Looking for help with son's college list

College Search & Selection
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Interested in Biochemistry / Biomedical Science .

GPA: 4.38 wt. uwt: unknown only 2 B+ on transcript
taken honors except language(2 yrs french) , scored 4 on AP History, 5 on AP Gov & Enviro Science. Currently taking AP Chemistry , Calculus BC, Psychology
SAT 1400 (700,700)
school does not rank
will need financial aid

Looking for schools with minimum 5,000 undergrads & strong academics.( not very social in HS and is looking for a fresh start) friendly, not cliquey & welcoming greek life.

currently has UMiami & UPitt on the list.

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Based on your son’s profile and preferences, the University of Rochester might make a nice choice.

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Will your family qualify for need-based aid or are you anticipating only merit aid? What is the amount the family can afford to pay per year?

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yes we will qualify for need based aid. The amount we can afford would be 15-20 per yr.

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The colleges will compute your family contribution based on the financial info you provide.

Are the parents divorced? Do the parents own a business or are they self employed? Do they own real estate other than your primary residence? If no to all of these (and you are a U.S. citizen or permanent resident)….you should complete the Net Price Calculators on each college website to see how close your net costs will be to what you can afford.

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A bit smaller than your target number, but in a terrific town: run the NPC for Skidmore. They have excellent science facilities, special science scholarships, and want more boys to apply. :wink:
Pitt is likely to be unaffordable- unless you’re a PA resident, he won’t get merit aid for 1400 SAT( all PA public/semi publics are super stingy and Pitt typically wants 1500 before they award anything making a dent in total costs.) Temple would be more likely to offer merit.
URochester as a reach, run the NPC. Possibly Villanova, same thing, (likely unaffordable because they don’t meet need so dont apply unless it is affordable).
Suny Geneseo - not sure about merit aid if you’re OOS.

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Have you run UMiami’s NPC? Does it come into this ballpark for your family?

FAFSA will give you expected family contributions. FAFSA and CSS profile open this week on Oct 1. (Edited from previous post) As he adds more colleges, make sure to go in and add them to FAFSA to be sent along with CSS when required.

Apply EA to U Miami to try to trigger their bigger merit aid awards. They will meet 100% of need and have great programs in his interest areas.

Look at Vanderbilt and Wake Forest. They are reaches for anyone, but meet 100% of need.

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The CSS gives a family contribution? When did that start? I don’t think so.

The FAFSA will give the family a Fafsa EFC but for schools using the Profile, the FAFSA EFC is sometimes not the same…just saying.

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Got it. For some reason I remember having a number similar to EFC when we finished the CSS over on one page of the site, but maybe it was just after the first colleges started pushing back the aid packages based on the CSS profile and we were in adding colleges she applied to RD. I will look back at things. Thanks for clarifying.

And absolutely, there was big variations between the FAFSA EFC and the actual aid packages from different colleges based on the CSS profile.

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You need to run some NPC’s, the FAFSA EFC is a misnomer. Part of the changes coming is to stop calling it the estimated family contribution, because no one uses it that way.

There will be wild variations in the estimated cost when you run the NPC. I’m guessing Villanova is not remotely doable, they were way more expensive for us than many comparable schools.

GPA is good, testing is fine. Only 2 years foreign language may knock some schools out, but you aren’t looking at tippy tops anyway.

Case Western? Selectivity similar to Rochester. If looking for friendly and not cliquey smaller may be easier to find than larger.

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Question for OP: what state and region are you in? The in-state flagship is usually a good place to start if cost is a factor. There may also be regional consortiums where you can get in-state tuition at a neighboring state’s flagship if your state school doesn’t offer your son’s particular major.

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He will definitely apply EA to Miami. The NPC came back in the ballpark

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We are from MA. UMASS Amherst is on the radar . Would prefer to go out of state

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Out of state for 15K/year is going to be difficult, especially at the level of UMass. University of Arizona after merit would be around 20K/year.

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Pitt is not going to come in under 15K. As suggested above, look at Case Western, which has a lot of attributes in common with Pitt but is private and meets need (and has the kind of low-key, friendly/welcoming Greek life you’re interested in). And Rochester, also suggested already. These are both reaches, but not unrealistic ones.

Lehigh might be a fit. It has just over 5K undergrads and a lively Greek scene, and it’s very good academically and meets need. It would be a match school for your son. (And if your family income is under 75K, he would get no-loan aid.)

Tulane seems like potentially a nice fit for your criteria, but it could be hard to get in without applying Early Decision, and you can’t risk applying ED because they don’t guarantee full-need-met aid (except to Louisiana residents). Still might be worth floating an EA application.

Syracuse would be another in this category - full-need-met aid isn’t guaranteed, but they meet 95% of need and might well make a good offer. (Their aid was very similar to Miami’s until Miami upgraded to full need met in 2016.) It would be a safety (or at least a low match) admissions-wise and he would likely have the option of the Honors program - could be a good option if the aid comes through. See what the NPC says. Some would say it fails to meet your “not cliquey” criterion, and others would disagree, so that’s something to look at.

There are several LAC’s in Pennsylvania that sound like what you’re looking for in every way but size. Gettysburg, Franklin & Marshall, and Lafayette all meet full need and match what you’re describing, but have about 2500 undergrads each. Could be worth a look in spite of the smaller size. Others that also match in every way but size but have between 2000 and 2500 undergrads are Union (NY), Trinity (CT), and Denison (OH). It really could be worth applying to some of these; if it came down to a smaller but otherwise good-fit school vs. UMass, he might decide to flex on size. (Not that UMass would be a bad choice at all, but it sounds like it’s not his preference.)

