I have a friend whose oldest son is a senior this year. The kid is very intellectual and loves to learn. Enjoys literature, writing, classics, history, and thinks he would like to study economics. He’s also a outstanding piano and violin player and while he doesn’t want to major in music, would love to continue playing at a high level. ACT 35/SAT 1580 and has taken twelve APs exams and gotten 5s on all of them. He’s taking five more APs this year. Also has other impressive ECs captain of a quizbowl team that went to nationals, several writing awards, service projects, etc. Problem is EFC says family should pay $25,00-35,000 which they say they absolutely can not afford. They live in an expensive area and had to move there in a seller’s market so they’re paying a big mortgage and they have 3 other kids they are homeschooling and spending a lot on. They have done FL pre-paid, so FL schools are an option, but they think he’d be happiest at an LAC. Any ideas for this kid?
Also, he’s almost certainly going to be a National Merit finalist.
If they have Florida prepaid, New College is an obvious choice.
@milee30 do you think New College will have the music opportunities and the intellectual peers? I have several friends whose kids have gone there and liked it, but not sure if it’s the best fit for this kid.
He will have some options but LACs when you can’t meet EFC are a challenge. He sounds like he may be a good candidate for some of the competitive leadership and serve based scholarships at LACs.
We were in this situation for D16 and searched out LACs that offered full tuition or full ride merit. It was competitive, not automatic. Very competitive. Lots and lots of essays and interviews. She applied to univ of Puget Sound and Lewis and Clark in the northwest, Trinity and Southwestern in Texas, Centre, Knox, Clark U. There’ are some others we found but didn’t fit her other criteria. Puget Sound is very good for music but they only offer a couple very large scholarships per year. My daughter attended Southwestern. Econ major. Studied abroad twice, did an REU at a top 20 university, graduated in three years with nearly a math double major, landed an Econ dream job.
She also applied to our state university honors colleges since we weren’t sure any of the LACs would turn up affordable.
Violin teacher went to FSU and had a great experience. Give it a look.
New College will have the intellectual peers; it sends proportionally more graduates to top graduate schools and prestigious scholar programs than most schools its size. For music opportunities, there would be multiple local options from the symphony (Sarasota Orchestra is well regarded) to several regional tryout based honor bands if he weren’t happy with the New College music program. With his stats and FL prepaid, cost of attendance would be virtually 0. With three other kids and no money to spend on college, IMO this family would be nuts not to seriously consider NCF, given that it would be a superior education to most other programs where he’d have a chance at a 100% merit based education.
Denison is building a new performing arts building (it may be complete now). I had a similar academic (almost identical AP and SAT) and musical kiddo (cellist). She did not apply there but they were actively recruiting her for both her academics and music. They used to offer full tuition merit. St Olaf and Lawrence offer strong merit but probably not enough (mine would have paid around 28k/year with max merit). Case Western may be worth a look. Not an LAC but small research uni. Students can take music lessons with Cleveland Symphony. They have some impressive merit scholarships.
I think the student could do well in a number of Florida schools. There are also the LACs, Eckerd, Rollins, Stetson that give good merit money. I think Rollins used to give National Merit scholars a great scholarship. In any case, should look at list of schools that will give generous scholarships to NMFs.
I would look at Rice, Hopkins and Chicago as they are all starting initiatives that give generous financial aid for families making ~$200k. Look them up. Those new programs are not yet reflected in the schools’ NPCs or were not recently. All of these things need to be checked because things change with each admissions cycle.
Davidson, Wash & Lee, Rhodes, Sewanee, Claremont, Pitzer , Oberlin, Kenyon, Wooster, Denison, Otterbein, Manhattanville, Hobart William Smith, st Lawrence, Ursinus, the women’s colleges , small Catholic colleges all have merit money varying from very very difficult to get to not so hard. Getting a full tuition or full ride scholarship is going to be tough Getting it down to more than what financial aid will give him is going to be a challenge. Very few selective LACs give big merit money and the from ones that do, getting those awards is fiercely competitive.
Google “84 full ride scholarships” and you’ll get a list of schools giving generous (though very few full ride) awards.
They are considering UF, FSU, and NCF for the obvious reason that they would all be free. It’s hard to beat free. Of those, FSU has the best music. Question is where is this kid going to most easily find “his people” (nerdy kids who love classical music and documentary movies and Latin) and not get lost in the shuffle.
Your friend should be asking this question for themselves.
Due to privacy issues we do not let people ask for a friend, only their own family. Please have your friend sign up for a CC account. Closing thread.