@KevinFromOC see my post #99 re: calling schools to get the skinny on stacking merit with need based FA. Each school can have different rules/methods. You can learn a lot by talking (politely) to FA offices. Sometimes the websites are either confusing or don’t have all the details on how they calculate financial aid + merit scholarships.
I also had some luck calling admissions offices just to discuss the merit scholarship possibilities. No promises asked for or made during these discussions, but you can still glean some valuable information.
OP, did you also discuss openly with your daughter the concept of her taking on more debt in case the school doesn’t match the merit/FA award? Taking on some ridiculous amount is certainly an albatross. But working Summers and having some debt isn’t necessarily a bad path either. I worked two jobs when I was in college. I always had $ and was able to balance my life. It also taught me some great life lessons. I am frugal and don’t waste $.
To the point of this discussion, I think your amount is small but even 20K might make a huge difference in the choices she can make. For example, are you going to say No firmly if Princeton gives makes her EFC 22K? I definitely understand having a budget and a process. I also feel as though some of these schools are not like the others.
Not sure why BYU is a ridiculous suggestion @Sybylla . It offers chem E and it’s ABET accredited. But at 25k a year, it’s not quite within OP’s budget. If OP’s D worked and took out fed loans, it’s possible.
BYU is a LDS school, but it’s got a good reputation, as far as I’m aware.
@KevinFromOC Your understanding of FA is fairly accurate. What you might see happen is that the merit award will be allowed to replace the student loan/work contribution, so maybe a net gain of $5,000-7000 for the student with $0 change in parental contribution.
Any time you have FA mingled with merit, you do not typically see any FA exceed parental EFC. The main exception is if the merit award itself is large enough to exceed any need based aid that might have been given.
Then there are pure merit scenarios with schools that will allow merit to stack all the way to cost of attendance.
Fwiw, I can share that we have an autistic adult son who is only semi-independent (he is still on our health insurance at 27 bc of his lack of independent functioning.) He has not been eligible to claim as a dependent for any school. I have no idea what their threshold is, but he hasn’t met it.
If Harvard came in at more than 2x your max, there is no way you will see any meets need school come down to 15,000. You might see a 60% of your EFC (so $20,000 ish) if you have 2 in school simultaneously.
We have been through this process multiple times bc we have a very large family. (Our 6th child is a sr and we also have 4th and 8th graders still at home.) Getting below parental EFC typically takes merit. We refuse to go beyond our max budget which is similar to yours with a similar EFC. We have never seen a FA package get where we need it. Only through merit.
Princeton and Rice’s COAs also tends to be slightly lower than many other schools and direct, non-stop flights to EWR and Houston will make travel easier.
I disagree that there is no athletic scholarship money for those not committed by sophomore in high school year. There may not be any at the top ranked teams like (for women’s hockey) like Wisconsin or BC, but there will be at other schools. Kids get hurt, they change their minds, they get better or worse, the coach changes… I’ve seen it happen in a lot of sports. Money can become available.
My daughter didn’t want to play in college. She didn’t even START looking until the summer of senior year. Were the top D1 programs (for her sport Maryland, UVA, Duke, BC) off the table? Yes, and even a number a notch down, but she still got D1 offers, D3 offers with a lot of merit (which she deserved) and settled on a D2 where she could stack merit and athletic. Two of the D1 schools would have been full tuition (maybe more) when stacked with the merit awards at those schools. The money was out there but she would have had to compromise on the school. She found a better balance of athletics, academics, and money at a D2 school.
When calculating institutional need-based aid, Harvard doesn’t factor in any equity in the primary residence; at least they didn’t in 2017, when the spreadsheet available here was last updated:
Interesting… I did the Harvard NPC several months ago, and wrote down the 33.4K figure. I did it again from https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator and now it came in around 25K. I don’t remember using this NPC - the one I used asked about home value and such, this one doesn’t.
A couple of observations about it :
at 130K income, the EFC is 15K. Add $10K and the EFC increases by 2.2K. Add another $10K and it increases by 2.4K. But then make the jump from 150K to 160K, and that $10K difference makes the EFC jump by 5K! So their logic is that for any income above $150K, half of that goes towards your EFC.
Also, changing the state of residence doesn’t seem to make a difference. To me, a 150K income in, say San Francisco, is very different from a 150K income in Wyoming. Do they not take into account that for an income like that California residents are paying about $10K in state income taxes?
Most schools (and the FAFSA) do NOT take into account the COL in your area. They also don’t take into account personal debt and obligations, whether you drive a 10 year old car or get a new one every year, if you buy your books at an expensive book store or use the library. The person in Wyoming is going to pay the same interest rate on a credit card (and a student loan) as the person from San Francisco even if the minimum wage in Wyo is $7.25 and in SF it is $15. The person in either state may pay a huge amount in medical insurance or bills. The schools and formulas just don’t differentiate.
Just to follow up on this with more schools double-researched and keeping it all in one place :
(YES) The UC schools - UCLA, UCSD, and UCI - I’ll lump these 3 schools together since they’re all on their own application : Doesn’t look like a ton of merit aid, but with in state tuition and the possibility of living at home, we will apply to these
(PROBABLY) Vanderbilt : They have the Cornelius Vanderbilt full tuition scholarship, and it looks like there’s > 150 available.
(MAYBE) Stevens Institute of Technology : They do have some full tuition scholarships, but it’s not clear how many. Have to do more research if we want to consider this school
(YES) Kentucky : It appears that for a NHRP scholar you get automatic full tuition plus a $10K housing stipend for the first 2 years, which would make the cost around $5K for the first 2 years. You know that saying that if something sounds too good to be true… Am I missing anything on this?
