Looking for Safety suggestions

College Search & Selection
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<p>My daughter, a junior, currently has a 3.9 unweighted GPA at an excellent public HS where she has taken the most rigorous classes available (AP's, Honors, etc.). Her best score on the ACT is 31 at present. She is a varsity swimmer and her guidance counselor says she has "stellar" extracurriculars.</p>

<p>The following is her current list of colleges:</p>

<p>UPenn (favorite)
Notre Dame University
Northwestern Univ.
University of Michigan (Maybe)
Boston College (Maybe)
Boston University
Villanova (not my favorite)</p>

<p>Her ideal school would have friendly happy kids between 3000 and 15,000 where Greek Life is not dominant. Academic prestige is also important to her.</p>

<p>Any suggestions?</p>

2

<p>Safety schools RARELY give great aid and they often aren’t “prestigious” (otherwise everyone would want to go there, and then it wouldn’t be a safety).</p>

<p>So, for a school to be a safety, not only must you be certain of acceptance, but you have to know that it’s affordable either by paying all costs with family funds or knowing FOR SURE that your child’s stats will get ASSURED merit and you can pay the remaining costs.</p>

<p>What is your budget? Will you pay $55k+ per year for any school? If so, there are many safeties, including many of the Catholics that aren’t as selective for admissions.</p>

<p>If you can’t pay all costs, then you’ll have to find safeties that will work for you.</p>

<p>What state are you in? You have some OOS publics on your list. Those schools will expect you to pay all or nearly all costs.</p>

3

<p>Thanks for your quick and honest response. We live in NY and are counting on financial aid.</p>

4

<p>If you’re counting on FA, then take UMich and maybe Boston U off your list. Nova doesn’t meet need either.</p>

<p>Are you ok with being gapped at all? If not, then your D needs to stick to schools that “meet need” (for reaches/matches), or give huge merit (for safeties).</p>

<p>Will you have other students in college at the same time? CSS schools don’t split contribution 50/50. They split it 60/60 (if they meet need).</p>

<p>You might look at Loyola-Maryland. </p>

<p>Do you know what your FAFSA EFC is and what a CSS school will expect you to pay?</p>

5

<p>We can be a bit gapped. My son and daughter will graduate (NYU & NDU) when my youngest graduates from HS next year. </p>

<p>CSS schools?</p>

<p>I will check into Loyola and look forward to more suggestions.</p>

6

<p>Loyola appears to be weak on social life and diversity. It probably won’t be a good fit. Thanks for the suggestion though. </p>

<p>Maybe Penn State?</p>

7

<p>No, not Penn State. PSU is a state school. It will expect you to pay full freight, which you don’t want to do. </p>

<p>You need aid. You need schools that either meet need or give HUGE merit.</p>

<p>There are only a small number of OOS publics that give big merit. PSU is definitely NOT one of them. </p>

<p>CSS Profile schools are privates that use CSS Profile (not FAFSA) to determine your aid. You still fill out FAFSA, but CSS schools only use that for federal aid. Notre Dame, UPenn and many of the others are CSS schools. </p>

<p>What was your FAFSA EFC with 2 in college?</p>

<p>You need to be prepared that your safeties are not going to have all that you want…prestige, diversity, whatever. You need safeties to know that you have affordable back up schools. </p>

<p>What diversity are you looking for? Are you a URM?</p>

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<p>Possible majors? Cost constraints?</p>

<p>Looks like SUNY schools may be typical places to look for safeties. Also, some of the University of Alabama campuses offering big merit scholarships for stats may be safeties. Check the “net price calculator” at each school web site.</p>

<p>However, high prestige schools are generally not safeties for anyone (except UT Austin for Texas public high school students in the top 8% of their class).</p>

9

<p>CC is such a great resource! I tell you enough how I appreciate your insights.</p>

<p>I have to look up our FAFSA EFC. I don’t know it off hand.</p>

<p>My daughter is half chinese and half caucasian. I don’t think that makes her an under represented minority. </p>

<p>My daughter is hoping that there is diversity of ideas, majors and race at her school. </p>

<p>She loves math and social studies. I could see her as a math/statistics major or economics major. She is undecided at this point.</p>

<p>University of Texas at Austin was suggested by my daughter’s HS counselor. It looks like a great school … to me. My daughter is sure she wants to go to Texas though. </p>

<p>It sounds like between my daughter and I we are quite picky, but given the commitment I think we have to be.</p>

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<p>UT is also a public U and looks forward to the $55K/year you will spend to send your D there.</p>

<p>

You have two children in college now, and one is at NYU? Sounds like you are probably paying full freight now. Was there a change in financials to cause you to look for aid now?</p>

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<p>Thank goodness for NYU and NDU’s financial aid packages! They both really stepped up for us.</p>

12

<p>Consider University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, as it is well regarded for math and economics (and good in a lot of other subjects as well), but its out of state list price is lower than that of many private and out of state public universities.</p>

<p>Closer to home and with in state cost and financial aid, Stony Brook University has a good reputation for math.</p>

