Making an initial college list for S24 (homeschooled, undecided major, few strong preferences)

Chance Me / Match Me!
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We are struggling to make even an initial list of colleges for S24. The main problem is that he doesn’t have any strong opinions about anything that is easy to sort colleges by. For most things he has a small preference, but would be willing to forgo it for a school that was a good fit in other ways or that he was excited about.

Size: No strong preference, might prefer medium-ish (5,000-8,000 undergrads) BUT
Major: undecided, with interests varying greatly, so a bigger school might have more flexibility on major choices; likes interdisciplinary majors (CS + linguistics; Data Science + psychology; Industrial engineering?)
Location: closer to home (central MA) is better, but willing to go farther. Considers 0-3 hours ideal (MA, CT, RI), 3-5 okay (eastern NY, Philadelphia area, rest of New England), 5+ less attractive but possible, west coast would have to be something absolutely amazing to consider
Setting: Least excited about very urban (didn’t love BU, but thought Northeastern was okay)

What opinions has he expressed?
Bathrooms – he is excessively modest, and also has some digestive issues, so he’d strongly prefer a dorm with bathrooms that 1 person uses at a time (I know this is a ridiculous way to pick a college, but it is literally the only thing he has said would make a big difference to him about a school)
Partying – he knows there will be some anywhere, but he would find it really unpleasant if drinking was a significant part of the culture
Culture – He takes his faith really seriously. He would like to be somewhere he will find a group of people who feel the same way (but doesn’t want to be in a place that is insular, either). And he is mostly apolitical and doesn’t want to be somewhere that being a Christian exclusively means being a Trump/Republican acolyte.

What do I think he might like/need in a school?
He is willing to work hard, but doesn’t look for opportunities to be challenged. If someone says, “You should get an internship” or " You should try this class" or if everyone around him is looking for research opportunities, he would probably pursue it, and do well and enjoy it. But he wouldn’t think to do it on his own. So a place with proactive guidance by the school or where the other students are generally focused and go-getters would be helpful.

We’ve had some thoughts recently that he might have attention/executive function issues. We haven’t had a formal evaluation done (checked and they were $6,000?!) but we did hire an executive function coach to work with him and it has made a huge difference in his time management and focus. I’m not sure what that means about college, except that he won’t qualify for any help from disability services without a diagnosis but those issues could still affect his experience.

The details!

Demographics

  • US citizen
  • State: Massachusetts
  • Type of high school: homeschool
  • Gender/Race/Ethnicity: male/white
  • Other special factors : none

Intended Major(s): Undecided. Possibly CS, linguistics, psychology, and/or Industrial Engineering/Operations research. (See this thread Help me help S24 think about potential majors for more info on his interests. Since then he has been researching degrees and careers, and knows a lot more, but isn’t much more decided, except that he is pretty sure he isn’t interested in a strict engineering major like ME.)

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: ~3.9 (depends on how we end up reporting it; 3 semester Bs or one yearly B)
  • Weighted HS GPA: Haven’t calculated one. Think we should?
  • Class Rank: Not applicable
  • ACT/SAT Scores: Took SAT fall of junior year (1440: 750 Eng/690 math). He studied with Khan Academy for the English because he was worried about it, and didn’t study at all for the math. He’s retaking in June, studying for the math. Will it be terrible if his Eng goes down, if he brings his math up significantly for a good superscore?

Coursework
(I’m just listing the advanced subjects. He will have 4+ years of all core subjects, plus some interesting academic electives.)
Junior year: APs Calculus AB, Physics 1, Comp Science A; Honors Am History
Senior year planned: AP Literature, DE Biology, DE Calc 2 & 3, DE Social Studies of some sort; DE French 3 & 4 (or maybe just high school French 4, depending on what is available)

Awards
He got a 1470 or 1480 on the PSAT, which gave him a SI of 221 which might make him NMSF, or he might just miss it.

Extracurriculars

  • Works 20-30 hours/week (paid) as a Personal Care Attendant for his disabled brothers
  • Involved in church activities (attends weekly, youth group student leader, retreats & camps) and volunteers through church (helps with elementary education classes all year, Vacation Bible School in the summer, participates in occasional volunteer programs at food pantry, community garden, etc. when organized by the church)
  • Does a bit of other volunteering through brother’s special education school
  • Weekly D&D group participant
  • Likes to play video games, board games with friends, organize his Legos (and build occasionally), and research Kickstarter projects

Essays/LORs/Other
These are going to be tricky. He is a good writer but this type of writing might be stressful for him. For LORs I’m just not sure. He does well in his classes, but all are online and this year all the AP/STEM classes canceled the synchronous meetings so he basically has no interaction with his teachers. I don’t feel like any of his teachers know him well enough to write a good letter. Even the DE classes (except Biology) he is looking at for the fall look like they are only going to be offered asynchronously online, and it feels like that would be waiting too late for getting a recommendation anyway.