(YES) Arizona : Similar to Kentucky - for a 4.0 UW GPA and 35 ACT, they give you a $35K scholarship to cover the $36 tuition. Automatically - done deal case closed??? This means we would only pay room & board???
Next the schools that also offer D1 women’s hockey, which means that these schools would get the nod with all else being equal :
(MAYBE) Boston University : My daughter had some really good contact with the coach there. Unfortunately they are not recruiting a goalie in 2020. They do have 20 full tuition scholarships that look more academic related.
(MAYBE) Northeastern : Doesn’t look like she qualifies for any of the full tuition scholarships, but apparently their NHRP scholarship can be worth $30K and they say “National Hispanic Recognition Program Scholars will receive a competitive merit-based award and may also be eligible for financial aid.” But (virtually) everyone else says merit aid can’t stack with financial aid. I will have to find out more about this.
(MAYBE) RIT : No full tuition scholarships but they have a lower COA, and don’t use the CSS profile.
(PROBABLY) RPI : They have the Rensselar grant, but it’s unclear on the amount. They offered my daughter a custom streamlined application and no fee.
(PROBABLY NOT) : Ohio State : They have the Eminence full ride scholarship, but it looks like there is a heavy service aspect to it, which my daughter does not have (other than a few serve days and tutoring other students). They also have the Morrill scholarship but it looks like you need to be a SJW for that one, which my daughter is not.
Again if I overlooked anything on any of these schools please let me know.
Still to do (most based on recommendations on this thread) : Rochester, JHU, Nebraska, Miami Ohio, Illinois, Purdue, Minnesota, Maryland, ASU, Utah, Worchester Poly Tech, New Mexico, Fordham, Alabama, Carnegie Mellon, Clarkson, Case Western, Cincinnati, TCU , Baylor, Butler, South Carolina, Illinois Institute of Technology, Wyoming, Michigan, Texas A&M, Wisconsin, Duke, Rice, Notre Dame, Tulane, West Virginia, Syracuse
I will recommend again that you drop Illinois (UIUC) from the list. Highest merit scholarship available to OOS (out of state) students is $10k per year. Way out of your budget, and they are notoriously stingy with aid. Illinois is looking to get extra money (the OOS premium) from OOS and international students - not subsidize them.
If you live in Orange County, I’m not sure it’s realistic to commute every day to UCLA or UCSD as the traffic (Irvine to Westwood is 50 miles and to La Jolla 77 miles) will be absolutely terrible and once you get to campus will be difficult to find parking and is very expensive. UCLA 2019-2020 COA “living with relatives” shows $26,960 and even if you subtract their estimate of subsidized R&B at $6,582 you are looking at $20k/yr before any annual cost of living increases each year. At this point it might make sense to look for a OOS full ride and save your 15K a year budget for possible grad school?
Your daughter is a very, very competitive applicant - anywhere. A hispanic applicant with a 35 ACT, strong EC’s and a very good GPA with off-the-charts math talent - she is a unicorn and a strong candidate for a full ride somewhere. I would not extrapolate from the few Net Price Calculators you may have used to mean that your net cost will be $30K or $40K at all schools. Private colleges with big endowments can be extremely generous but it depends on where your family income falls on the scale. Schools like Harvard are very generous even with family incomes of $100K or higher. I have compiled a list of those schools offering full rides or extremely generous academic scholarships. PM me if you would like a copy. The other thing you need to remember is that for many of the most generous scholarships the deadline for applying is the same as their ED or EA deadline. Some examples -
Alabama’s Academic Elite scholarship - full tuition + $8500;
CalTech’s Stamps Leadership scholarship - full tuition;
Georgia Tech’s President’s Scholarship - full tuition + room & board;
U.Chicago Stamps Leadership - full tuition + room & board + $10K;
Notre Dame Stamps Leadership - full tuition + $12K;
U.Maryland Banneker/Key - full tuition + room & board + book allowance (150/year)
I could go on but the point is that there are a limited number of extremely generous academic scholarships for which your daughter would be a strong candidate
Hopefully, nobody throws out more schools to consider! The list is already so big and application season for your daughter already sounds brutal. I may have missed it but how does your daughter feel about your need to have her apply to so many schools? As many have said, please try to pare down the application list, for your daughter’s sake, as well as your own. If you know you don’t want to pay what the school thinks you can pay , there is every reason to take that school off the list. As others have explained, merit is much more likely at schools that are known for merit and are looking for high stats kids.
Correct. UCI is an easy commute, UCSD would be out of the question. Our older son (who lives in Tustin) works at the NFL Network in Culver City, and may move out there in the future, giving her a crash pad during the week. Yes, we must have dropped him on the head as a child for him to live in Tustin and work in Culver City.
Again, these schools are all the “risk mitigation/last resort” plans. Looking for a OOS full ride or at least full tuition would be infinitely more desirable.
Rochester is known for frontloading. A young lady on another forum I am on just had to transfer to another school b/c her FA package this yr gapped them significantly compared to last yr, so much so that they had absolutely no way to cover the gap. They are also saying that costs next yr will be $85,000. (ETA: I just went and looked and the difference this yr was $20,000. They appealed and told them there was no way they could make up the difference and that she would have to transfer. UR offered her a little more $$, but not close to enough.)
Fordham’s full tuition scholarship still leaves about $20,000 in costs for room/board. Dd was awarded it, but once we factored in just how much it was going to cost even with tuition covered, it was more than we were able to afford.
FWIW, if that is what UKy says, then yes, that is what it will be. Not too good to be true.