<p>S is a senior at a CA top public school (US News ranks it top 100). After some research this summer, here is his list.</p>
<p>His stat:
Unweighted gpa - 4.0
Weighted gpa - not sure how his school weights
UC gpa - 4.45
Completed 6 AP/Honors and taking 5 this year
SAT I - 2290 (CR 710, Math 790, Writing 790)
SAT II - Chem 800, Math II 790, US History 750
EC - the usual, sports, volunteer</p>
<p>Colleges:
Safety - UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, UC San Diego
Match - University of Michigan, USC, UC Berkeley, UCLA
Reach - Yale, Princeton, Brown</p>
<p>Wondering why UMich is on it. Would you be willing to pay double what a UC will cost for him to go there? They offer little in the way of aid to OOS students.</p>
<p>If money is an issue, you may want to add more private schools that meet full need and do so more generously than USC. Depending on his rank, with a slightly higher CR score he’d be in the running for the generous aid schools that could cost less than UCs if you have a low EFC.</p>
<p>The ivies will want a higher CR score, will he be retaking? With limited ECs, he may want to shoot for ivies below HYP.</p>
<p>Thank you fauve and hmom for your feedback.</p>
<p>UMich because it is dad’s alma mater. Michigan is like second home to us with family there. We have pictures of S wearing Go Blue clothes at several months old. But I do see your point of the OOS tuition.</p>
<p>Like many others, we probably won’t qualify for need based aid but paying for college won’t be an easy task. Any suggestion for merit based aid colleges for student like S would be much appreciated.</p>
<p>S has no plan of taking any more test. We visited all the UCs and UMich. Although he has preferences, he can see himself in all of them. He wants a big college because he likes people, sports and activities. He wants to be at a more urban area not too close to home. He said he is moving away to college so anything within an hour is too close. I told him I promise I won’t visit often. :)</p>
<p>I think he realizes that his chances at the ivies are low.</p>
<p>With his stats, he could get some merit $$ at some privates and some OOS schools. Therefore, if paying for USC ($53k+ per year), UMich ($48K per year - Wow!! a lot of $$$ for state school), or even a UC school ($27k a year) may be an issue…you need some “back ups” :)</p>
<p>Since you say that paying for college won’t be easy (and many of S’s choices will cost over $200,000 for undergrad), you should at least include a few schools as a Financial Safeties.</p>
<p>Is this your only child? Will you ever have 2 or more kids in college at the same time (I have 2 in college right now).</p>
<p>BusyMei, I think the list looks great. There is a lot of balance and a lot of potential opportunities for your son. I would definitely leave Michigan on the list! I have the same pictures of daughters and when I lived outside of Michigan would not have hesitated to pay the OOS tuition if they were fortunate enough to be admitted and wanted to go there. hmom5 has a demonstrated bias against OOS tuition at public universities. Friends of ours from Chicago had the same bias until their daughter enrolled at Michigan - she loves it and so do they. I would let your son make the choice.</p>
<p>All of you gave such good advice and I really appreciate the different perspectives.</p>
<p>I think it has been the hardest to find financial safties. Colleges that might offer S merit aid that S actually wants to go to. I am trying to go through posts here to see what I can come up with. I think we can help pay for a UC education, we would have to think long and hard beyond that.</p>
<p>Younger S is a high school freshman. Older D is lost in life, moved out, working part time at a minimum wage job and going to community college part time (another long story for another thread).</p>
<p>Ok…so you say you can “help” with UC costs, but not much beyond that.</p>
<p>Does that mean that you can pay for all of the UC costs (about $28k per year), or that you can pay for some of that? If you can only pay for some of the cost, how will the rest be paid? You will have 2 in college when S is a senior, so you’ll have to also consider that.</p>
<p>I know first hand how hard it can be with financial safeties. When DS1 was in high school, he only had eyes for top (unaffordable) schools. My son also had top stats and therefore he felt he “earned” the right to go anywhere he wanted. He even made some comment like, “Why did I work so hard if I don’t get to go to a top school?” We had to talk him out of his threats to just take out a bunch of student loans for all the costs beyond what we could pay. We didn’t want him burdened with $140,000+ in student loans from undergrad costs. </p>
<p>Finally, I literally had to “lay down the law” and insist that we visit some financial safeties to add to his “list” of potential schools. Thankfully, after visiting some “good school” financial safeties, DS1 was able to find 2 that he liked. It was also good to know that if he went to a financial safety that the schools were strong enough that he could always go to a top school for grad school.</p>
<p>Have you had a “heart to heart” talk with your son about school costs and finances? My son had a hard time remembering not to just look at tuition costs; I had to keep reminding him to look at all the costs…tuition, room, board, books, fees, misc, etc. Seriously, there are some fine schools that would give your son some nice merit scholarships. Certainly, your son doesn’t want to later find out that he can’t afford to go any of the schools on his list. Right?</p>
