Ideas for rising senior with 35 ACT, good ECs, challenging classes but less impressive grades

Parent Cafe
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We have 3 kids (18, 17 and 15, so they’ll all be in college at the same time for at least one year) and have told the kids that total cost of $25k is all we can afford without them taking on debt. We are Maryland residents. Our oldest is going to Ohio State this fall. With scholarships his tuition, fees, R&B are around $25K. He had grades and test scores that were in sync so with him I could get a good idea of what our cost would be online. He only applied to 4 schools (He didn’t want to graduate with debt so only applied to schools we knew were in our budget).

I believe the FAFSA family contribution said $65K. So except for a chance of getting need-based aid that one year that all three kids are in college, we need to look to merit aid not need-based aid.

Our 17-year-old had a 35 ACT composite (in one try). His PSAT looks like it won’t quite be in NM range for our state. He retook the SAT in May so he doesn’t have that score yet but I don’t foresee it being a stronger score than the 35 ACT.

He is in a Project Lead The Way (engineering) curriculum. He is also taking a Java class that he is enjoying. He says he wants to study engineering.

He’s active in the school band, plays Ultimate Frisbee, is almost an Eagle Scout, he tutors and life guards.

AP classes:
Junior year
AP Physics C Mechanics
AP Calc AB
AP English 11 (took the test but didn’t take the class-it was our compromise)
Senior year (planned)
AP Physics C E&M
AP Calc BC
AP Econ Macro
AP Computer Science
If he does well on this year’s AP English exam, he will take the AP English 12 test as a senior. But either way he is not taking the AP class

His current weighted GPA is 4.04, and unweighted is 3.29

Because his ACT score is in great merit-aid range and his grades aren’t, I’m thinking that he is better off applying to a larger number of schools and seeing if he gets a good scholarship.

He currently plans to apply to U of Maryland, UMBC, WVU, and Ohio State. I am not a big fan of him attending Ohio State, because I think the oldest needs some space and having his younger brother there is not for the best. He has visits planned for Clemson and U of South Carolina this summer. He plans to schedule visits to Florida, USF and UCF. He may visit Rutgers. I told him he could probably get a good scholarship at Alabama, but he hasn’t scheduled a tour theee yet. It does seem a bit hard to get to. He doesn’t want a small school. I can’t provide much more info on what he is looking for because he doesn’t seem to know. He does seem to like strong school spirit. I personally favor a school that won’t involve 10+ hr travel time to get to from Central MD.

I’m looking for ideas of other schools to apply that he could go to in our $25k budget for tuition, fees and board. If it somewhere that would involve high travel cost that would reduce the 25K budget.

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I know it’s further than you’d like, but his stats get him full tuition at Ole Miss.

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Honestly I wouldn’t worry about having two kids at Ohio State. It is such a huge school that they won’t be on top of each other. My younger brother went to my college (which had about a third the number of students as Ohio State) – he had a different major and we had to pretty much make an appointment to meet for lunch once in a while.

4

Look at Alabama too. Also LSU. He might be close to full tuition at Univ of Alabama.
The max scholarship at Clemson is $15,000 and even with his phenomenal ACT, his grades may keep him from that. They want top 10% (or close to) for $15,000 scholarship - at least that’s my understanding.
You could apply to Rice? I don’t know how his grades would look there, but they do work with you to make college affordable without debt. It is exceptional in that regard.

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@aggiesomeday123 You are correct that in order to qualify for the 15,000 scholarship at Clemson, they expect top 10%. His current GPA may also knock him out of acceptance , as well as merit. Clemson has gotten increasingly competitive for admission over the past 3-4 years with applications consistently rising .

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University of Alabama campuses in Tuscaloosa and Huntsville have large scholarships, but you need to ask if and how they use GPA (i.e. whether weighted is used and whether it is taken from your high school or recalculated).

http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out-of-state.php
http://www.uah.edu/admissions/undergraduate/financial-aid/scholarships/merit-tuition-scholarships

The same goes for Tuskegee in terms of checking weighted versus unweighted GPA use:

http://www.tuskegee.edu/scholarships/freshman_scholarships.aspx

Louisiana Tech has large scholarships that need a 3.0 GPA and 32 ACT.

http://admissions.latech.edu/tuition_fees/scholarships/freshman-scholarships.php

7

Is he looking only at big state schools?

