Publisher’s suggestion of St. Mary’s of Maryland is an excellent one. As a public LAC, it has a lower “sticker price” than a private LAC, even for OOS students - your out-of-pocket there would top out at around $45K, and merit money could/would reduce that further (max merit is $20K, and their Net Price Calculator will provide a merit estimate based on stats http://www.collegecostcalculator.org/stmarys ). In terms of admit rate, entering-class stats, class sizes, and so on, it’s practically indistinguishable from many private LAC’s like Susquehanna et. al. In the end, your S might get substantial merit from schools like Susquehanna that would put his COA in the same range, but you won’t know until he gets an offer. It’s nice to have some schools in the mix where affordable costs are predictable and set a baseline vis-a-vis which private colleges you’d really be willing to pay a differential for.
Other high-quality public LAC’s with affordable OOS costs include SUNY Geneseo and UNC Asheville. The midwestern ones are even more affordable - Truman State and UMN-Morris are excellent schools with costs that are only in the mid-20’s. There’s also New College of Florida… and some of the smaller state flagships like UVM could be worth a look as well.
St. Mary’s of Maryland merit awards: Above an 1100 SAT, above a 3.25 GPA & usually in the top 15% of one high school class. Total COA per year would be in the $28,000 range. Lots of scholarships & lots of psychology majors.
We looked at Dickinson, F&M, Lafayette, Lehigh, Muhlenberg (and Villanova) on 2 visits from Massachusetts. Plan your route wisely, we really wanted our daughter to like Dickinson, but she thought it was much too isolated - that my be the fault of my route planning (or I could blame mapquest). (Family members went there and loved it)
Really easy to see Lafayette and Lehigh in a day and they can give a sense of your son’s reaction to very different campuses. (My daughter really liked Lafayette, couldn’t see herself at Lehigh). If you really don’t have time, you could tour one and do a drive/walk through the other to get a sense of the place.
Muhlenberg is small, and our tour guide over-emphasized drama for a tour group where no one had indicated an interest.
We haven’t been to Susquehanna or Scranton, but know kids at each of them who love it. Susquehanna seems to be a really special place. We also know someone at Ursinus who is happy for now - but worried about the very small size.
Your son should definitely have some reaches, and I don’t want to be a naysayer. Make sure your son is being realistic though. Even with a stellar performance in the second half of junior year, it will be hard to raise his current average substantially. Upward trends are always good, of course.
I urge you to keep his expectations reasonable. One or two reaches is fine, but the majority of his choices should be matches and safeties. Many parents start out by looking at a lot of reach schools, and then realize that it’s even more important to look at matches and safeties. Interest is very important at most of these schools. That means he should show the same interest in the schools he has a shot of getting into as the ones that are going to be hard to get into.
P.S. There are a lot of schools that would love to have your son. Most of them, in fact. The ones that are going to be less inclined to accept him are going to have low acceptance rates, as in the examples listed above by @eb23282 . His GPA is going to be decent for F & M, which makes me think it is a good option. I’ve also heard good things about Allegheny, Susquehanna, and several of the others mentioned.
While I agree that St Mary’s College of Maryland is a nice match for the OP’s kid, the OP is in Massachusetts so it would be outstate. That said, it would still probably have a lower COA than most of the other schools discussed. I’m not sure how they award merit to OOS students. It has kind of a nice, almost summer camp vibe to the campus that I really enjoyed.
OP, I think you are going to have to make plans to get in the car and do some visiting. That is your best way to narrow down the list at this point.
There are plenty of schools that would love to have your son, but I don’t think Bucknell or Lehigh are going to be the ones. Definitely look at Susquehanna and Ursinus. What other non-academic things is he looking for? Greek life, activities, campus setting?
Of the schools in the original post, Lehigh alone appears in the most selective category of U.S. News. The others – Lafayette, Bucknell, Dickinson, Muhlenberg, F&M and Gettysburg – register as more selective schools. However, even within these respective categories, the range of selectivity extends fairly widely.
If you are really prepared to forego merit, the odds at some of the reachier schools (Lehigh and Lafayette) increase if you apply ED. And you can definitely visit both in one day.
We are prepared to forego merit if there is a good reason, but not until we’ve really weighed all options. So I don’t think any school with ED will work, only EA. Merit could make a difference for sure.
Naviance for our school says Lehigh is out of range, Lafayette is a reach, and the rest are quite possible. It was DS’s guidance counselor who suggested Bucknell and Dickinson.
We are rethinking our plans and will try to schedule a few days that we can be in the area to really look around, probably later in the year. You all are so fantastic and I have so many questions! (not just about this angle). Thanks so much.
I do think it’s best for you to try and look at several of those colleges. I don’t want to sound skeptical of your guidance counselor, as maybe your school has a particular relationship with Bucknell. His GPA is going to make Bucknell a reach in all likelihood. And you don’t have a test score yet, which could change things.
