@blountwil2 Thank for that. Well the system is what it is. You rocked out your PSAT and got a great designation. You did it. You earned it. My son did not. Too bad, so sad but he did not score like you did. He has to deal with the fall out. We can afford $25-30K to give him free and clear. Basically the UMASS price. But the $45k is just a bit too rich. We are finding that basically all private schools are in this $60K (+ or - $5K) and they will all give out a token $20K a year. So your still looking at $40K is you will. A big fat OUCH!
On your NEU question, check out the various websites to get a feel for tuition increases. They generally rise about 4% a year. Adding fee increases, bank on about $3,000 per year. This is cumulative; so sophomore year is $3k more than freshman year, Junior year is $6K more than freshman year (total up to 9K additional money needed). Your co-op goes towards paying for tuition bill (not directly). One thing to keep in mind is that this 5 year plan means that the fifth year is $12K more expensive than it was freshman year. Your scholarship is static. The freshman poster above indicated that the aid might not increase. Something you should look into further. Many families can stretch for the freshman year but then begin to struggle as these increases need to be paid for each year. The cumulative effect can be substantial to families on the edge of being able to afford the freshman tuition bill.
@blountwil2 --I appreciate your post. My son was the same way. The last thing on our minds was NM – he went in with no prep, and we didn’t think it mattered much more than being an indication as to whether he would need extra prep for the SAT. We really had no clue… and yes, there wasn’t any “hard work” at all involved. If it hadn’t been clear to us then, it certainly became very clear when my daughter was ready for college, as she was the far more disciplined, dedicated and hard-working student, but doesn’t test well.
And yes, it certainly did impact the range of options available to my son, though he didn’t end up taking anything more than a $2000 annual NM college-sponsored scholarship.
So it is good that you recognize that the NM merit award isn’t really such a great honor. It really benefits the schools more than the students, as it has enabled lesser-known schools to achieve greater prestige through aggressive recruiting and generous awards to NM finalists. At the same time, it does represent money that may give you opportunities you would not otherwise have-- so definitely you should not have any qualms about accepting those benefits. (That’s just life - sometimes you win, sometimes you lose).
What is your intended major? I can’t answer your questions about NEU, but I think that plays a big part in college choice, as there is an intangible value to the co-ops that probably really gives students a huge leg up on the career ladder in fields where work experience is highly valued. Also, the average salaries for co-ops might be higher in some fields than others. The downside is that it take you 5 years to complete a 4 year degree - and that could be especially significant if you have a lot of AP credit and could potentially graduate from another university in 3 years, or complete a combine Bachelors/Master’s degree program somewhere else in the 5 years it takes to get the bachelor’s alone from NEU. From your post, you sound like a very mature and level-headed young man – so some difficult choices ahead, but keep in mind that you will be choosing among an array of good options.
If you think of them as ‘lesser schools’ they will be lesser for you. We didn’t look at any schools as less, just looked at what they offered to us. Were they a good fit, did they have xx program? Were they affordable?
@calmom I’m going into mechanical engineering which is why I’m somewhat less worried about taking out loans, especially with the co-op system offered by NEU it is extremely likely I will graduate into a fairly high-paying job. That Job security is what drew me to northeastern, because I want to eventually go to law school and building up some savings beforehand is one way to go. I know it’s going to be a hard decision overall but thanks to everyone for your advice and help.
@blountwil2 If you want to go to law school, I would recommend keeping your UG debt to the minimum. I can share that our experience with our ds who graduated from college in 2011 during the recession and had multiple great job offers. He graduated from a small regional tech university. He works alongside engineers who graduated from engineering powerhouses and engineers from schools like his. This corporation recruits from universities around the country. Their income started at the exact same point and now everything is based on performance, not school name.
If NEU is going to cause you to take on a lot of debt, you should look and see what corporations are recruiting at your lower cost universities, talk to their career office about their coop programs, ask about their grads starting salaries, etc and see if a huge differential really exists or whether or not it is a perceived differential. I know our ds’s income is high for chemEs in general, so his school hasn’t impacted his income.
There are quite a few engineers in law school. They want to become patent lawyers or understand the laws and contracts they are signing. A classmate of mine was a practicing engineer and wanted to take over the company some day. There were three basic departments -engineering, law, and accounting. He intended to understand all three.
I think that @blountwil2 will be fine as long as he doesn’t expect to go directly from undergrad to law school. Law school is very expensive these days and the undergrad debt is no where as significant as compared to what students are borrowing for law school itself. But if the student is thinking of a niche law career related to engineering (like patent law or technical contracting or litigation) – it may not be as important to go to a top-ranked law school if he’s looking for an in-house position with an engineering or technical firm. Plus he can work for a few years to pay off debt.
