<p>My son has shown a decent amount of interest in Reed. I don't want to get his hopes up and not be able to make it happen. We are middle class, make a decent amount of money but with mortgage, taxes and high cost of living in San Francisco have very little extra cash.</p>
<p>But from the tidbits I've grabbed here and there it would seem the best most can hope for is half or a ball park around there. So if COA is around $45k I'd have to figure out how to pay around $23k?</p>
<p>I'd extremely (hahaha not to joke from the other post) peoples experiences or knowledge about their Merit Aid. I'm very sure we would get almost no need based aid.</p>
<p>So far S has been doing decent in school around 3.9 unweighted GPA, about 7 APs so far he's a junior. He got a 5 on the Chemistry AP his sophmore year, but hurt himself by getting a 740 on the Chemistry SAT 2. I hope he did well on the PSAT he took it last week.</p>
<p>Haha I’d just like to start by saying that a 740 is a really high score for any SAT II, especially for one as hard as Chemistry. A 3.9 is also spectacular GPA, in my opinion–that’s getting an A or A+ in every single class, except for a couple A-s or one B+.</p>
<p>In any case, Reed doesn’t offer merit aid I would still apply for Fin Aid, though, since you never know what you could get. Besides, your son sounds pretty smart and capable, so there are all sorts of independent scholarships out there he could apply for to help with the cost.</p>
<p>Yeah, no merit based aid, but I’d like to echo what francaisalamatt said about applying for independent scholarships. Your son sounds like a smart cookie. And Reed is actually quite generous with their need based financial aid, so it’d be best to apply and see what happens.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>A domestic student’s cost of attendance is around $55,000/year, not $45,000.</p></li>
<li><p>I have no idea what made you think Reed awards merit aid. It does not.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thank you all for your reply. It’s very similar to what I thought. It’s helped me tons. I won’t hold my breath when applying. Debating if its worth the fees. We make about $100k combined income wise. My wife is a teacher and I work for the federal gov. All the calculators say our contribution should be around $23k a year. We have a hard time paying property taxes in CA. No idea where the extra will be coming from. I’m pretty sure we could help our son, but $23k is a stretch, that’d be like not eating at all and only paying bills.</p>
<p>But thanks for giving me a heads up! I’ll keep doing my research. I just don’t want our S to come out of school with debt. Luckily he’s grounded and is not yet dead set on any specific school.</p>
<p>I am in a similar situation. While in the perfect world your kid would go to a prestigious private school, it would seem that a state university makes the most sense. Fortunately, you live in California, where you have great state universities. In Florida, we have University of Florida, which is pretty good. I don’t think it makes sense to send your kid to Reed if the kid can get into Berkeley, UCLA, or UCSD, for example. My friend’s kid wound up going to Santa Barbara rather than Washington University, and my friend had the money to send him to Wash U. Now, if it were Harvard or Stanford, that is a different story.</p>
<p>If you think your estimated family contribution is too high, attach an explanation of your family’s circumstances to your son’s fin aid application.</p>
<p>I’d consider Grinnell if I were you; it’s a great liberal arts college that awards merit-based aid. Kenyon does too, though more rarely. Washington and Lee offers sizeable merit aid, but it is very different from Reed in terms of school vibe and ethos. Denison and URichmond offer merit aid too, and may appeal to your son.</p>
<p>floridadad55, why are you stalking the Reed forum?</p>
<p>floridadad Yeah we still plan on applying to UCLA, still debating on Berkeley. I don’t like the climate at Berkeley at the moment. Plus from my understanding completing classes at a UC in 4 years is very hard, class sizes are not good, chances of you interacting with professors is not good. At UC you have to be the exceptional student to work with the teacher, at a smaller school making the connection is a lot easier. I’ve actually started reading both Loren Pope books, it gives you lots to think about. Don’t get me wrong I don’t see anything wrong with State schools, I’m the product of one. But the experience was not very good. My school was a complete commuter school, its like going to highschool and doing the motions waiting for the moment to leave. Not very enjoyable.</p>
<p>Ghostt fantastic suggestions. I actually had a church friend that went to Grinnell. I’ll investigate. I was thinking about Denison too but knew too little about it and it seemed a bit far away. I’ll take a close look. Is Denison the school Steve Carrell went too? or was that some other small LAC. Yeah the idea of attaching a note regarding family contributions sounds like a great idea. But do you think the schools want me and my wife to stop contributing to our retirement plans? I’ll go take a look at how much we can cut back retirement wise. I have to contribute a minimum amount just to get the matching, plus I’m paying back my retirement plan because I borrowed from it to pay for our first home.</p>
<p>I don’t think they would <em>want</em> you to do anything of the sort, but communication is key. Explain everything you’ve mentioned in this thread in detail so that it is very clear to the fin aid people that you cannot afford to pay $20k/year, and that trying to do so would put your retirement plans/living standard in jeopardy.</p>
<p>Colleges in general, and Reed in particular, don’t want to bleed their students’ parents dry. The perfect size of a family’s financial contribution is not the biggest one the school can possibly ask for–say, $16,000 with an annual income of $17,000, or something ridiculous like that–but the most sustainable one. Fin aid offices want you to have some money left over for vacations and nice anniversary gifts, and they certainly want you to be able to eat and keep your retirement fund; that is the perfect state of affairs. The reason it doesn’t always happen at all but a handful of schools is that fin aid offices have less money than they would like, and sometimes cut fin aid packages a little thin when they think the family could afford it–in order to be able to give more money to families that they know need more (or at least that’s how I rationalize it). So just make it clear to them that you belong to the latter group, and that you cannot spare as much money as they might think.</p>
<p>I’ve met people here who got amazing fin aid packages–I am one myself–and I’ve met people who got shortchanged in the process and are now paying a little too much because on paper their family looks wealthier than it is. I always advise them to go talk to the fin aid people. It’s seriously such a simple thing, and while it may or may not work out, it certainly cannot hurt.</p>
<p>I can’t guarantee that, should your son be accepted here, he’ll get enough fin aid to be able to attend; if you have any doubts about your ability to pay as much money as you may be asked to contribute, however, I urge you to get in touch with the fin aid office early, and explain everything to them in detail.</p>
<p>I know little about Denison too, but I’ve heard good things about it. And yes, I think Steve Carrell went there.</p>
<p>(Disclaimer: I don’t actually work in the financial office and everything I just said is based on my indirect observations. If someone more knowledgeable than me disagrees with my view of the financial aid system and its goals, I wouldn’t mind being corrected.)</p>
I would still apply for Fin Aid, though, since you never know what you could get. Besides, your son sounds pretty smart and capable, so there are all sorts of independent scholarships out there he could apply for to help with the cost.</p>