This is my first time starting a thread in College Confidential. I have learned so much from reading other posts since my daughter (2022) introduced me to this site last year.
I am looking for “match” and “safety” schools for my son (2024). His only desires right now are something big and urban. He is open any part of the country.
He is a good all around student, but from reading college confidential I know that there are hundreds of thousands of other students just like him. He has unweighted 4.0, I think weighted about 4.5. He hasn’t taken the ACT or SAT yet, but on practice tests has been scoring about 34/1510. His PSAT will likely make him National Merit commended, but probably not a semi-finalist. He takes the regular amount of APs and community college classes for his school. He does band, basketball, soccer, and theater, works as a math tutor, and volunteer coaches. So he’s involved and happy, but not doing research or working on a cure for cancer like so many other kids I read about here!
He is fortunately not interested in engineering or computer science, which seem like the most competitive majors. But he doesn’t really know what he wants to study. Maybe something like economics that includes both math and social sciences.
He’s found lots of reaches he likes but we are looking for more “matches” and “safeties” that have generous financial assistance - either in aid or merit scholarships. I’ve learned a lot on this site about the great merit scholarships at places like Alabama, Arizona, and Pitt. But when reading about actual dollar amounts of these merit scholarships and seeing how much my daughter received in just financial aid, it seems our costs may be lower at a school with generous financial aid than from merit scholarships at these schools.
So I guess specifically I am looking for ideas of large, urban “match” and “safety” schools that are known for giving generous financial aid or auto-merit aid that would bring total costs (tuition, fees, room and board) to $20,000 (that is about what we are paying for our daughter after her financial aid) or under.
As I said, this is my first thread in College Confidential so I hope I posted it in the correct section and that my posting was clear. Thank you for any suggestions!
I don’t know if it will get you down to the price tag you’re looking at but maybe look at University of Minnesota, and apply very early (they are rolling admission.)
Not super large but my daughter did well with merit $ at Duquesne as her urban safety; still waiting for the need-based info. Merit $ there seems like it’s very much stat-based.
Sorry I should have said this. Yes, we are in California so we have great options and his large public school usually does well with UC admissions. But with my daughter, the UCs only gave us a little aid vs what private schools offered. So we went with the private school because it ended up being cheaper. But he will definitely apply to Berkeley and UCLA and we’ll cross our fingers for maybe more aid (that is if he gets in) since we’ll have two children in college. I am trying to encourage him to apply to more UCs since Berkeley and UCLA are so competitive, but he really wants a big city environment.
It was our experience that the schools with generous financial aid were never the match or safety schools. You mentioned Pitt which seems like a good option for large and urban. My S was offered $25,000 merit there a few years ago, but I know that amount has been harder to get recently. How about Temple or GA state?
Well that is my first choice of course! It would be great to deal with only one financial aid office and just the ease of travel and visiting and everything else would be great. But of course he does not like this idea - I think he wants to do his own thing. So he will apply there and if he gets in I will try to convince him.
My daughter was accepted to Pitt last month, engineering program, and received $20K/year. University of South Carolina, located in Columbia, SC, which is a smaller city, gave us in-state tuition. Also received about $10K/hear from College of Charleston. Hard to describe CoC as an “urban” school, bc Charleston is such a different type of city. The college is in the middle of the city, and lives up to the beauty of Charleston.
Your son sounds like the poster teen for the “average excellent” student: a great student overall, but nothing that is guaranteed to get him into one of the top schools that meet full fin need. If your daughter’s cost of attendance is 20K/yr after financial aid, then I would expect that you would qualify for the same for him, unless your daughter got a substantial amount of merit money stacked on top of fin need money. He might be able to get a very high merit scholarship at a third tier liberal arts college, but those are often not very large institutions. It’s too bad that he probably just missed NMSF, because that might have opened up guaranteed substantial merit money at certain schools, but that’s a done deal.
Besides the ones you’ve already mentioned, how about ASU with its honors college? U of Utah is on the eastern edge of SLC, with good transportation into the center of the city. They often give up to full tuition merit scholarships, especially if one performs well there, academically. It’s possible to become a state resident while attending, and qualify for in-state tuition, and then if he gets a high GPA, he would probably be awarded a full tuition scholarship, but I don’t know how much they’d give him up front, as an OOS freshman.
Adding ASU, DePaul, U Dayton, U Utah…all could get to $25K (but not guaranteed), then less the direct student loan would be in the $20K neighborhood. Also look at Drexel and U of South Carolina, but less likely than the others to get in your range.
What about something like SFSU? I’m not sure what the aid situation is like, but I think tuition is relatively low to begin with, and you don’t get much more urban than SF. It would also be a true safety for your son.
I see UMN and Pitt mentioned in this thread. From our experience this year, Pitt, UMN, and Ohio State gave enough merit aid to bring the total cost down to 35K-39K. This is good enough for us, as it matches the cost of a UC (we are also in CA). However I do not think the standard merit awards will get you down to 20K at these particular institutions, unless you win a competitive named scholarship. I do not know how financial aid stacks with merit at these schools.
Try Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. Auto merit will bring you down to 13k a year and they also have a gigantic scholarship portal. It’s not exactly urban, but part of the campus is in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is a medium-sized city. There is a bus that will take you from Grand Valley to multiple places in Grand Rapids. Students are also able to take the city buses for free. There are about 16k undergrads enrolled in the school. I am a current student if you have any questions about the school.
Have you run the NPC’s for the UC’s and some Cal states since you will have 2 students in college to determine if you will receive more financial aid?
What about San Diego State or Long Beach State? What is your local Cal state based on this service area link. Your local CSU could be a Safety/Match option. SFSU is a good option as noted by @worriedmomucb.
Definitely add a few more UC’s. Riverside, San Diego, Irvine can be considered Urban.