Looking for advice in Merit aid for a top 1% student

Paying for College
1421

South Carolina is a nice place to spend 4 years. When I attended many years ago there were no direct flights. They went through Atlanta or Charlotte but access was very easy. It’s a quick 20 minute drive from campus.

Columbia is a nice medium sized city. Enough to do on and off campus. Plenty of spirit. Must love football. It’s SEC country. Too hot from June through August but she won’t be on-campus at those times. It’s actually a little more diverse than people think. It’s odd. It’s the capital and a college town mixed together. I don’t know if the army base is still large but Fort Jackson was the main depot for basic training so lots of interesting people.

Engineering program seemed decent. I think Clemson was more recognized for tech but as always its what you put into it that counts. The business school is very good if she wants to get into the management area. The international business programs are always ranked very high.

They get a large percentage from OOS so your daughter would have plenty of company. Good luck.

1422

So I just spent the last 1.5 hours evaluating where you should send your daughter since I woke up early and couldn’t go back to sleep… Lol. I already knew about Miami of Ohio and Rose Hulman.

I looked to get as much information on the honors college experience and overall student profiles that I would think would match your daughter. Also knowing that she plays a sport thinking where she would fit in better. Taking into account that this is a student that is very accomplished academically. This to me is the biggest factor. Where will she be challenged academically. With her acceptances to Princeton JHU etc that says a lot. For her to go to a school that can’t compete or drive her intellectually to me would be a waste of her ability.

I am also looking at a school that would give her the most real college experience with all that college can give. Not just classes but the intangibles that go with going to college. I forgot exactly what she was given at each school financially but let’s just say their equal.

My kids were both in their own ways when they got to that fork in the road took the road less traveled. They are so much better for it for that intellectual curiosity.

Also looked into the honors colleges and what is offered and other areas like research.

Knowing the families that send their kids to Miami if Ohio (people with kids there please don’t get on me. Every school is great for certain kids), I don’t see your daughter there on any level. At least the ones I know are very well off families. Not even at all close to your daughters intellect. Their engineering curriculum is OK and their honors college to me is lacking. Socially, just don’t see it. Think she might be an outsider. I didn’t forget about hockey. Knowing the kids from my sports medicine practice even the full scholarship kids don’t always follow through and continue. These are elite kids. Same with performance art kids. I just don’t see the school challenging enough for her. Almost potential lost.

Rose Hulman will have kids on her same or at least similar intellectual wavelength. No question about it. I have been on campus with my son. Offered 1/2 scholarship but decided on Michigan for engineering.

It’s engineering all the time. Kids get jobs. Engineering all the time. Weekends are just studying. Engineering all the time. It’s a very small campus like a high school. Sports that no one goes to. City that doesn’t have really anything to do but engineering all the time. Girls have their own dorms and my patients daughters that actually like the school say there are always 10 pairs of eyes on them. 80/20 make /female ratio and hormones rising and engineering all the time.

So why do I put it this way. My son wanted to mix engineering with business. He’s in industrial engineering now that does this. At Rose there was just no way to combine anything to make a major he wanted to pursue. It is extremely linear. What you get is what you get. No diverting from the path. Engineering all the time. Great school for that but he wanted a college experience that would explore more areas of interest. Open up his mind and challenge him generally with like minded students. His minors are in engineering sustainability and engineering entrepreneurship. He was able to start a student org in Augmented reality and get large grants etc. Couldn’t see that happening at Rose at all. Went to France for an engineering study abroad in sustainablity and an international internship.

With your daughters intelligence and drive to me limiting her to a single focus is a disservice. Expanding her intellect to combine fields and interests to maybe make her educational experience her own to me is what college is all about.

University of South Carolina to me gives her the “complete” college experience. They seem to have a stellar honors program that looks like a real honors program. Look at the stats of the kids in it. Not sure how that combines with engineering. They seem to encourage intellectual curiosity. That to me is key and they are a major research facility. Seems like their engineers are doing some cool things there. There will just simply be more opportunities for your daughter in every way. Plus they have real sports. Being a competitive sports kid she will end up appreciating this fact. The other schools would be a disappointment. Also diversity would be greater there . Regardless of the stats the other two just are not that diverse.

Plus they are rolling out the red carpet for her. It’s nice to be wanted.

I swear if she and @HKimPOSSIBLE decide on the same day where they are going CC is going to explode with delight… Lol.

1423

@Knowsstuff I too have anxiously been following both threads!

My DD22 is interested in engineering and I have been creating a large excel spreadsheet to aid comparisons.

