Yea, @homerdog If IIT is nothing more than a " trade school", at least it’s in good company! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Independent_Technological_Universities
It WOULD be a different experience than a place like Alabama. But, most small LAC’s would be a different experience as well. That is why your point about “fit” is important.
@homerdog , I agree that fit is very important, but we also need to consider that for a LOT of students, fit is a bonus. The majority of students are concerned about affordability as a first priority.
Thank you all for your wonderful contributions. I have a D21 and a S24. D21 won’t receive any merit scholarships and we have a very short list of schools we are looking at for her and I love that our list is short. My S24 will most likely be a high stats kid. He showed signs of being extremely gifted since he was a toddler and took his SATs last year as a 7th grader (part of a talent search) and did extremely well. Thanks to all who continue to contribute - I am saving this thread as I know it will come in handy in a few years.
@Luvmy2kids Unfortunately merit scholarships can vary a lot from yr to yr. Our ds who graduated from high school in 2014 had a different scholarship list we pursued than my dd who graduated in 2017. A few were still similar, but some had radically altered their scholarships and we had to spend a lot of time researching what was available her specific yr. Some of the schools I had researched for ds completely dropped their automatic merit in 2017.
Every single one of those schools has what my daughter says are the most important factors - they all have classrooms, dorms, a place to eat, and bathrooms. She was fine with our public high school here in hot So Cal during her freshman year with 2500 students. She loves her prep school in freezing cold Massachusetts that only has 500 students. I’m beginning to learn that she’s much more easy-going than most kids her age.
She’s visited a dozen or so schools for hockey, from the scenic forest of Middlebury to the urban BU, and no one school stood out to her based on the school location, scenery, or size.
I realize that some students might say “Mommy, I like the trees and the color of the buildings here at this college, so this is where I want to go”, and those of you who don’t consider cost as the number one thing might say “Sure honey, no problem, I’ll write the school a check”. That’s not us. The top factors for us are cost, followed closely by academics, with the chance to play hockey a distant third. Once we’ve established a small number of schools that she is admitted to that meet this criteria, then perhaps the items you mention might be used as a tiebreaker. But right not none of the those are deal-breakers.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I totally get what you are saying and agree 100%. However, I had no idea that auto merit scholarships even existed at all. Same with the National Hispanic Scholarship. This thread has so much information that I’m already ahead just by following it and reading the comments. So much useful advice and great schools I’ve never even considered. We have been saving money for our kids since they were infants so we can pay full price for our state public school (which our D21 will most likely be going). We never even considered going out of state and knowing that there are opportunities if you have a high stats kid, that’s huge to me.
https://web.iit.edu/
IIT in Chicago is clearly a diamond in the rough.
It’s been around forever it seems. Many kids from my sons high school, a selective enrollment high school, get complete full rides. Think they send like 10 kids a year there. They all get internships and come out with good jobs some from Microsoft, Amazon, Google etc. I call it a school of illusions. Buildings look bland until you walk inside. Some are like neo futuristic. When just getting there and using a parking lot the campus looks kinda blah. But when you actually enter the center of campus it’s actually beautiful.
They have like 5/6 different schools and where else better to study architecture then Chicago? Seriously!
Now they have this dude and building. I actually know Howard. He will change the knowledge and landscape of this school. This was a huge get for them. His connections to the tech industry are like unmatched https://web.iit.edu/kaplan-institute/leadership
It is a small urban school and no one is going to confuse it with Alabama or the like. If getting jobs is your priority and going downtown once in a while with a great China town one stop away… Then this is the place.
@KevinFromOC Here’s a little bit more about what we did. We took a spring break road trip to some schools that had full tuition or full ride scholarships to get a sense of what would be a good fit. That allowed us to eliminate all LACs or smaller research universities and all preppy schools. From there, we selected a safety school - a school that we believed would be a good fit based on her needs and wants that had automatic full tuition merit. Then we visited that school to make sure. She enjoyed the visit and decided she would be happy ro attend. Every other school on the list except her “just to see” school was a competitive full ride school that we thought she had a shot at and would be a good fit.
I highly recommend carefully selecting a great safety, visiting to confirm, then play the lottery with as many competitive merit schools as you think she has a realistic shot and can craft a compelling application for. I’d estimate that up be 10-13. No need for multiple automatic scholarships. 2 at the most.
This is my son too. I’ve been trying to find a school that he’s excited about, but he’s very practical and just wants the cheapest route to his end goal. He doesn’t care about the amenities of the school or sports or location at all. Just does it have Aero or Chem Eng and what does it cost. So far, his top choice is the cheapest one. I guess I should be happy about that!
@itsgettingreal17 I am not sure if @KevinFromOC 's daughter cares about being admitted to an Honors College but if so I’d like to reiterate that the safety schools that offer automatic scholarships might not offer automatic Honors College access, in which case 2 safeties might not be enough.
@NJEngineerDad So long as she applies early and pays attention to what the honors colleges want when crafting her application (ie, takes the application seriously), it won’t be a problem. My D was accepted to every honors program/college she applied to. OP’s D is a very strong student, not a bubble student for honors.
Life is full of trade-offs and compromises. Financial fit is clearly of utmost importance to most families, so is academic fit to many. Colleges are not commodities. The products they offer vary significantly, even in long-established majors, and even leaving out secondary considerations (such as dorms, food, weather, etc.) Many families have to make financial sacrifices in order for their kids to have the best college education possible, while some others aren’t even in the position to make those sacrifices.