Honestly… I would go with patent but my heart is in litigation which I know is a much more competitive field. I am majoring in engineering because that is my passion and it also offers me a very secure field to fallback on instead of, say, a polisci major. I would only go into law school directly if I could graduate debt free from undergrad (which is very possible thanks to National Merit but not exactly the most desirable option)
If engineering is your passion – and if it continues to be through school – I’d advise working in engineering for several years at least before applying to law school. A lot will depend on your LSATs & GPA – something that cannot be predicted – but I think down the line your prospects of admission to law school and post-law school employment will be better if you have a few years of work experience under your belt. When I was in law school many years ago, I had many classmates who were older and had already established careers - they were a tremendous asset to the school. For example, I was taught torts in a small session (seminar style) and we had both a registered nurse and a physician in the class. They certainly brought a valuable perspective to discussions about injuries and damages.
An engineering background will make you valuable to any law firm handling regular handling litigation over design flaws, such as product liability or construction litigation. But real-world work experience will be more valuable in a future employer’s eyes than a degree - although that’s also another advantage of the co-ops, especially if you can rack up some experience at well-known or highly regarded engineering firms. It’s always useful for a law firm to have attorneys who can function as in-house experts, who see and understand technical issues, reports and terminology without needing to rely on outside consultants. An attorney in that role is not a substitute for an independent consultant, but can help frame issues, and is extremely valuable at depositions, prep, and examinations of experts at trial. So it’s something you would want to make the most of.
I’ve been thinking about this post & wanted to give a bit of support to the OP @Tribruin – I don’t blame you for being disconcerted by this. While I get why the colleges do it, it really does work in favor of simply not applying (or trying for) these top merit scholarships when kids can get the same amount of money for no effort.
Now who these scholarships do benefit are families like ours…that is, we make too much for financial aid but don’t make enough to pay for college (other than in-state schools). My kid was able to wrangle up to $25,000 a year and it made a big difference for us when looking at schools.
My understanding from reading the NEU parents board is that earnings from co-op do not affect financial aid. However, you need to call the financial aid office to verify. I do wonder how they count student savings from co-op (asset) even if they don’t include it as income. And a co-op in ME can net you tens of thousands of dollars should you get into a top company that pays for lodging, travel expenses, etc.
I share your confusion over colleges’ interest in PSAT scores, particularly when the benchmark for NMS is not particularly remarkable in some states. Giving scholarships based on NMF seems like it wouldn’t bring as much prestige as based on SATs.
There is a high correlation between PSAT and SAT scores – so the students who qualify for NMF are almost always going to have high end SATs as well. (NMF also requires that that the student does take the SAT and score well, though I don’t think the SAT score has to be quite as strong as the initial PSAT score)
There are threads on here that discuss minimum SAT scores to make finalist and they indicate a 2000 (old SAT). So no, being a finalist does not mean a high end score. And the PSAT cut off for SF in some states barely broke 200 (old SAT). To get into more selective schools, kids are shooting for well over a 2000 but in their home state, a 201 makes them a SF. I think if the student is from CA, MD, CT, MA, etc, getting NMSF probably does predict a high SAT score. If the student is from ND, SD, MT, MS or WY - less likely.
An SAT over 2000 (old system) IS a high score It’s within top 7%.
As I noted, the initial NM PSAT qualifying score needs to be higher, but top
Crazy people on CC might not consider that high, but for all of those schools offering the mega aid to recruit NM scholars, that’s high enough above the median of most of their applicants to be worth offering big bucks-- and if that is the cutoff level, on average the NM finalists will have higher.
On a national basis, yes it is a high score. But in the context of this thread, the OPs son is saying he doesn’t understand why he should get so much money/attention paid by colleges for his PSAT score. Where I agree with him is that some colleges give blanket full or partial scholarships based on this factor. A 2000 SAT, quite frankly, would have put you on the very,very low end for NEU or other selective schools, but if you did get in, based on holistic factors, you would get the $30K scholarship if you made NMF based on a 200 PSAT in a low cut-off state. That’s where it gets very mixed up. An awful lot of kids who attend high performing public or private schools in low cut off states benefit greatly from this whereas their counterparts in high cut off states do not.
Programs like NMF are easy to administer. It’s one test. It’s given on one day. Adcom’s spend SO MUCH TIME figuring out different transcripts, how to compare a grade inflation HS with one that is not, how to compare a kid who took 9 AP’s with one who took zero (because the HS offered zero). This is ONE scholarship which many colleges don’t participate in at all- but for those who do, it’s easy, it’s simple, and someone else administers the test and does the paperwork.
If you don’t like NMF don’t take the PSAT, and apply to a college which won’t give you a dime for being a finalist. It’s a good deal for some kids- it’s not a good deal for others.