One of my columns is percent of women faculty in the engineering school. It’s just another data point that she might want to consider if it’s important to her.

The other is to look up some of the engineering faculty on rate my professor to compare RH vs USC professors. Best of luck to her with her decision!

1424

@swimmom1922. Seriously right?!!. Those two threads need to be marked. There are so few threads about kids of diversity and their unbelievable accomplishments on CC
Things they had to overcome etc. Beyond that it’s an inspiration of 2 extremely bright kids. The thought processes are clearly stated. They are like must reads for any new family looking at the college cycles.

I just wish them all the best. They are truly our future leaders.

1425

I don’t always agree with @privatebanker but I second his vote in this case!

1426

@Knowsstuff, fyi, see below, looks a bit like the experience you were describing for your son:

https://miamioh.edu/fsb/news/2019/10/brian-niccol-2019-ess.html

Cheers!

1427

@fretful mother. ??‍♂️ lol

I don’t always agree with you either but I agree with your post as well.?

1428

Many years ago (2006 college start), I corresponded quite a bit with a mom on this forum whose son was a NMF and McNair Scholar. Family was from New England. Similar path…he was chosen as a semifinalist but got bumped up to Scholar when someone else declined. He was also an engineering major, and he really really liked South Carolina.

He had a departmental scholarship and NM Scholarship on top of his McNair full ride award plus perks.

1429

I only meant it lightheartedly! :slight_smile:

1430

@fretfulmother I know. Just joshin’

Lol. Hope you’re safe and sound. Not stir crazy.

1431

@KevinFromOC ,
How sure is your daughter that she wants to study chemical engineering? Because if she is not sure then you should probably revisit the idea of Princeton.
Is your daughter willing to participate in college expenses (mortgage her future as per your first post) for the unique opportunity of attending the most highly ranked US college?
The idea to pay as little as possible for her college degree is a very noble goal however it may not be the best decision. Your daughter is a very bright and hard working URM with STEM talents - she will go far in life and most probably will make a lot of money. The $120K that Princeton is asking you and her to pay is not a huge amount of money. After all, you paid for 13 years of junior hockey flying her around the country and you paid (discounted) private school tuition - all were optional expenses that are now going away.

Seven year ago I was in a very similar predicament except my daughter was absolutely bent on attending a highly prestigious college. I am an immigrant from a country where college education was free and nobody in my family there or in the US ever paid for college. My daughter had a number of full ride offers including some full COA offers (one university offered her $900/month on top of full ride) from respectable state flagships and decent private colleges like BU or GWU. I was looking at roughly 100-125K expenses vs 0 or a negative number and was freaking out (just like you). In the end I relented and she had a blast 4 years at Yale (an offer from Princeton came too late).

Right now my daughter is back home working remotely from her childhood bedroom (escaped NYC). I just asked her how much she would be willing to pay for her college experience if she were asked to share costs. Her answer was - at least $100K.

On the financial front:
If you consider paying for JHU at 22k/y your daughter can take a loan and pay for Princeton at 28.5k/y.
The 120K amount is set in stone - you are protected from the future tuition/R/B increases unless your income drastically increases although the life under the financial microscope for 4 years does suck.

  • Personal expenses/books/travel are padded and your daughter can save money there. Can stay on campus or in NYC with friends for Thanksgiving/breaks instead of flying home.
  • I believe they subsidize on-campus activities and travel abroad for students on finaid.
  • Your daughter can work on campus and make a few thousands per year
  • Your daughter can do summer internships at FAANGs and NYC Financials and potentially earn over 20k per summer. URM status helps greatly at these places.
  • Your daughter and yourself can take loans. These are not extravagant amounts. My daughter paid off her loan from her sign-on bonus and internship money.
  • After 2008 crisis these rich universities increased finaid budgets for a few years. You did not have the best experience dealing with Princeton finaid office but everyone is stressed nowadays. People are dying in NJ. You should try to talk to them again to confirm that if your other daughter incur educational expenses they will count that. I do not believe they ask for the exact amounts, just the fact that the second child is in college.

Anyway, if you believe that you daughter is the type who can take full advantage of networking, social and educational opportunities that a top college can offer you should still consider Princeton. The doors will open that you do not know yet exist.
Good luck with whatever you decide.

1432

@Cleodx’s post is the first one in this lengthy thread to make sense to me. Perhaps it is a cultural gap, but when the difference between one of the top elite educations is within your grasp, it is inconceivable that parents and student would not stretch to make that happen.

