@KevinFromOC I like your approach! This is similar to what we did with our son. We also mainly relied on the US News Engineering Program ranking which you can access online for a year for about $40, but we also factored in the Honors College rating (using the book from John Willingham) for universities that have one (by duplicating entries - one without acceptance to honors college, one with acceptance to honors college) as we felt that access to Honors College was an important criteria even if it entailed a small cost premium for universities that charge a honors fee such as ASU. Another lesser criteria we used was accessibility. For example ASU is only a $2 light rail ride away from PHX Sky Harbor which offers 7 daily nonstop flights to EWR compared to 0 daily nonstop between UK’s Blue Grass airport and EWR.
I would classify Utah as both Automatic and Competitive because 4.0/35 should get the auto full tuition (academic excellence) scholarship, and then she would compete for the full ride (Eccles) scholarship. They do also have a new women’s hockey program though I guess it’s not NCAA(?) (https://universityofutahhockey.com/utah-hockey-releases-2019-20-schedule/).
I’d start here. She doesn’t need 8 safeties. How about 2-3?
“I’d start here. She doesn’t need 8 safeties. How about 2-3?”
I agree with cutting this list down. But I’m not sure that a strict ordering by amount of merit/rating is the way to go. Surely she has some idea about what part of the country she wants to be in? For example most Californian kids I know would have a pretty major culture shock going to Kentucky. The problem is that visits will presumably be pretty difficult now she is back in school. If she can’t visit until Christmas and doesn’t have any strong views, I think you’ll need to keep at least 4-5 of these.
Looking at the competitive list, I worry that she will get too focused on extremely long shots like Caltech and UVA (which are actually less likely than your slim category if you are counting on merit aid) and neglect the more realistic options. I would segment this category into competitive but realistic and competitive long shots and prioritize the former.
At the point where we had narrowed down to about 30, and looking to finalize a list, I put each school on a post-it, and stuck them to the wall in tiers (your auto, competitive, slim). Told our daughter to pick 2-3, 4-5, and 2-3, but your numbers may vary. She wrote some details she felt were pertinent on the post-its, such as “Cheesesteaks!” on the Philadelphia schools. And she started pulling off post-its and sticking them to the side. Several came off easily for her, and your daughter probably has some feelings about where she does and does not really want to go. It was also easier to eliminate when looking at them side by side. The difficult part for me was not cringing and asking her to put eliminated schools back, but I did my best, as those post-its were still off to the side, and could return if needed.
If she’s really OK with her safeties, she can shoot her shot for some reaches, and see what happens.
FWIW, our final list was 9 schools, but by January she was a combination of burnt out and happy enough with the offers she had on the table, and the last 2 reach apps were never completed.
If it were me, I’d add in the ease of switching out of engineering into something else as a decision factor to help you rate. Or the colleges which don’t force you into declaring a major early on. Your D wouldn’t be the first (or the last) kid to fall in love with something else and to pivot by sophomore year.
One of my kids wouldn’t consider ANY college without an engineering school- and by Parents weekend had dropped any thought of majoring in an engineering discipline! Just too many other cool things to study and only 8 semesters…
@OHMomof2 @Twoin18 Eight safeties might be too many, but most of those schools do not guarantee admission to their Honors College. If admission to Honors College is a requirement, then they might not all be safeties, especially for Engineering majors. There is anecdotal evidence that admission to Honors Colleges is becoming very competitive. For example, last year I remember somebody writing that their NMS son had not been admitted to the Lewis Honors College at UK. And while Rutgers is not on @KevinFromOC 's list, I was also surprised, based on an unscientific survey of my son’s classmates, that admission to the Rutgers Honors College appears to now be virtually impossible without at least a 1540 single-sitting SAT score, and even if higher for Engineering majors.
Why does she have to be in the honors college @NJEngineerDad
Yes, there is preferential registration and sometimes housing. But the honors college isn’t a must…especially if this student majors in engineering.
yep, that phase is next!
I have bad news. The majority of schools in the country use the same Federal Income Guidelines for financial aid (most colleges consider merit scholarships as part of their financial aid packages). One exception is the University of California’s Regent Scholarship, which will award at least $2,000 regardless of financial need. As such, even a FULL scholarship will usually meet your COA at a school but only up to your EFC. This is what happened to our son, he got a Regent’s Scholarship at two UC’s which met all his need without having to take out loans or work study but only up to his COA minus our EFC. So in the end, based on our income, we were still on the hook for approximately $15,000 per year. However, I started putting money in a 529 account the day my son was born, and it has now grown to a sizable amount that will HELP cover our EFC. In addition, even though he is a ‘scholarship recipient’ my son got a job this summer and made enough money to contribute about $2,000 towards his education. So with my son’s summer money, plus our 529, our “real” EFC is closer to around $6,000 per year, which is STILL a challenge but I think we are going to be able to fund it.
Engineering is VERY challenging everywhere so not getting into honors might not be a big deal. Also, lots of honors programs allow entrance sophomore year so all is not lost if she switches out of Engineering and wants to try for honors later.