I’ve seen (localish) LACs where that test score means a big discount (though, granted, total cost would still run 30K-35K, but that would mean a manageable amount of loans).

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Huntsville uses weighted GPA. I believe a 4.0/35 would yield full tuition plus on campus housing. Housing is tight, but a new dorm is under construction and should open within about a year. Net should be under 10k per year including board, books, travel, and the occasional run to Ted’s BBQ or Checkers or whatever. Has 5 year plan for MS degrees in several fields.

Research at NASA Marshall, Redstone Arsenal, or Cummings Research park all either adjacent to or within a few miles of campus.
The school exists because Von Braun went to the state legislature and told them that they needed more scientists if the Apollo.program was to succeed. Scientists needed training. Professors wouldn’t abandon research to move to Huntsville, ergo Huntsville needed a research university.
With around 8000 students, it isn’t small, but it isn’t huge.

Edit: I should add that due to the nature of the work in Huntsville, I’m told there are a number of direct flights from HSV to the DC airports. Campus is 10 miles or.so from HSV.

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They will not be on top of each other at Ohio State with 50k students!

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Where do his grades put him with regards to the rest of his class? Even if the school doesn’t rank, the HS info will often report percentiles (e.g.10th percentile is a weighted 4.2 or whatever). If he is high enough, he may be eligible for merit aid at OOS schools. If not, U Maryland is a great school. Hopefully, he can get in.

Does Rutgers offer OOS merit money? Not clear on that.

The southern schools tend to be less expensive and may offer more merit money than schools in the NE. Good luck!

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He goes to a very competitive HS. There is no way he will be in the top 10%. My recent HS grad was just shy of top 10% with a GPA that was much much higher (0.4 point higher if I recall correctly). I’m hoping for top 25%.

12

I heard Rutgers is highly regarded in Math. And he is amazing in math and extremely analytical (so I suggested he consider big data career fields). Not sure how much aid they provide but it’s an easy school to visit.

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Do not expect need-based aid as an out-of-state student at Rutgers. Rutgers does have scholarships, but even the largest one (which is presumably very competitive) will leave a remaining cost barely within your price limit. So Rutgers should be considered a super-reach (for the largest scholarship, since that is the only way it will be affordable).

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He seems to like big schools.

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<<<<
We have 3 kids (18, 17 and 15, so they’ll all be in college at the same time for at least one year) and have told the kids that total cost of $25k is all we can afford without them taking on debt. W
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Can you clarify?

do you mean $25k per kid PER year? So…some years you’ll be paying $50k per year, and one year you’ll be paying $75k?

Or do you mean when you have 2 and 3 in college at the same time, you can only pay $25k TOTAL for those years ( $25k divided by 2, and divided by 3 during those years)

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$25k annually for each kid. So (yikes) that means a few $50K years and one $75K year. We have told them this is only good for 4 years (which should be achievable because of AP credits). Fortunately we have been putting away money their whole lives. They have to buy their own books. And put up a small amount of money each semester that they’ll get back if they earn good grades (maybe 3.2 ish, we need to see what makes sense, my goal is to encourage them to make academics a priority) and maintain a 15-16 hr course load for the semester. So they can use the same pot of money each semester if they do it right. I knew too many students when I was in school who dropped courses left and right whenever they weren’t doing well. Trying to discourage that and to make them realize that they’re wasting our money and theirs if they do this.

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You are all amazing! Thank you for all your insight on this. Keep the ideas coming.

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You’re right, I need to be open minded on the idea of him going to the same school as his brother (who is one year older than him). It happens that they do have a ton of overlapping interests and possibly the same major so it’s not a complete non issue but it’s probably (okay, most likely definitely) a bigger deal in my mind than in reality.

19

Rowan University in Southern NJ has invested a lot of $$ into its campus and engineering programs in recent years, and its academic reputation is on the rise regionally. OOS Tuition, fees, room and board totalled approx. $34k this past year, and they do offer merit aid, up to full tuition. Your son might get enough merit to get costs down to your price range.

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One more voice chiming in that no one needs “room” to avoid one individual at Ohio State. As long as they don’t pledge the same fraternity or something, they’ll have as much room as they want.