1433

Earlier in this thread there were a few comments about how a place like CalTech or Princeton would be worth stretching the budget for.

But back then, the question was paying maybe $40-60k over budget over four years for a top elite. Now, it seems like the delta is $120k versus USCarolina or RH.

Unless she is sure she wants to go into engineering I think it’s worth it to stretch for Princeton. Female URM with actual quantitative skills will be a golden ticket that very few are willing to admit once job interviews start. Just my two cents.

1434

Folks…this poster said that $15,000 OOP would be a stretch.

1435

“Female URM with actual quantitative skills will be a golden ticket that very few are willing to admit once job interviews start. Just my two cents.”

I have worked in corporate recruiting for over 30 years and not once have I ever worked for a company which asks “are you Hispanic/Latina”. I’ve seen tens of thousands of resumes which state “native proficiency in Spanish/Tagalog/Mandarin or whatever” which allows the reader to draw his/her own conclusions about country of origin, but that’s a sidebar to the question of “does this person meet the requirements to get an interview”. And I have sat through zero decision meetings where we evaluate the hundreds of candidates who have been interviewed for an entry level position where someone says “Hey, she’s Latina, let’s go with her”. Zero.

So be wary of playing the URM card in an employment situation. Big companies can screen in or out based on language skills (if you are running a rotational program in South America, than fluency in Portuguese or Spanish is relevant) but sussing out someone’s ethnicity, especially if the person has their father’s last name of Jones or Smith is going to be a non-starter. You can ask 100% of candidates “are you legal to work in the US” as a screening criteria, but you are not allowed to ask that of folks who are named Hussein or Muhammad if you are not also asking that of folks named Charles or Cathy.

So not sure what the D’s ethnicity has to do with her employment prospects- unless she wants to work in a Spanish speaking country and she’s fluent in Spanish. In which case- sure… But then the golden ticket is language fluency (which IS highly prized in some sectors of the global economy) and not partial ethnicity, ESPECIALLY in a prep school grad!!! This is not the daughter of migrant workers, people- this is a kid at boarding school who plays hockey!!!

1436

These companies are not looking for daughters of migrant workers, they are looking for smart boarding school girls who played hockey and can check Latina box.
For example, google “investment banking diversity recruiting”

1 Like
1437

If you look back on the thread you will see similar arguments that URM really does not count for much, in the context of the college admissions game. Except for one astute poster who pointed out that female Latina with strong mathematical skills (besides everything else OP’s daughter has going for her) is a “unicorn” and would therefore likely be accepted to places like Princeton and Caltech.

I have a few colleagues and friends involved in recruitment of URM and females at the highest levels of the legal and finance worlds. Much of it goes on well above the HR department, who are often the last to see a candidate. Again, just my two cents.

1438

This student wants to be a chemical engineer, not work in the legal or financial worlds.

Female engineers are definitely sought after if they are otherwise qualified.

This parent said $15,000 OOP was a stretch for his budget. Princeton will cost him more than double that per year. It’s a great school, but this poster has clearly stated, it’s not affordable for the family.

1439

Inconceivable for whose pocketbook? Yours? Great, you do you. But, in no way is not wanting to spend $120,000 vs. $0 “inconceivable.” Plenty of parents (most outside of the CC realm), especially with the uncertainty of the economy, are not willing to spend that kind of $$.

We are those parents. Not happening for our kids. No way. But, we also have kids who have gone to school at avg Us on scholarship and have ended up with excellent careers or at “at one of the top elite” schools for grad school (fully funded). One of our daughters is a McNair at USC, one of his dd’s options. It is a fabulous program full of amazing kids and opportunities.

1440

@thumper1 - I totally agree that the student right now wants to be a chemical engineer. When I was 17 or 18 I thought I wanted to be an aeronautical engineer. There are tons of physics and math Ph.Ds working in finance - I doubt most of them pursued original research in solid state physics or algebraic topology in order to tweak high frequency trading algos for a living, but I bet it helps that many earn in a year what they would have earned in a lifetime in academia or government :slight_smile:

I have been very explicit in my advice. If OP’s daughter is absolutely certain she wants to be a chemical engineer, then minimizing costs at the undergraduate level is a sound strategy. No one pays an engineer appreciably more based on the sheepskin (although certain opportunities will only be available to graduates of certain schools). However, If she is not certain at 17 or 18 years old what she wants to do with her life, then in my opinion it is worth thinking of the option value of a Princeton pedigree for future prospects. That’s all.