<p>@mom2collegekids Thats not true in the slightest. Getting into competitive residencies is considerably easier from elite med schools. There is no doubt that any US med school is very good but attending one means almost certainly having trouble getting the most competitive residencies. </p>
<p>Everyday, mom2, neuroscientists are learning a little bit more about how incapable the young adult brain is of considering large numbers in concrete terms. But parents have known this for ages: after all, what experience has the OP had with debt? OP has probably never borrowed a thousand dollars from a family member let alone a bank. Has the IRS ever written OP a tax return for a thousand dollars? If OP cannot make concrete a thousand, what’s 15, 30, or 120 thousand in debt to most ops? </p>
<p>What is perhaps more disturbing, as you say, is that there are middle-aged adults who, when it comes to sending the ops to college, also seem to have no conception of what $120K in (additional) debt will do to them and their family members for a very long time. They have little excuse. </p>
<p>“So you are saying that attending a school with a super high acceptance rate that is generally quite easy. . .”</p>
<p>Hmm. I can think of . . . . Harvard. Anyone else?</p>
<p>Stanford (as of a few years ago), did not have a high med school acceptance rate.</p>
<p>I know no one who calls Rice easy.</p>
<p>
Their families take out private loans ($$$). The ~$27K limit applies to federal student loans.</p>
<p>Below are net cost estimates from College Abacus, using hypothetical inputs for the following kinds of schools:
- an in-state public university (Pittsburgh)
- a selective, expensive private school that does not claim to cover full need (Goucher)
- two very selective, expensive private schools that claims to cover 100% of demonstrated need (Bryn Mawr, Colby)
- an out-of-state public university that guarantees full tuition (not full ride) scholarships for high stats (Alabama)
- an out-of-state public university with generous merit scholarships, including full ride (Kentucky)
- two super selective, expensive private schools that claim to cover 100% of demonstrated need (UPenn,Yale)</p>
<p>Assumptions
PA resident
$120,000 family income (split evenly between married parents); $0K in untaxed income
$100,000 in financial assets; $24K in cash/checking
$100K in net home equity (house purchased in the year 2000 for $170K; $65K owed)
$200K net assets (any major debts are against home equity)
$12K paid in federal income taxes
$12K itemized deductions
3 children (including applicant; siblings aged 8, 10, 14)
GPA=4.0, SAT M+CR=1450
Fall 2016 admission</p>
<p>Estimated Net Costs of Attendance
$29,732 University of Pittsburgh ($0 aid; in state)
$26,750 Goucher College ($25,700 total aid)
$19,919 University of Pennsylvania ($41,881 total aid, all in institutional grants)
$19,175 Bryn Mawr ($42,795 total aid)
$18,104 University of Alabama ($23,950 total aid)
$17,110 Colby ($42,400 total aid, all in institutional grants)
$14,832 U Kentucky ($20K institutional scholarship)
$11,945 Yale ($49,355 total aid)</p>
<p>Your Mileage May Vary.</p>
<p>If my assumptions are close to the OP’s reality, then in my opinion her best shot may be at selective (not super selective) colleges like Colby that claim to cover full demonstrated need. ~$17K may be doable (but still very difficult) with work study, loans, and a small family contribution. The OP’s safety may need to be a local commuter college. Or aim for a full ride scholarship from a less selective school (<a href=“http://www.thecollegiateblog.org/2012/12/09/national-universities-that-offer-full-ride-scholarship/”>Loading...)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Of course, PA is probably the worst state to be in terms of net price for in-state public universities.</p>
<p>@BrownParent
Really? How on earth can you possibly presume to know that?</p>
<p>@emmi16
My kids face the same dilemma you do. There are 8 of them spread over 21 yrs, so their college yrs overlap very little. We cannot afford to help them as much as universities think we should be able to. </p>
<p>Your EFC (estimated family contribution,the amt your family will have to pay AFTER your student loans and grants), which you should be able to determine on the individual college net price calculators, is the differential amt you have to come up with.</p>
<p>We refuse to take out loans, and we refuse to cosign for them. So for our kids, it boils down to where they can afford to go. Prestige is not even a real consideration. Tk21769’s list gives a possible breakdown for what you can expect things to look like for various schools, but reality is that if you can’t afford $12,000 (or whatever your EFC is) regardless of how great that sounds relative to the others, you can’t afford $12,000. (Though where he came up with the number for UA, I have no idea bc that # is too high; it should be closer to $12,000-14,000 or less if you get dept scholarships, honors program scholarships, or choose to live in a cheaper dorm.)</p>