@KevinFromOC Wow. Some spite going on here about finding fit. Our son didn’t say “Mommy I want pretty trees” and we didn’t say “ok honey whatever you want”. Weird that’s the impression you have about finding fit. That whole post offends me. Our son isn’t uptight. Did he have a preference? Yes. And it’s only been nine days but he is over the moon at school. Kids shouldn’t be looked down on because they want a certain type of experience. Not sure why it’s a bad thing to find the place that fits the student the best. Why anyone would want less for their child makes no sense to me.
I understand about cost. The list already considered that. Now, your D has a list of schools that are very different from one another. And you were asking how to shorten the list. The typical way to narrow a list, after cost considerations, is fit. If your D seriously doesn’t care where she goes like you say, then just go to a safety that will be the least expensive. Why even bother with all of these apps?
@itsgettingreal17 I am not questioning that OP’s D is a very strong student but she is looking to major in engineering. As a counterexample to yours, while Rutgers Engineering school is “only” ranked #48 for Engineering by US News, it now seems unlikely that one would be accepted in the Honors College via the School Of Engineering without a 1570 SAT / 36 ACT.
@KevinFromOC , that’s a little uncalled for. @homerdog has a fair point. Why have a list of forty schools when you have eight safeties that will all be affordable and which are ABET accredited?
Maybe your daughter really has no preference, or maybe she’s very aware of cost and isn’t expressing a preference because she knows money is the top priority. Has your daughter yet expressed any preference for any schools that we’ve suggested over the last couple of weeks since you started this thread? If she hasn’t, I’d suggest that it’s time for her to take over with all this great info you’ve managed to get from the CC crowd. You have affordable choices, so now eliminating colleges that she isn’t interested in is a logical next step.
For anyone considering UK, I cannot emphasize enough that admission to Lewis Honors is NOT necessary to have a worthwhile educational experience there. I hope no one will let this be a dealbreaker for their student. At least in 2016, % admissions to Honors was surprisingly low. Parents were bitter.
In addition, many students will prefer to house with their fellow engineering students and live in the engineering LLC and not in Lewis. Ditto to other interests and LLCs.
There are MANY opportunities at UK for motivated students outside of Honors. Colleges are businesses, people!
Frankly, once our kid was fully emerged in her major as an upperclassman, Honors classes were moot.
Our kid’s attitude is “Honors is just more work” and “Well, maybe it will look good on grad school applications”.
Also, our kid went in with AP credit and CLEP credit. One winter intersession of classes (not included in the Patterson) and we were looking at graduation in three years. Kid added a minor or major and is staying for the 4th year.
The UK student health insurance is, IMO, excellent. I cannot believe how good the coverage is! My other kid’s school did NOT have such good coverage.
Just one parent’s perspective! (& the kid’s!). This ends your promotional piece for U of Kentucky! 
One of my kids didn’t care at all about ambiance. Nice buildings? Great. Ugly buildings? Great. Bucolic woods and winding paths? Fine. Dense urban setting with a lot of noise- also fine. Shabby dorms? Didn’t care. Terrible food? Didn’t care.
But that doesn’t mean that “fit” wasn’t important. It wasn’t “Mommy I love trees”. It was academic intensity, the vibe of the place, the feeling that scientific inquiry was a value held as being important to society and to one’s identity. Kid could have found that at about 15 public U’s (not our own, sadly) and maybe 50 private U’s. But not everywhere- by any means. And if the kid had ended up commuting to a local non-flagship branch of our state system and become a HS teacher- well, likely not a tragedy although I can’t see that as sustainable professionally (or very satisfying personally) now that said kid is firmly established in the chosen career which is a perfect and fantastic “fit” all around. A career with the same grinding intensity as college was-- and clearly the right place in the universe for this particular personality.
That was our journey. There are kids who study physics and math at places where the prevailing culture is more art and music- and they do just fine. And there are kids who study English literature at places which are very pre-professional and geared towards accounting and nursing- and they also do fine.
If you have the luxury of choosing between a few affordable options, it’s good to know what the decision criteria are going to be. And even with the common app, I still don’t believe a HS kid with a demanding senior year schedule (and a sport) is going to do a bang-up job on over 20 applications, with extra scholarship essays, and potentially fly-in weekends.
But that’s me.
@knowsstuff. My S20 does not fear being bored or annoyed in any of his engineering classes, regardless of where he attends. It’s the other classes he will be frustrated with if not in honors. He is no genius; he is just a serious kid. He hates him time being wasted, and a teacher explaining something for the 17th time after he got it the first time sends him into orbit. He can be surrounded by people as dumb as rocks for the next 4 years and he will still be the same person. Just more annoyed.
This is unlikely to be an issue in college. He’ll be in a lecture hall not a classroom and the students who can’t keep up will have to attend tutoring sessions outside of the lecture and/or attend the professor’s office hours.
@Lindagaf exactly. The D “has no preferences”? Then apply to the auto big merit schools and then pick one. Why bother with long apps with a lot of essays if the D has no preference? Why is this thread even this long if that’s the case? If there are already known safety schools that fit the budget and the major that it sounds like she has no intention of changing, then apply to those and call it a day. Don’t bother with the Vanderbilts and the Dukes where it’s a big commitment to apply and then the chances are teeny tiny for enough money. The D doesn’t seem to care if she goes to Alabama or to Princeton. They both have classrooms, etc.
Trying really hard to not be too snarky but, seriously, if the student truly has no preference to the point where the OP needs to belittle kids who have preferences then that student’s list can be short and the search simple. This thread then just made a mountain out of a molehill.