Cost Constraints / Budget
Cost/year needs to be $50,000 or less (less is better!). It is unclear how much financial aid we’ll qualify for. S23 is just getting financial packages for his schools and we didn’t qualify for much (or any) at the schools he applied to (though we’re waiting to hear about special circumstances considerations due to costs of care for our disabled children). Our income was down in 2022 from 2021, and we’ll have 2 in college, so maybe we’ll qualify for more?

I ran the NPCs at 3 schools S24 is considering, using the same numbers for all (our 2022 income, 2 kids in college):
(Cost/Grant/Merit/Net Price)

  • Union: 84K / 12K / 23K / 50K
  • Northeastern: 84K / 40K / — / 44K
  • BU: 83K / 49K / — / 34K

As you can see, the amount of aid places say we can expect is all over the place.

Schools I’m honestly really struggling to come up with a list of schools that “fit” him.

  • Safety: I guess one of the non-Amherst UMass schools, but none seem like a great fit; Endicott?
  • Likely: Connecticut College?
  • Match: Union? Syracuse? UMass Amherst (if doesn’t apply for CS)?
  • Reach: Northeastern, BU, BC (<- these are all schools he has visited and said were “fine”, and do have some programs that interest him)
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Based on what you said about him needing some encouragement to pursue things and his executive function issues he might do better in a smaller college. I was sure I wanted medium size until I visited Hobart William Smith and I realized how much more personal the advising is. They are very involved in guiding you based on your interests and strengths. They even choose your freshman fall schedule for you based on your interests and academic history. For a student who knows exactly what they want that might feel like overreach but for an undecided student like me it is comforting to have that extra support and guidance.

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Not ridiculous at all. A friend’s son has UC and this became a big issue during his first year. Luckily, with a doctor’s note, he was able to have different accommodations the following year.

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Oooh, that school is ~20 minutes from his grandma’s house. I’m going to check it out.

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Re: bathrooms, if he has a diagnosed condition, then it should be pretty reasonable to get ADA accommodations on this front. We have toured several colleges that set aside single rooms for students who can’t handle living with roommates due to physical or mental health concerns, and I think you could probably find someplace with similar arrangements for bathrooms, if single-user bathrooms aren’t already available in some dorms.

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Nothing diagnosed at this point. He’s always had digestive issues, but he’s my “easy” child :grimacing::grimacing::grimacing: so we’ve just managed them with careful diet. We should probably talk to the doctor before he goes to college anyway, since it’ll be harder to manage diet on his own at school. :disappointed:

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Not in his geographic area of preference, but St. Olaf sounds like a good match for the type of culture he is looking for. They are open/accepting and welcome all faiths and ways of life. There is a good work/life balance where kids seem to be very laid back. Academically inclined, but not competitive and definitely not a big party school. We are not religious at all and we felt very comfortable at St. Olaf and saw value in their religion class requirement (very broad and interesting). It is small and nurturing and my son was completely enamored by their honor code. It’s the type of place where you leave your door unlocked, your bag unattended and there is a “take what you need and return it when done” trust among the community. While they don’t offer as many majors as bigger schools, the personal advising may be beneficial for figuring out what experiences and courses would provide the best options to find his path. They are generous with aid and I think a personal letter about your family’s situation would go a long way. I also think that as they personally get to know their applicants, his volunteer work and caretaking would be seen as very valuable. I think he could find his place there.

Have you looked into Wheaton in MA?

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Union is a good thought. Maybe Clark, Fordham, Seton Hall and Bowdoin plus Colby (later 2 if more rural and smaller is ok).

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S23 considered it and didn’t feel like it fit him. We should revisit it for S24. Good idea. (Ha, it might be too close to home for him though; it is only about 20 minutes away.)

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NMSF could open up some opportunities. There are schools that offer scholarships.

If he thought Northeastern was ok maybe Fordham? Nice campus in the city, Jesuit and I think they offer scholarships for NMSF.

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Could depend on how strict the dietary restrictions are (i.e. if cross contamination is an issue), and how common the avoided ingredients are in prepared foods.

Regarding other opinions mentioned, it looks like he is conservative and religious in personal habits, but not into conservative or religion-based politics as it is now.

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If he’s NMF or NMSF $50k can be a cake walk if you are willing to go there. At some free tuition. Others include room and board.

