talking more about the falling in love with a school that happens when you discover a school that perfectly matches what you want and need, not falling in love with Yale because it's an Ivy.</p>

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<p>one more bit of advice is for your daughter to take the time to explore her interests and find out what fascinates her. You've said she's strong in math and science, but too many of these kids get steered into careers that may not be the best fit for them. At 16 or 17, of course, its hard to know the perfect course; as an adult I still wonder :) But as an adult you can help her widen her horizons. </p>

<p>As a nurse you probably see people doing dozens and dozens of jobs that most kids aren't aware exist (technicians, managers in all different areas, accountants, physical therapy, etc) , and that's just in one career area. So as she prepares for college, help her get general ideas of the kinds of work she wants to do.</p>

<p>There is a great article about this I want to post: its titled "Are You Deciding on Purpose" and its at <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/online/13/ldrplus.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.fastcompany.com/online/13/ldrplus.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>What wonderful, wonderful advice I have received here! I feel I've hit an absolute goldmine at this site!! Thank you all so much! You all have given me so much information and links and I am eagerly reading and gathering. Thank you again! I will definitely be a regular here.</p>

<p>I will be asking many of you questions......</p>