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U.Mass Amherst is a very good university. I am not sure whether or not the price will come in under $20k for you. I am expecting it to be at least very close. U.Mass Lowell might be worth considering if you want to minimize the cost.

I know someone from Massachusetts whose daughter thought that U.Mass was boring and went to UVM, as well as someone from Vermont whose daughter thought that UVM was boring and went to U.Mass. Both sets of parents paid somewhat extra for the benefit of having their daughters go out of state. In-state schools are very good in most cases, including for students from Massachusetts (or from Vermont).

I would definitely run the NPC on the web site of universities that you are considering. If you are divorced, separated, or own a small business, farm, or rental property the NPCs might be way off and too optimistic. Otherwise they seem to be quite accurate at least in our experience.

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Thanks for all of the input. We will begin to consider smaller schools. Would it be harder socially?
i.e. athletes stick together, greek life less inclusive…

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I think it’s hard to generalize based solely on size. I’m sure there are both larger and smaller schools where it’s harder to break in socially, and both larger and smaller ones that are welcoming and inclusive.

What sometimes can happen is that a smaller school can make for an easier initial adjustment, but can start to feel confining later on. (A lot of small-LAC students do semesters or years abroad or otherwise away - DC terms, wilderness/fieldwork terms, and so on - and that can provide a break and an opportunity to meet new people.) But even that generalization may not bear out in a specific case. One of my kids went to a smaller LAC and found she and many others struggled to find their niche for a while. What a lot of friends have seen at larger schools is that friend groups can get established early and end up kind of set in stone, especially when upperclassmen don’t live on campus and end up living with the friends they made in the first year. (Or at some schools, friend groups get sorted economically depending on what housing people can afford.) It really depends.

In my personal opinion, it can be more helpful to think in terms of social channels for connecting, vs. the “snapshot” view of size/demographics. Greek life can be one way into a friend group, but you need to look at the different systems both qualitatively and in terms of when rush happens - some schools don’t rush until first-year spring or sophomore fall, so it’s not like the student can wait to form a friend group until that happens. (I went to a college where rush happened immediately upon arrival, and it was a pretty wild ride and a traumatic way to start college for those who didn’t end up where they wanted. That school no longer does it that way; not sure how many still do.) It’s helpful to ask how your child is most comfortable making friends. Sports? Academics? Faith-based groups? Community service groups? Performing arts? Then look for schools where the right kind of social incubators are present and robust. A big, lively school only helps if the individual has a good “way in.” It can be a pitfall to look at schools that seem to fit the kind of person you wish you were rather than the person you actually are. Think about what you really tend to bond with friends over, and look for places where you can see those things being valued.

But with a 20K-or-less budget, it really makes sense not to be too picky on the first pass. You can always choose a larger school over a smaller one, come April, if you have multiple affordable choices. You can go to admitted students’ events and give schools the opportunity to surprise you, either by winning you over or by failing to live up to your hopes. You can dig deeper into what life would be like at the schools that actually end up “on the menu,” after decisions come back. It’s good to have options.

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What about University of Maine at Orono? I think that you would get instate tuition rates there.

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I think the first thought most people have is that it will be easier to find your tribe and make friends at a big school, but anecdotally I have seen the opposite.

I think that the crucial part of having a good social experience in college is “finding your people.” I realize that’s not my great realization or a novel concept. But I do think there are 2 different aspects, one of which gets overlooked.

First, are there going to be more of “your people” at a bigger school? Most likely. Even if you don’t fit the stereotype of whatever the school is, if there are 20,000 students, there are people like you to hang out with and be friends with. On the other hand, how many people are you honestly going to be close friends with? 3,4, maybe 10 at most? I don’t think you need a large number of people, you just need a few you can connect with.

The second part is the trickier “finding” them. In the last couple years I have seen 2 kids I know well who are nice but a bit more socially reserved go to our big flagship 2 hours away and not make any friends. It is so easy to just go in your room and get lost. And when they felt uncomfortable socially, that’s what they did. I think that’s much harder to do at a smaller school.

As an example of how that works, my daughter (who has been putting in some effort to make friends but is not naturally social) just started at Amherst College (1900 students). She has been getting involved and is making friends, because there is really nowhere to hide. She had never considered crew before she got there, but a girl she met suggested it. So now she is rowing for Amherst. In general, the smaller colleges have organizations that need people, where many times at the larger schools the organizations are larger and less personal, or even have selective interviews to even join. You are much more likely to be welcomed with open arms at a small school.

Another thing to look at that I think is underrated but I looked pretty hard at is to see where the students come from. One thing that benefitted her is that students come from all over, not just the surrounding area. Which means that most kids did not show up on campus with a friend group already intact. I see so many kids from my kids’ HS who either go to the local directional or the state flagship, and still after 4 years their friends are the same guys they hung out with in middle school. I think it can be tougher to break in socially at a school like that.

Full disclosure, I have 2 older kids at big schools. One is an athlete, most of his friends are too. The other is in a fraternity, and most of his friends are either kids from his fraternity or kids he knew before he went to college. It is working well for them. The one in a fraternity actually started school at a different college, with a less than desirable greek system to put it very charitably. He switched schools partly because of having a miserable experience there. So if your child is interested in a greek system, check it out ahead of time and make sure it is what they really want. I’m not anti-greek, it was a great experience for my wife and I, and at the current school it is a great experience for my oldest. But it was a horrible experience for him his freshman year at a different college.

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