Kevin–if I’m reading the situation accurately, your d is heading off to school soon 3000 miles away. In addition to her demanding classwork and athletics, you expect her to manage 20 plus applications plus another 15 or so extra supplements for the big money awards (schools where merit is not automatic for stats) and then attend 10 or so scholarship weekends which are fly in and interview deals…all while keeping up her athletics and academics…is there a stay at home parent willing to become project manager on all of this?
Your d is likely to find that her college counselor will encourage 10 strong applications. Plus or minus. Not because her classmates are rich and don’t need merit, and not because they don’t understand the hunt for merit aid. But because they understand what burnout looks like in a 17 year old, they understand that the tippy top awards go to kids who show up at a handful of scholarship weekends when they are well rested and at the top of their game, and impress the pants off a room full of trustees and deans and alums. That’s how to get a full tuition award. Not by showing up exhausted because you just flew in from another college and are heading somewhere else next week even though you have a huge physics exam to study for. And your supplemental essays are banal and trite because the prompts are all different and who the heck can be original 15 times in a row when you have a heavy academic load and Mom and dad are three time zones away.
Help your D not have the worst senior year capped by stress and needless work. Pick a rock solid safety, one lottery ticket, then 8 big merit for her stats schools and let her do the best job she can on those…
I’m not quite sure how this applies to my topic of this thread, but OK, I’ll address it.
Sure, if our income was < 70K we probably wouldn’t be able to afford prep school even at her current deal of 85% off tuition, so no, she probably wouldn’t be going. However, her best friend from hockey here in So Cal, who’s family does make < 70K per year goes to prep school in Vermont, so there is precedence. If our daughter didn’t go to prep school, she’d be going to our public high school, where she went for her freshman year. She finished that year ranked first out of 580 freshmen students, so I imagine she would have similar grades and test scores, and would be able to get into several very good schools and our cost would be next to nothing - a much smaller percentage of our after tax income than it is now.
As far as flights, she probably averages 6 or 7 round trips from So Cal to the east coast. Between my wife’s flight attendant benefits, and my frequent flyer miles, I pay less than $1000 out of pocket for all of these flights.
If you’re interested in our choices in her pre-college spending I can send you the details in a private message, as opposed to you making blanket assumptions - let me know!
@Mom2aphysicsgeek has probably written the single most important post on this thread.
There are 30,000 plus valedictorians and the same number of salutatorians, and all the other tens of thousands who are right at their heels. A giant number of those kids are also chasing awards, and they might be even more well qualified than your daughter. It’s not necessarily about casting a wide net. It’s about casting a well-thought out and balanced net, while remembering that even if you’re helping her and her private boarding school is helping her, it’s still your kid that has to do the work.
Thank you very much for the helpful comment and sharing your story! I assume URM = Under Represented Minority? (I’m still learning these acronyms!) It sounds like you scored 7 full rides out of 15 applications - that’s a huge percentage, and a lot more than I am expecting. And of the remaining 8 several were full tuition, meaning you only pay room & board? I would be ecstatic if my daughter got half of this outcome. We might be able to prune our list to get close to 15 - I’m spending hours every day researching and re-ranking schools to apply to!
Agree - I looked at Alabama today, and while it looks like they have a lot of merit aid available to a lot of students, it doesn’t look like any of it that we might qualify for covers full tuition. I’m still looking at the details.
My daughter is not planning on taking the ACT again - Alabama seems to be the only school that differentiates between a 35 and 36 for merit aid, and the chances of her getting a 36 seem pretty slim. Although I’m tempted to sign her up for one of those ACT classes that I keep getting e-mails for that guarantees a 4 point improvement, as a 40 ACT would be pretty impressive!
Her NMSF was a bitter pill to swallow. 47 other states, and she’d be in. If they weighted math the same as reading, she’d be in. That’s literally 1 wrong question away. But, no use crying over spilled milk!