You need flexibility outside your geographic area. But maybe you pay up and get him his own place. Or like my son lives in a 3 br 3 bathroom …for later years.

Many schools now have - for example - my son freshman dorm was a 4 bedroom set up for 4 kids with 2 bathrooms. So he shared with one other.

This is just a guide - linked below. And check each school for theirs. Many will be $500 or $1k.

Schools like Alabama and Tulsa and more - again geographic flexibility - your $50k a year could be used for grad school, cars, retirements - assuming he gets NMSF or NMF.

As for solo bathrooms, I’m not sure how many have but you can find all the colleges in your states of interest that have the student population you like - and school by school you can ask the question. You can literally google the state + niche + college and you’ll get a complete list for that state. You can then narrow from there by populations to see who meets that need, then figure if they’ll hit $50k and then learn about housing at those schools.

Good luck.

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Perhaps difficult for a home schooled kid to go far away the first year? I would be concerned as a parent.

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Yeah hence my response to google the state and see which colleges fit.

I just threw out the NMSF list bcuz it covers all 50 although I didn’t see the NE represented.

As an example, a U of Maine - good for NMFand Southern Maine hit the population desire.

Are both under $50k?

If so, then OP can research first year living to see can a student get a bathroom.

There may be trade offs of course - academically.

So that’s where the flexibility would come.

They can do the same for each state. Rhode Island might be URI, Brown, Providence (Religious), Roger Williams and Bryant (going smaller). Can they meet budget ? If so look into housing/bathrooms.

But I threw out the national list bcuz some don’t realize. There’s a big difference between near free and $50k and it might change perspective. Or might not.

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Does he take responsibility for designing any of his homeschool subjects? Choosing the books for an English class or what to study in a music class? That can get him ready for picking his major or directing a course of study.

Do any of his advisers at church know him well enough to write a LOR?

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I’m wondering about your NPC numbers. I think it’s unlikely your son will get any merit aid at Northeastern or BU, both of which are very competitive these days and pretty stingy. BC is a high reach and getting merit is very tough.

He is unlikely to get merit aid at Syracuse.

I think he needs to apply to more schools with acceptance rates in the 50-70% range. Especially as it seems he must get some merit aid to make it affordable.

There are a few good suggestions here:

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UMass Amherst, hands down. He will get in, as long as he doesn’t apply for Comp Sci. He can then get into the Comp Sci major if he does well in the intro classes, and if he doesn’t do well in them, he didn’t belong in that major anyway. BTW, they have the best undergrad linguistics dep’t in the nation, so if he wants Comp Sci and computational linguistics, it’s a very good choice. As a large flagship U, they’ll have most majors that he could want. Their food is EXCELLENT, with a huge variety of healthy and tasty options. Assuming that he applies for linguistics or psych, which are both humanities, he’ll probably be accepted for their honors college, which has lovely modern dorms with the type of bathrooms that he needs - private bathrooms where you lock the door and have a toilet, shower, and sink with total privacy. Cost will be reasonable, and he’ll probably get a small amount of merit money, too. There will be all sorts of people there, with all sorts of interests. There will surely be many Christian organizations on campus, should he want to join any of them, plus a DnD club, and any other interests he might have or develop. And it’s close to home. Oh, they’ve also got the 5 college consortium, so he can take a class at any of the others. Amherst college is very close to UMass, the others are about a 20-30 min shuttle bus ride.

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The NPCs I ran didn’t show any merit for either NEU or BU. But they showed a lot more generous need based aid than Union did, and enough that they would be affordable without merit. I don’t know if that is accurate, but it was interesting. Of course, getting in would be the challenge and I certainly wouldn’t consider it likely for either.

One of the problems I’m finding is that schools with high acceptance rates seem to either be very big (usually state schools) and have the variety of majors he is interested in, or relatively small LACs that have few choices in the areas he has some interest. Of the schools people have listed above, Fordham looks the most promising in terms of academics (he’ll have to look more into everything else).

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The picture you paint of UMass Amherst is very attractive. And if he got into the honors college that might make the big school feel smaller (or so I hear). Besides the quality of the linguistics & Comp Sci departments, they also have an interesting Industrial Engineering major. It is one of the few schools I’ve found that has all 3 majors (Northeastern is another).

They do require homeschooled students to either already have 27 credits of DE credit (he won’t) or to take the GED :roll_eyes: to matriculate (so not checked for admission, just needed to prove graduation before enrollment) which is a hassle most colleges don’t require but manageable.

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If you are looking for flexibility even after joining a college, then publics like UMass Amherst may be tough because you need to pre-commit into some of the majors.

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