<p>You didn’t post your test scores that I could see, but if your GPA scores stay high and you test well, you might want to consider looking at high merit aid schools. It is a route my kids have to take. Or they can live at home and attend the local university. Our ds who just graduated from high school ended up with 3 financially real options. One he eliminated after visiting the dept at the school. One was our local university where he has dual enrolled and the dept offered him full ride in attempt to recruit him to stay here, and the other was UA where he was awarded enough scholarship to attend full ride and he was accepted into one of their specialty honors programs which focuses on research. Research is his goal, so he is thrilled.</p>
<p>Alternatively, he was accepted into some really great schools, but with the next lowest option $23,000/yr excluding his direct loans and work study, which is really adding several thousand dollars on top of that #.</p>
<p>So, definitely look into merit aid schools. And since you are a rising jr, I would spend time studying for the PSAT this summer. A high score on the PSAT would open up more scholarship $$$.</p>
<p><<<
Thats not true in the slightest. Getting into competitive residencies is considerably easier from elite med schools
<<<</p>
<p>getting into competitive residencies is more about being in the top quartile (or decile) of one’s med school class, step scores, lor’s. My son’s med school doesn’t give grades (many don’t) but they are frequently told what quartile they are in to give them a heads-up when it comes time to apply for residencies.</p>
<p>Unless a student is MD/PhD, the name of the US MD school is largely irrelevant. MD education in this country is flat.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As I indicated above, the numbers are from College Abacus (using the inputs I specified). College Abacus gets its numbers from each school’s Net Price Calculator. It allows users to run estimates on up to 3 colleges at a time.</p>
<p>When I’ve posted these break-downs in the past, I have seen similar comments about lowering costs (by living in cheaper dorms, etc.) The same advice might apply to other schools besides Alabama as well. As I wrote above, “Your Mileage May Vary”. </p>
<p><<<</p>
<h1>Though where he came up with the number for UA, I have no idea bc that # is too high; it should be closer to $12,000-14,000 or less if you get dept scholarships, honors program scholarships, or choose to live in a cheaper dorm.</h1>
<p>As I indicated above, the numbers are from College Abacus (using the inputs I specified). College Abacus gets its numbers from each school’s Net Price Calculator. It allows users to run estimates on up to 3 colleges at a time.
<<<<</p>
<p>COAs can be sooo misleading sometimes when schools offer a variety of housing and meal plan options. Some schools will include the priciest options in their COAs so that aid/loans can be obtained to cover those costs. that can be misleading to the budget-minded person who would be happy in a standard double and will opt for a cheaper but adequate meal plan when possible.</p>
<p>UA does use an inflated COA to cover those options. The standard doubles dorms are a few thousand less than the super-suites. And since a meal-plan isnt req’d after frosh year (the frosh plan is expensive), the later 3 years can easily be a couple grand cheaper. </p>
<p>As a PA student there are some direct to medical school options you could look into which would lower your overall cost because it would lower the number of years you spend in school. Penn State and Drexel each have a program. Obviously your stats would need to be top notch for these programs and you would also need to be 100% sure that medicine is what you want:</p>
<p><a href=“http://drexel.edu/coas/academics/undergraduate/medicalSchool/”>http://drexel.edu/coas/academics/undergraduate/medicalSchool/</a>
<a href=“http://science.psu.edu/premed/premedmed”>http://science.psu.edu/premed/premedmed</a></p>
<p>Also, my husband went to medical school on a full Navy scholarship. If medicine is what you want, there are ways to do it without incurring large amounts of debt. Here is they Army’s info but the Navy and Air Force have HPSP scholarships as well:</p>
<p><a href=“Army Medical Scholarships | goarmy.com”>http://www.goarmy.com/amedd/education/hpsp.html</a></p>
<p>Finally, the military has a completely free medical school of its own. Not only is it tuition free, but you are paid an officers salary while in medical school. Currently that salary is about $60,000 per year. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.usuhs.edu/medschool/somfaq.html”>http://www.usuhs.edu/medschool/somfaq.html</a></p>
<p>I ran the NPC on the University of Alabama’s own site, using the same information as above, except that UA does not request all of the same items that College Abacus requested in my query for multiple colleges. For example, the UA NPC does not request information related to home equity. I specified that the parents had $124K in financial assets.</p>
<p>The resulting estimate from the NPC was exactly the same as above: $18,104.