Also I don’t know that one needs to visit a college before applying. Applying to a college typically costs less than $100 (including paying the extra fees to send scores and financial info) and a few hours. Visiting can easily cost over $1K… and a few days. If you get rejected by a college, if the final price makes it impossible to attend, or if better contenders clearly emerge, there is no point in visiting. In our case my son just visited Rutgers with his high school, and ASU because they paid for (most of) the trip. He never went to visit the other schools because it would have been a waste of money and time. In short I think that allocating a large application budget (say 1-2K) to collect admission (or rejection) letters provides the best return on investment.
@KIMZ99 @KevinFromOC I’m going to make a pull for Kentucky. My S was a freshman in 2014, completed his education and continues to live and work in Lexington. Since we first toured 5+ years ago, the campus completed a huge improvement project including incredible dorms, new science building, new student center, etc. The Honors College recently received a substantial gift (20M, I think) and their Director came from Penn State’s Schreyers.
If Bluegrass Airport doesn’t have direct flights (it’s a 15 minute cab from campus), you can fly into Cincinnati ,which is technically in Kentucky anyway, and about 1.5 hours from Lexington.
I think Lexington is cool small city. The horse industry attracts people from all over the US and internationally for races, breeding, and shows. We live in a kinda snobby suburb of Philadelphia, but my son did not experience any culture shock and made friends with a nice variety of people. And the city and college “bleeds blue” - there is a ton of school spirit!
You are wrong. A true merit scholarship will be based on your stats only…and in the vast majority of cases, you don’t even have to submit a FAFSA form…so the college doesn’t even KNOW your FAFSA EFC. They just don’t. The schools listed above in the OPs list have guaranteed merit aid at this student’s stats…and they do not consider financial need.
Schools won’t award you aid in excess Of the cost of attendance, but many higher EFC families get full ride merit awards…because that is what they apply for. Need is not considered at all if a merit award doesn’t require submission of the financial aid application forms. It just isn’t.
Not sure where you got this inaccurate information.
The money these schools give in merit aid is institutional merit aid…and has absolutely ZERO to do with the FAFSA EFC. The only thing that is identical from school to school is what a student qualifies for in federally funded need based aid…the Pell Grant, and subsidized portion of the Direct Loan. Actually even that Direct Loan subsidized can vary because subsidized loans are given to students with need, which can vary depending on the COA to attend the college.
@houndmom may I ask your son’s major? UK is on our list for NMF even though it is not as good as it once was. D wants some place green and trees. She is not into prestige at all. plans to major in electrical engineering. thank you.
I actually disagree with this. So long as it’s possible to apply to these universities with the common app I’d roll the dice and see what they might come up with in terms of aid above and beyond what is automatic for stats. You’re not talking about a huge amount of money for application fees when the return might be significant, and with the common app there won’t be a lot of additional work to be done for the applications.
For example, University of Alabama Tuscaloosa has an application fee of $40. I think it’s very possible that OP’s daughter might be offered additional scholarship(s) which would stack with the automatic award. Bama has lots of out of state students which, together with the beautiful campus, gives it more of the feel of a private college than a public university. To give you an idea, here’s a video made by a former student who interned at Goldman Sachs and went on to work in consulting in Los Angeles after graduation.
https://vimeo.com/213955580
Applying to several colleges would give you more choice if the money doesn’t work out at one or more of them.
@AlbionGirl thanks for the link. D and I can’t wait to visit UA. Looks so gorgeous!
@BingeWatcher
You’re welcome!
October is a good time to visit if you get the chance. Here’s a web tour so you can see more of the campus if you’d like.
https://gobama.ua.edu/webtour/
@thumper1 @Cheeringsection I think I read first about Honors College in an opinion from Frank Bruni in the New York Times entitled “A Prudent College Path”. While I did not know that my son would be a top 1% student at the time (as measured by his SAT score) I bought into the idea that a top student could get a similar environment to what he would get in an “elite” school for much cheaper. By environment I mostly think of having the opportunity to spend time with other top students so he or she can be challenged. I am afraid that my son would have been bored if only surrounded by students whose average SAT scores are over 300 points below his, and if he had not been accepted in any Honors College we probably would have consider borrowing money so he can go to a better ranking school. Maybe such thinking is unwarranted, but by extension then what would be the point of wanting to go to an “elite” school?
I agree! We visited about 10ish schools over the last 2-3 years for their hockey program (all in the north east) and met with the coaches, but we haven’t visited any other schools. My daughter actually has no desire to visit - she tells me that the every school will have classrooms, dorms, and a place to eat - that’s pretty much all she needs, and any other information will be on their website. She’s not one to “fall in love” with any campus. And I gotta agree with her. Plus all the college visits seem identical - they put on their cheerleading outfits and all tell you the same thing about how great the school is.
I was going to try to get her to visit Cal Tech, but after looking at their website, it almost seemed like they were discouraging visits by prospective students.
Our take is that we will visit the schools she’s admitted to with an affordable COA and determine any unique desirable features of the school then.