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<p>*University of Texas at Austin was suggested by my daughter’s HS counselor. It looks like a great school … to me. My daughter is sure she wants to go to Texas though. *</p>

<p>Again…that public school will expect you to pay full freight. I hope you’re now understanding that OOS schools charge HIGH OOS rates for a reason. They expect you to pay those costs. They won’t give their very limited FA to OOS kids. They’re expected to help their own instate kids, not OOS kids with FA needs. </p>

<p>There are only a few Flagships that give large merit and Penn St, UTexas, UMich, UIUC, Purdue, UWisc, UCs, etc won’t do that. </p>

<p>UMinn may be an option since its OOS costs are lower than others, but again, you may be expected to pay full freight…about $30k per year.</p>

<p>How much can you afford to pay each year? </p>

<p>(Your child was very lucky to get good aid from NYU…very rare. That child must have had very high stats.)</p>

<p>It sounds like between my daughter and I we are quite picky, but given the commitment I think we have to be.</p>

<p>As for being “picky”, you can be picky when coming up with your list of reaches, but you can’t be that picky when coming up with financial safeties. There just aren’t financial safeties that will fill all your req’ts. </p>

<p>You have to figure out which of your D’s req’ts are the MOST important, and set the rest aside when looking for financial safeties. </p>

<p>I’m not sure of what “commitment” you’re talking about. The commitment of your money? Her time at a school? If it’s your money, then you’ll have to pay for getting all that you want in a “safety”. That means finding a school that has all of your desires, but won’t give you money, so you’ll be paying for all/most costs. </p>

<p>And, again, you’re not going to find “prestige” when looking for financial safeties…at least not how I think you’re defining prestige.</p>

14

<p>If you are in NY, are you including Binghamton and Geneseo on your list? Maybe they aren’t safeties, but almost, and they are affordable. As for a safety, besides Stony Brook, what about New Paltz? </p>

<p>As for OOS publics, I thought Pitt, Vermont, and Delaware had decent money for top students?</p>

<p>I’m a bit unclear from your original post: are you looking for academic or financial safeties, or both?</p>

15

<p>I’m a bit unclear from your original post: are you looking for academic or financial safeties, or both?</p>

<p>???</p>

<p>What’s the point of looking for “academic safeties” if the OP says that they need financial aid??? Only those who can pay full freight should look for “academic safeties.” When aid is need, the only safeties are financial safeties…those are schools that you LIKE, will get admitted, and YOU KNOW FOR SURE will give you enough aid/merit so they’re affordable.</p>

<p>The OP and her D seem like they’re stuck in a common situation…wanting safeties to have all the qualities of reach/matches. If safeties had those qualities (prestige, great FA, etc), they would become super popular and no longer be safeties. lol</p>

<p>The OP needs to find out what her EFC is for each of her current college students. Since those kids will graduate when this one starts college, the EFC will MORE than double because there will only be one student in undergrad and 2 less people to count in the household (you don’t count the graduated students).</p>

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<p>I know that, and you know that, but it didn’t seem like the OP knew that from her first post. She talks about prestige and about possibilities like Michigan that really make no sense. I was trying to gauge her level of understanding before saying what you did.</p>

<p>I’m also wondering why she keeps mentioning OOS publics when it seems more likely she would get better money with merit from privates.</p>

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<p>I’m also wondering why she keeps mentioning OOS publics when it seems more likely she would get better money with merit from privates.</p>

<p>Yes…she keeps mentioning the WRONG OOS publics. She keeps mentioning ones that will expect her to pay all/nearly all costs. </p>

<p>As for privates…there aren’t many privates that are safeties that give great aid. Her ACT 31 is good, but not high enough to be competitive at the schools that give great need-based aid. UPenn is her favorite. As a NY student, her ACT would have to be much higher to be competitive for there. </p>

<p>I don’t think she’d get any merit from UPitt without at least an ACT 33 (based on other posts). Likely the same for UDel.</p>

<p>The OP needs to be careful with the school list. They could end up with rejections at top schools and acceptances at schools that give them little or no aid.</p>

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<p>The OP and her D seem like they’re stuck in a common situation…wanting safeties to have all the qualities of reach/matches.</p>

<p>Like most of us here, we want our kids to be happy, productive and learn what they need to know to become prosperous secure adults. I know of many kids with incredible resumes going to their “safeties” only to be miserable. </p>

<p>Maybe I am being overly optimistic, but I am hoping my daughter can find safeties (academic & financial) that we both like.</p>

<p>CC you are really helping me figure this out. So far, it seems that I should consider more private schools that are need blind.</p>

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<p>mom2collegekids - Are you saying this is an impossible task?</p>

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</p>

<p>A safety must be both, as well as being a school that the student would like to attend.</p>

<p>A “very picky” student may not be able to find any safeties, in which case s/he has a high chance of being disappointed in April. For example, a prestige-conscious student who finds only Ivy League schools acceptable in prestige will not be able to find any safeties.</p>