Costs include:
$23950 tuition
$800 course fees
$600 dining dollars
$8800 residence hall
$3156 meal plan
$300 parking decal
$1200 books and supplies
$1374 transportation
$1874 miscellaneous</p>
<h2>-$23950 Presidential Scholarship</h2>
<p>$18,104 net
This appears to be a calculation for 2013-14; these figures may be higher than what some parents paid in previous years; your costs may be higher still in future years.</p>
<p>Of course, one can make assumptions about cost-saving opportunities (cheaper meal plan, etc.)
For purposes of early, apples-to-apples comparison shopping, my inclination would be to stick to the colleges’ own estimates (rather than trying to apply inside knowledge to deflate some schools’ prices but not others.) Although I would agree that for many colleges (including many expensive private colleges), after the first year especially, one might be able to do much better than ~$12K/year+ for room and board.</p>
<p>emmi16, regarding affordability, I would pay most attention to the numbers posted by tk. If the COA is $60K per year at some school that claims to meet need, a huge merit scholarship of $35K per year with a family EFC of $20K is not going to be enough for you. There ARE automatic merit/full tuition schools like Alabama where you could put together the federal loan, a work study job, possibly additional awards, and whatever your parents will contribute and cover everything. There are also schools that claim to “meet need,” but what they mean by that is that your family will be expected to take out loans every year in addition to your federal loan. They call these loans that they award you “financial aid.” That obviously will not do. What you need to do is identify the schools that meed need <em>without loans</em> or with very low amounts and where the typical student graduates with less than $20,000 in debt. (The lower the better.) Those schools are very difficult to get into.</p>
<p>Your big problem, financially, would appear to be that your parents have a good income right now, but haven’t saved significantly for your education for one reason or another–the reason doesn’t matter much at this point, and believe me, I know that things happen to people that upset their plans–and are not willing or able to contribute much out of current income. Colleges are most likely going to expect them to contribute more than they are planning to do. Clearly, the best hope for you is to gain entrance to a school like Yale, which give superb FA to middle class families. But that is very, very difficult, with acceptance rates in the single digits. You have a sufficiently good GPA, and good ECs, by the sound of it. You will need top notch test scores, either ACT or SAT. Having good scores will also help you qualify for big merit awards at schools such as Pitt and Alabama. The better your stats, the wider your options. Something else you will need–for the deep-pockets private schools especially–is course rigor. They are not going to take a student who has a 4.0 in standard college prep track courses if the HS offered honors and AP also and the student didn’t take them.</p>
<p>I would suggest that you ask your parents whether they have a dollar amount in mind that they will contribute, rather than “paying for books.” The amount students actually pay for books varies widely.</p>
<p>Another online resource to look at is ucan-network.org It is a great source of snapshot essential admissions and financial information. Not all schools participate, but many do. One thing it shows is the average indebtedness of students at graduation. At Pomona, an elite LAC with great FA, the figure is about $13K. At U Penn, the figure is about $19K. At Colby, which someone mentioned in this thread, the figure is about $25K.</p>
<p>I would caution about depending on ROTC totally if admitted. The military academies have students that drop out, and the funding cut-backs this spring left some undergrad ROTC students out of the program and paying back money to the gov’t. This past year, the Air Force Academy has one of two ‘slots’ for an undergrad there to go on to med school paid by gov’t. Some students are on 3 year UG ROTC scholarships instead of four (because so many drop out during the first year) - so a student participates with ROTC first year, then goes on to scholarship second year.</p>