No. I’m not really interested. As a single parent that grosses about 40K/year with a 0 EFC I was just reacting to your comment that those making under 70K/year can have their choice of schools for free. That is totally not true. Your CA schools since you’re a resident and the Ivies maybe, but a lot of those public schools on your list would give you nothing but a 6K Pell grant…actually at 70K income you probably wouldn’t even get that. Most schools are coming up about 15-16K/year for DS with a 0 EFC. One school gave him a 30K Parent Plus loan as financial aid. Yeah, that’s just what I need making 40K/year. But, they met need!
Providence College. Super women’s hockey program. Tremendous support of the students and the school. They have a 3 plus 3 and 3 plus 2 and 4 plus 2 programs. The one I found for you that was interesting is their partnership with Wash U. You get a BS from PC in some related science and and Masters from Wash U in engineering field. Also one with Columbia etc. the merit and scholarships may let you get away with saving that money for the grad years or the plus 2 engineering years. Just an idea. Gives you a bit more time to save up as well. Your daughters profile might be very attractive to PC. It’s a great place to go to school and really putting money into facilities and profs.
@KevinFromOC My D (yes an under represented minority) also missed NMSF by one point and it was a tough pill to swallow when she would have qualified in all but a few states and saw friends with the same score but a higher reading than math make it. But we quickly marked those schools off the list and moved on. It was less than 7/15 since a few schools had multiple full rides that required separate applications. She did get to the interview round for almost all though. My D had such success because her schools were very targeted. She only applied to schools that were a good fit (She has a very good idea of what she wanted for her college experience) and where we assessed her chances of getting at least to the interview weekend to be better than average. Understanding the type of students each school with a full ride or full tuition scholarship looks for was very time consuming, but paid off. Your D is already behind, as my D did a lot of prep work and essay writing during the summer.
The problem with 3+2 and similar programs is that:
A. Five (or more) instead of four years of costs.
B. Admission to the second school with engineering may be competitive or uncertain.
C. Scholarship at the second school may not exist in the absence of need-based aid eligibility or insufficient need-based aid.
@ucbalumnus Of course you are 100 correct. My post assumes she would continue to be a stellar student coming from Tabor, Andover or Drfld. it’s just an option with merit and and a top women’s ice hockey team.
Seems like you may want to start the list with automatic large-enough scholarship safeties:
Check if University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and University of Alabama *Huntsville* scholarships bring the net price to within range.
Scholarships at Tuskegee University and Prairie View A&M University can be up to full ride, not just full tuition.
Then consider California public universities within commuting distance that have her desired majors. You mentioned UCI. Would CPP, CSULB, or UCR also be within commuting distance? Assess these based on admission (probably match, low match, or likely).
Only after including some of the above in the lists, optionally add colleges with competitive large-enough merit scholarships as reaches. To make applying to any such college worthwhile, it should in some way be more desirable than the automatic large-enough scholarship safeties.
She is working on about 7 for schools that require super early admission for merit aid, and is pretty much done with the essays. We have to wait until the middle of September to be officially notified of her NHRP status, so we really can’t submit any applications until then. I don’t want to list it on her application until the official notification.
She has gotten e-mails from several schools telling her she can apply for free and based on her status doesn’t need to submit essays and/or letters of recommendation (such as Colorado School of Mines), and has been invited to fill out a streamlined application directly from the school instead of using the Common App. So hopefully those schools will save some time.
It’s interesting what the schools say on their website. It seems like only Pittsburgh was upfront and states :
“All freshman applicants who submit a completed application for admission and supporting credentials by December 15th of their senior year are automatically reviewed for University academic scholarships and receive priority consideration. Students submitting completed applications after December 15 are still reviewed, but awards are made based on availability of funding.
It is important to note, the Scholarship Committee begins reviewing candidates and awarding scholarships in early October. The Committee makes decisions weekly on a rolling basis. Therefore, if you would like to increase your chances for scholarships, it is in your best interest to apply early.”
