<p>@boatlift - we don" t have Emory on our list and we are from the Chicago area. We used a private college counselor to apply to colleges that were a good fit for my son and within our budget No big reaches and he was offered full tuition at Iowa State - a safety but one he would be happy to attend. We’ve felt very relaxed during this time period as a result - lots of early acceptances within our budget. </p>
<p>To@collegemon2sons, below are some of my sons stats:
17 AP’s (9-5’s, 1-4)
Duel enrolled in calc at Ga. Tech</p>
<h1>1 of 401, 4.0 uw gpa</h1>
<p>35 act, 36 superscore, all subject tests:760-790, SAT:2240
National AP scholar, National merit Semi-finalist.
Lots of EC, president/officer in 6 or 7 school clubs, over 1200 hours of volunteer hours.
3 sports, one varsity
Haha! Still got deferred from MIT! Go figure</p>
<p>@ZBD5421 Congratulations on your son’s achievements. His stats are superb. Unfortunately I know a kid with similar stats plus top music awards who got 9 rejections last year. One of them was from MIT. But he attends one of HYPSM this year.</p>
<p>Well, I’m not too disappointed, he has so many other schools he has applied to, and MIT is sooo expensive! We are hoping for a great merit scholarship at something not Ivy. MIT is actually the only one he applied to. He’s not even applying to the ivies. We will wait for grad school for that. Can’t afford the tuition for them and there is no aid for our income bracket, and I can’t see spending 60,000+ for undergrad. Fortunately he’s rather miffed at MIT now, so even if he gets in RD he’ll probably already have taken another offer (whew)</p>
<p>@ mom 1995: I forgot to mention Nottheastern! Great school too! Son got in EA, great scholarship there. Up at the top of the list…</p>
<p>D got in @ Northeastern last year as University Scholar. We and her are very happy with her choice. Pretty much the highest ranked university that gives out full tuition scholarships.</p>
<p>@ZBD5421 You must be so proud of your son, his stats and achievements are phenomenal! I can not imagine what one would need to get into MIT if he was deferred with all of his accomplishments. Thanks for sharing as it’s so helpful. </p>
<p>Hi! My son’s stats are almost identical and our financial situation is similar too. We make too much for need-based aid, but we certainly can’t afford full pay. If you want to look at my profile and read my threads from this year, you will see all the schools we considered and the great advice from CC members here. What I have found unfortunately, is that it takes more than really good scores and grades to be considered a tippy-top student. Work on your child’s “hook,” something truly unique that will get noticed. You are basically building a resume for your child and you want it to look exceptional.</p>
<p>In the end, my son applied to 15 schools. We decided to use this strategy to try to get a small handful of offers we could afford. So far we have two great offers on the table and we will find out if any more come in as the regular decision letters come back. We did not apply ED anywhere, as we really can’t commit to any school without knowing the financial details, and we didn’t want to be in the awkward position of having to back out. There are some disadvantages to applying to so many schools though, including my son having to write a lot of essays and the constant work of keeping track and following up with all these schools. I would recommend narrowing it down and applying to fewer schools than we did. Also, be sure to include financial safeties. We have three safeties on the list, and I’m thanking my lucky stars for them right now, since two of them sent us the great offers! </p>
<p>You are so smart to start early; if I could change one thing it would be starting all of this his junior year instead of this year. You will have a good head start and you should do all the research and even a lot of college visits now. Decide which schools you have a chance of merit aid at, and apply early action to as many as possible, and regular decision to the rest. Another thing I would change is I would definitely have had him apply to Tulane and Davidson. We passed on these two because they didn’t seem like matches, but in retrospect, they have good merit aid and I wish they were in the running now. Davidson might be a good match for your child…I know they offer merit aid and I believe high school guidance counsellors can recommend specific kids for scholarships.</p>
<p>Here are a few suggestions:</p>
<p>Davidson
Tulane
Rhodes
U Miami (Florida)
Miami U (Ohio)
U Alabama Honors
U Richmond
U Denver</p>
<p>There are a lot of other schools that offer various amounts of merit aid…keep reading here and you will find them. Also, you can still apply for need-based aid. We are assuming we won’t get much or any, but we are applying anyways. Even a tiny bit would help!</p>
<p>Good luck with all this! :)</p>
<p>No one has mentioned U Delaware. Your son would be automatic for the Honors College and probably in the running for the Distinguished Scholars program, and anywhere from 50-100% scholarship.</p>
Here are the schools that our daughter had applied to last year and was awarded merit aid.
University of Richmond
American University
George Washington University
Hobart & William Smith
Lafayette College
The lowest merit aid award was $15,000 a year the highest was $40,000 a year. Receiving big merit awards from highly selective schools who offer them are a very low statistical likelihood. Pursuing Honors programs with your public flagships and directing your merit aid pursuit with schools that are ranked in the mid to high 20’s and above (US News and World Reports) was a strategy the we implemented.
I thoroughly researched many schools common data sets to see where our daughters academic credentials placed her in the very top percentiles of admitted students.
There are many excellent schools where significant merit aid can be secured. Best Wishes!
GreatKid, where did your daughter end up going? What did she think about U Richmon and Lafayette?
Hi chris17mom. Can you give us an update on your son? Did your son consider Wooster or Rhodes?