It's all so scary, and we're only on our first

Our oldest is a junior, he’s in the G&T program and has been from 3rd grade on. He’ll have taken 14 AP classes, (he’s taken and passed all his AP exams thus far with good scores), and he’s got over a 4.0 GPA. His standardized test scores are usually in the 99% range. His 10th grade PSAT/NMSQT last year he got 1450. He’s a great kid, but he’s struggled. He had an IEP for speech issues through elementary school, and he still has a 504 in place for ADHD. He is active with varsity sports in school and does a few clubs, plus plays in the school orchestra. He’s not one of the superstar kids running around leading everything, president of everything, etc. But I’m incredibly proud of what he’s accomplished.

We make too much money to qualify for financial aid at pretty much any school, and even our state flagship is out of the question for us. (University of Illinois, Champaign - a whopping $37K instate with tuition, room and board) They don’t really offer any merit unless you have need, or are an under represented minority group. We are looking at schools that have automatic merit, but there aren’t very many that offer the degree our son wants, which is Biomedical Engineering. I’ve done some looking, and it seems that University of Alabama Birmingham and IUPUI seem to be our best bets for what we can afford.

Some family members are giving us a hard time for aiming “low” for him. Does it really even matter where he gets his undergrad? He is pretty sure he needs a masters or beyond anyway.

We have two more kids coming up behind him, and we’re 12 years from retirement. We cannot afford to spend more than $22-25K per year per kid.

I think you should play with a few net price calculators to see if you really are ‘out of the need based aid’ category. At some schools the family can have quite a high income and still qualify for some aid. However, many of those schools offer no merit aid at all. Just try a few different options.

You also might look at small private schools like Illinois Inst of Tech. Lost of merit aid for high stats.

For a student with some special needs, fit is often more important than prestige. If he gets NMF, there are quite a few schools that offer full tuition. Look at Oklahoma, the Florida scholarships (it is ever-changing rules on what will be covered but UCF could be a good choice if the scholarship is there)

Check University of Arizona. Very generous merit scholarships for high achieving OOS kids. They offered my daughter full tuition, and she is also pursuing biomedical engineeering.

We looked at a lot of Midwestern schools with engineering programs with my son who is currently a senior. Michigan State, Univ Iowa, Iowa State, Ohio state, And Milwaukee School of Engineering all seemed to provide decent opportunities for merit. Good luck with your search!

U Toledo and University of Pittsburgh possibly if his SAT is even higher than PSAT.

You could try University of Utah non res presidential if his test scores are high. The process is horribly opaque and the undergrad GPA req for the scholarship is onerous (3.6). Good stats means direct entry to major AFAIK though, and you can look at how you get instate status after 1 yr if the scholarship is lost (I am not sure how that works). There appears to be no GPA component but they magically asses rigour. Instate students I hear of have high stats don’t qualify (for the instate version e.g kid with 3.8 gpa/35 act/full IBD and all AP) so I assume this requires a close to perfect ACT/SAT. Cost of living is pretty reasonable, off campus housing could save you money and most kids don’t; live on campus. There is a BSMS option also.

Unless you are in investment banking and a couple of niche careers it makes absolutely zero difference from where you receive your undergrad degree as long as it is not from a for-profit school. Especially if your career mandates grad school. That school matters.

I’ve been a hiring manager for 30+ years. No one cares from where you get your undergrad degree. What matters is your performance.

Why does he want to do with a biomedical engineering undergrad degree? He may find that mechanical engineering will be sufficient to follow his career goals…and that is offered at more schools.

He wants to go into the medical field. He is interested in a couple of the tracks currently and hasn’t decided which one interests him more. He likes the medical instrumentation design area, which is probably more electrical engineering related. He has also expressed interest in prosthesis design - more mechanical engineering there. Lastly - he has also expressed interest in tissue engineering - which is likely leaning more towards biochemical engineering. He’s really good at math and science - enjoys figuring out how things work and figuring out how to improve things - that is what draws him to engineering. He really, really loves the biological sciences and wants to stay tied to that field. He sees himself working in research and development some day.

I can think of several schools that would make biomedical engineering possible where you would get merit but it is only going to lower tuition to the $30-$35k range…Marquette, Loyola (which gets you there through Physics)…University of Akron (very affordable, decent reputation), CWRU often gives really good merit

$30-$35K is not doable. We’ve already written off Loyola, CWRU, RPI, and several of the other schools in that tier. We ran all the calculators, and even if he were to win their largest merit awards, those schools would still be out of reach - most of them were still looking at over $45K.

Based on research for my child, I came across RPI and CWRU as schools with strong biomedical engineering programs, and that also offer good merit scholarships. Perhaps you might want to explore them. I think Pitt is also another school. best of luck!

Is he NMF likely?

We looked at RPI and CWRU - even with merit, they are very expensive. We ran their net price calculator, and even with a 4.0 GPA and 33 ACT, the bottom line is that for us, the cost would still be around $40K per year. We just can’t swing that.

CWRU didn’t even look at my kid with those stats, he was deferred and that was that (for chen, not bio). I would bet CW has really high reqs with the free application pulling in many kids looking for merit.

If you can contribute $25,000…he can also take a $5500 Direct Loan in his name. That gives him $30,000 or so.

I believe he would get great merit aid at University of Alabama. While the main flagship doesn’t have biomedical engineering, It DOES have other types of engineering. I’m wondering if he could taylor his degree to meet his desires.

@mom2collegekids what do you think?

@Sybylla - I honestly don’t know about NMF - but my gut says no.

We are in a similar boat but with lower SAT scores. Have had good luck with Iowa State so far and University of New Mexico as far as OOS merit. I’m sure Iowa state had biomedical.but haven’t had a chance to visit UNM yet. DD looking at mechanical as well as biomedical.

ETA: and yes, people are perplexed with our enthusiasm for unheard of out of state schools. But we’ve visited most on the list, liked the engineering programs and facilities, and think our student will be fine. The “aiming low” critical crowd has not been in the college hunt lately.

Also Univ of Iowa had some nice programs too. Much smaller engineering program than Iowa State but worth a look.

Does MSEP help at all?

University of NM doesn’t offer biomedical engineering at the undergraduate level; it offers something called bioengineering which falls under chem E. But it does offer a 4+1 BS/MS degree in biomedical that one applies for in the junior year. So one could get both degrees in 5 years.

http://bme.unm.edu/degree-programs/undergraduate-degree.html

His stats would qualify for in state tuition under the Amigo scholarship, bringing full COA to less than 20K per year. NMF gets a full ride and there is a competitive Regents Scholarship that is also a full ride

U of Wyoming, U of Arizona, and Arizona State also offer merit for high stats OOS students, bringing the price down to similar levels. I don’t know about the engineering component at those schools but they are worth investigating further.

Both Case Western and Wash U do have a small number of full tuition scholarships by separate application. They are extremely competitive but might be worth a try.

Good luck!