<p>Which financial safeties have you discussed so far with your son? Maybe some people here could come up with some more suggestions. There are some very good financial safeties out there…</p>
<p>res,
I think hmom’s comment has a lot more to do with common sense than bias against OOS publics. </p>
<p>Paying OOS tuition at a public (or a private that is not offering some financial incentives) when one has a low-cost, home state, very high quality alternative is very expensive. I suspect hmom would be making the same comment if a student in Michigan was considering selecting UC Berkeley or UCLA over U Michigan. In some circumstances, it might make some sense, but in most cases, it probably would not. As the figures below show, there is a big cost difference.</p>
<p>In-state tuition & fees cost for four years:</p>
<p>$33,408 UC Berkeley
$32,912 UCLA</p>
<p>Out-of-state tuition & fees cost for four years:</p>
<p>$144,652 U Michigan</p>
<p>Big difference. </p>
<p>BTW, I suspect that there are plenty of privates where some merit aid would be offered to a student with those stats. That would include several schools that are known to offer the experience that the OP mentions (“a big college because he likes people, sports and activities. He wants to be at a more urban area not too close to home”).</p>
<p>Due to their excellent ability to offer a premiere blend of great academics, great social life and great athletic life, you might want to also look at Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Georgetown, and Wake Forest.</p>
<p>Sounds to me like this student is a wonderful candidate for merit aid schools if the parents can’t comfortably cover a UC. He could get into several schools that will be cheaper and require less in loans than UCs will. Of course they won’t rank as high, but may make most financial sense.</p>
<p>Don’t assume the kid won’t get merit money at Michigan. According to US News, 33% of out-of-state freshmen at Michigan get “non-need-based” aid, at an average award of $13,736. An award at the average level would bring the total COA down to around $35,000, or roughly 30% cheaper than an elite private that offers no merit aid. You can’t count on it, of course, but you can’t reasonably assume you won’t get it, either—especially for an applicant with these stats. </p>
<p>Besides, just comparing tuition and fees at your in-state public v. an OOS alternative can be highly misleading. Tuition and fees are low at the UCs but on-campus room & board or off-campus living alternatives are significantly more expensive at Berkeley than in Ann Arbor. You need to look at net COA, i.e. total COA less gift aid (whether merit-based or need-based). And you can’t really make that comparison until you apply and get the offer.</p>
<p>I believe that Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Georgetown, and Wake Forest are all more expensive than Michigan OOS and other public institutions that offer a premiere blend of great academics, great social life and great athletic life.</p>
<p>Most of the scholarships have a “demonstrated need” element included with them, &/or you must graduate from a particular high school or region. Or, it’s dependent on your major. And, many are not available to OOS.</p>
<p>I have no idea whether it includes athletic scholarships. Probably does. But those numbers are going to be pretty trivial. By far the largest number of athletic scholarships are in football, where there’s an NCAA maximum of, what, 85 scholarships in effect at any given time? That means on average about 21 per class. I’d guess maybe 75 to 80% of Michigan’s footbal recruits are OOS, so that’s about 15 or 16 per year, in a student body of 26,000 of whom 35%, or roughly 9,100 total (or 2,275 per class) are OOS. So those 15 or 16 football scholarships aren’t going to come close to making up the 33% of the entering OOS freshmen who get non-need based aid. I’m not sure how many scholarships they give out on other sports but I’d be surprised if the total in all other sports combined even matched the number of football scholarships. So the effect is going to be rather negligible.</p>
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<p>No doubt this is all true. But 1) any scholarship with a “demonstrated need” element wouldn’t be “non-need-based,” now, would it? 2) Yes, there are some very particular requirements for some of these scholarships, such as a specific high school or region or major; but you don’t need to apply separately for them, the Michigan FA office does the matching for you. Others are general. 3) Yes, it’s certainly true that many of the scholarship at Michigan are for Michigan residents only, but they wouldn’t be included in the 33% of OOS students who DO get “non-need-based” grant aid, now, would they?</p>
<p>There have been past posters on CC who have been pleasantly surprised by the merit aid they got from Michigan. And others who have been disappointed. I just think the blanket stereotype that you can’t get aid if you’re OOS is misplaced here. Michigan is not as generous as some publics on this score, but far more generous than many, perhaps most. You just won’t know until you try.</p>
<p>USC is very generous and meets full need. Which private schools are considered more generous than USC? Only the tippy top schools that don’t count home equity, Harvard is an example, are considered better than USC.</p>