<p>As stated by other posters, the SAT/ACT have to compliment the GPA.</p>
<p>Since you are entering junior year, you have time to explore more about schools that are feasible for you both on admission and cost of attending (level of merit). If you took the PSAT as a sophomore, you may have an idea of how easily you may be able to make National Merit scores for your state. National Merit (and National Hispanic) provide additional options for merit.</p>
<p>Be sure to test on ACT and SAT, as some students do better on one test than the other.</p>
<p>Make yourself very desirable for colleges to want to have you come to their school. Lots of info on CC about how to do that. </p>
<p>Maybe your GC is overloaded and just assumes your family can provide the finances for an elite school. Tap out all the info you can, but realize that many students have been directed to schools by GC, and the GC and HS are not footing the bill!</p>
<p>Hopefully you can do some college visits to get a feel for different sized schools - at least visit the ones geographically close that are easy for you to get to. Look and learn using www.</p>
<p>Good luck. @emmi16 - you have some things to think through. If you do not test well on SAT/ACT, look to ways to improve your scores (you can see what a difference it means with merit at various schools). Also correlation with how you may test with MCAT when that time comes…</p>
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<p>I can understand that, and that is fine for many schools that dont have a variety of dorm/meal prices. However, if one school only offers standard doubles and a 14 meal/week plan, I dont think it is fair to compare with upgraded plans elsewhere.</p>
<p><<<<
Maybe your GC is overloaded and just assumes your family can provide the finances for an elite school. Tap out all the info you can, but realize that many students have been directed to schools by GC, and the GC and HS are not footing the bill!
<<<</p>
<p>GCs are the last people to depend on for affordability issues.</p>
<p>^^^exactly right, @mom2collegekids, I remain astonished that year after year at our high school GCs get up on stage and give parents no clue how to go about thinking about college costs. Instead, all these shiny baubles are put in front of them as if they could afford any of them when they quite likely cannot afford one. Oh, we were told to get loans and fill out the FA forms, but nothing about net price calculators, need-based aid, the middle-class crunch, that merit goes to loans and FA before making a dent in EFC, etc. In talking to my kids’ GC, there was no consideration of money; everything was about how good a school could each get into or which schools would be a better fit–as if fit could somehow ignore ability to pay. I don’t mean that the GCs need to know our financial situation or that we should want to share that, but it would be nice to have a heads-up that some people making between 80-200K/yr are going to struggle mightily to pay for college. Left to our own devices, my wife and I were willing to wander around the Magical Kingdom until the FA packages came in. Just some hard facts instead of all the pablum would be nice. There, I feel better.</p>
<p>
I am having difficulty following the reasoning behind this post. It seems as though the terms military academy, Air Force Academy and ROTC are being used incorrectly. How does what happens (and when) at a service academy affect a ROTC student?</p>
<p>@jkeil911 </p>
<p>I know that many GCs are told not to discuss any particular student’s financial situation, but I dont understand the reluctance, when in groups of students/parents, to provide hand-outs with some of this basic stuff…NPCs, merit scholarship sources, etc.</p>
<p>If I were a happily full pay parent sitting in a crowd, I certainly wouldnt be offended if the GC said something like: Most schools do not give much aid, no matter whether you need the aid or not. Here is a hand-out that provides info for those who want merit based scholarships to reduce costs, and a hand-out for those whose financial situations may qualify them for aid at certain schools. </p>
<p>@aglages, I believe @SOSConcern was trying to say funding across military education is being cut.</p>
<p>I agree Erin’s Dad about funding across military education being cut. Just couldn’t understand how it was being explained. </p>