There are a bunch of different factors to consider when making a list. Some of them you know about already, but if you really want to get a better idea of chances, I suggest using the website College Data. You can put your son’s stats in and it will give you an idea of his chances. Plus, the site has all the data about cost, demographics, etc…in one place so that you don’t have to look in a million different places for info. For the most recent data, you can google a college’s Common Data Set.
Common factors to consider when creating a balanced list include grades, scores, acceptance rate, and the role that EC’s, rec letters, and essays play. Most people will agree that grades and test scores trump almost everything else, except for being hooked.
I sometimes use sub-categories of reach/match/safety schools, and have taken the liberty of putting in the schools that OP originally posted. I also looked at the most recent CDS’s for some of these schools.
High Reach for all: (HYP, etc…just for comparison.)
High Reach and not at all likely: Lehigh
Not totally out of the realm of possibility Reach: Lafayette (if OP son gets a great test score?)
Reach: Bucknell (maybe low Reach if your school has a relationship with the college and he gets a good test score.)
Low Reach:
——————
High Match: F&M (esp. if OP son gets good score.)
Match, but not guaranteed: Dickinson
Match, probable acceptance: Muhlenberg
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Safety, probably: Gettysburg
Safety:
Note to other readers: Feel free to disagree, or put in other colleges mentioned in this thread as you see fit. ?
I’ll chime in with if you have any doubt that you are willing to pay full sticker price be very cautious about falling in love with most of these colleges.
I’ll use Bucknell as an example. It costs about $70k all in and if I’m not mistaken, nearly 1/2 the kids do not receive financial aid. Dickinson, F&M, etc. are expensive as well.
I’m a parent of two kids - my B student is already out of college and my A student graduates this year. Starting your college list with safety/match schools can really take the edge off. I think my kids benefitted from the feeling of “I like this place, and I can get in” over “I like this place - please, please, please, I hope I get in.” I also believe having a good back up plan helps kids approach essays, interviews with a bit more confidence.
Gettysburg, Susquehanna, Ursinus might be great places to start.
If your son is interested in physical therapy or music, check out Lebanon Valley College in Annville, PA. Lovely campus, and plenty of merit aid if that’s important.
@Publisher Yikes! That’s worse than I thought. I don’t have personal connection to either school, but both have very good reputations in my world. However, Bucknell is one college that I know families who were so excited when their kid was accepted (always ED), then sniped about the cost for the next four years!
I’ve seen all but Gettysburg and Muhlenberg but know alumni who had good experiences at both. I went to F&M and have a son at Laf. Lehigh and Laf have one of the great rivalries in college sports (check out The Rivalry on Wikipedia) and the annual football game is one of the great tailgates of the North East. So good school spirit at both. And Bucknell is with them in the Patriot league and is right in the mix. Lehigh is a small university and the others are LACs so there’s a bit of a difference there. I’d say Lehigh and Bucknell are somewhat alike with their greek influence and larger size. F&M combines serious academics with strong sports. I’m biased but it’s likely a reach for a B/B+ student without a hook. It varies a bit sport by sport but Dickinson is F&Ms primary rival and they are in many ways very much alike. Gettysburg is known for strong sports. FWIW, Bucknell, Lafayette and F&M are tied in the USNews rankings. It is hard to go wrong at any of these.
We have seen many of these schools but ultimately only Lafayette made my D19’s top list. These are all great schools and there is much to love about them but I do think they attract different students (Lafayette, Lehigh and Bucknell all feel different). My D19 ended not applying to most schools on her list after receiving an ED acceptance but she has many friends going through this.
Lafayette gives merit aid to a small number of students (according to the admissions rep). F&M does not give any merit aid. I am not sure about the others but many schools are moving away from merit. We were told that Lafayette is not need blind and being full pay helps in admissions but that was by a parent so I do not know how accurate that is.
Naviance has not been terribly reliable this year. Admissions has been more competitive than ever and schools are using ED to fill a larger percent of classes. Lafayette was very clear that they are moving more and more towards ED and there is a significant difference in ED and RD admissions. Some of it is attributed to committed athletes but that does not fully account for a significantly lower average SAT in ED. Their brochure actually broke down the stats but I don’t still have it. My D19 was likely going to apply EDII if not admitted to her first choice. We honestly did love the school.
Lastly, our naviance did not adjust for the new SAT. We looked at average ACT since it is more reliable and easily comparable. Ours also used I think 4-5 years of data. That is not representative of many of these schools that are seeing record number of applicants and turning down many students who were a fit just a few years ago.
I think it is great to have reach schools. In fact, my daughter worked much harder in school after falling in love with Lafayette. All those 92’s (B at our school) turned into 95’s by year end because she was driven to earn acceptance. You still need to find safeties that they love. We were very lucky that D19’s 3rd choice was a safety and she would have been thrilled to attend. We focused on finding safeties first then reach schools. This way we knew she would be happy no matter how things shook out.