Most other schools state that as long as you apply by the deadline for merit aid (Nov 1 for most), all applications will be reviewed equally for merit aid. However, based on many of the comments on this thread, I’m not believing that…
Just make sure you know that the apps that say no essay needed might need essays for merit, scholarships etc, CSMs (for e.g.) was optional when my kid applied, that means it is not optional if you are hoping for big $$. Your kid needs to stand out.
CSM doesn’t have essays as part of the application. The AO told my nephew that they stopped accepting them because so many were not written (or at least not heavily edited) that they were not helpful in choosing a class.
My daughter, at a different STEM school, had to write a very short essay (and take a math placement test) after acceptance just o make sure she could write. That school has a lot of international students who really can’t write and they are placed in a remedial English composition class.
The bad news is that CSM is a public school that is very expensive (even for instate) and it doesn’t have a lot of need based FA. If the NPC shows some merit scholarships, go for it. It is a short application.
I second adding NC State to the list. Nephew is a senior CBE there, less expensive than PA in state for him, chose over Ohio. Great experience for him. Continued to add merit aid annually with his college GPA and reduced his loans. Lower cost of living for room and board.
Also have a senior DD CBE applying to grad school. Narrowed her undergrad list by adding her second choice engineering discipline. Also look at the graduating department class size. Some of the programs may have only 20. Chem Eng is a long arduous track and your D may want a bigger circle to trudge through problem sets. RPI has a relatively large CBE class size, SIT has a small one.
Consider cost of living R&B and off campus, a way to save. Southern school generally lower cost of living SIT has a huge housing crisis, living in Hoboken is more expensive and you need to pay for all 12 months. Boston is also very expensive for housing and dining. Our D is concerned about the cost of living as a fully funded grad student.
The northeast does invest in public options, too many elite private schools. Unfortunately those of us aware just knew we would be paying 120k for instate, get $25-$30k/ year merit for high stats, or full pay at top tier meets full need schools. I remember representing SIT at a college fair 20 years ago and listening to the financial aid meeting across the venue, realizing we were doomed and needed to plan.
Your Ds classmates will likely apply ED, SECA and EA. Many be accepted by mid-Dec. She may feel alone trudging through scholarship applications and visiting schools plus playing hockey???
Try to mitigate by limiting reach meets full need to 0 if you can’t afford or up to 2 schools if you would consider close to EFC. The list of 6 don’t have anything in common.
Reviewed equally for merit does not mean all are equally likely to receive merit. It simply means that there is no separate scholarship application and that as they sort through applications, those who stand out make it to a certain level of consideration. Eventually, final interview invitees are selected by some sort of committee.
Keep in mind that the committee’s initial decisions are ultimately going to be based on words on paper. That is why so many people are suggesting that she limit her number of applications. During interview weekends interviewers will share the characteristics, comments, etc that made the student stand out and led to the invitation. Grades, test scores, activities, etc are not going to be the reason. They are simply the initial hurdle that lets the application move to greater consideration. Moving further than that for merit that is not automatic is holistic and is going to be based in how well the student packaged themselves to fit the profile the committee is searching for.
It isn’t about just submitting the required app and supplemental essays. If students spend time researching prior recipients, reading their profiles, really considering what the scholarship description states, etc, that effort can help them determine if they are even a likely match and the focus their essay should take.
For example, consider the Park Scholarship https://park.ncsu.edu/ Spending time reading the site and student profiles https://park.ncsu.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Park-Class-of-2023-Recipient-Bios.pdf should provide insight into what the committee will be looking for. I didn’t read these kids’ profiles, but in general you’ll see leadership, volunteering, research, etc as major pts listed. The academic level is automatically assumed to be there. All of them are going to have stellar academics at advanced levels. What got the students to interview weekend is how well they hit the desired qualities in their essays/packaging of themselves.
For some public schools, there may be a different threshold for instate and OOS students in terms of what they want to see. (OOS students can face higher thresholds.)
@KevinFromOC Lafayette College in PA just upped their Marquis merit scholarships to full and half tuition. Top LAC that has chemical engineering. Worth a look!