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</p>
<p>No less deserving of what?</p>
<p>Ok, so take it from another direction - what do you think would be fair for your kid/family? How would you change things if you were suddenly in charge of {Insert Relevant Agency Here}?</p>
<p>Justmakinit, if you cast a wide net and apply to a wide variety of schools, your son will have some good, affordable choices. My college kid is at his first choice schools and his stats are not quite where your son’s are. It’s just barely affordable in that what we, the parents, are paying is right where we felt the line should be drawn. And he had some other choices in this range, as well as some much more affordable choices, very good ones, in fact, but chose this. THough he immediately took off the table the most expensive schools that offered him zero in any aid, had he truly absolutely wanted to go to one, we would have tried to have made it work…don’t know if it would, but, you know, I think he’s getting as much or more at this school and would have at some of the other less pricey choices as well.</p>
<p>“My son has a 3.75. 1850 sat and aced the subject test. He is a good kid that works hard. May not be harvard level but is no less deserving. Going to work now. My kid and i will be fine.”</p>
<p>Have him retest this fall. also take the ACT. What was the breakdown of his SAT? </p>
<p>If he gets higher scores, then he might get merit at some places.</p>
<p>Also, look at some of the privates that want more males…they may be generous. </p>
<p>Again, as Happymom states…most kids are commuting to their local CC or state school. many kids apply to a long list of schools and then find out that their families can’t pay the price…so off to their local CC or state school they go. Frankly, most families can barely cover the tuition/fees/books at the local CC or state school. Again…going away to school is a luxury.</p>
<p>BTW…doesn’t the WashDC give each student $10k per year to go towards the OOS costs of another state’s public univ? If so, then look at schools where your child will get merit, add the $10k on top, and he’ll probably have choices.</p>
<p>just…</p>
<p>No kid “deserves” to go away to school on someone else’s money.</p>
<p>What subject test did he take and what did he get?</p>
<p>Princeton does not offer athletic scholarships. This athlete would need to be at least close to the accepted student criteria to be considered for admission.</p>
<p>mom2ck, This kid doesn’t live in Washington DC so there’s no $10K. First, the parent wrote that they live in the Washington DC area (if they lived within the city, he/she wouldn’t have included ‘area’) and parent also referred to county. DC is a city; the reference to county means this family lives in Virginia or Maryland. In addition to this, the family’s scenario is much more common in the suburbs where there are lots of upper middle class families. DC proper, like many major cities, have a lot of people at both extremes of the income spectrum. The curious part is the reference that most people put their kids in private school where they live.</p>
<p>Justmakinit, all that aside, both VA and Md have good public colleges and those stats should make your son competitive for a state college in either state. If the gpa is unweighted and you live in VA, I would suggest taking the ACT. Otherwise, I hope you realize that your son will be eligible for $5,500 in federal loans for his first year and that amount rises every year after that. Direct costs at both Md-CP and Va Tech (2 schools that seem reasonable for those stats) are about $18K a year. Is $10K a year possible for you? If so, your son could work summers for $2K-$3K and school year for spending money and take out an annual loan.</p>
<p>Oh, and if you end up choosing community college because $10K a year is too much, one alternative is to take out the max in federal loans while at the cc, bank it and pay the cc out of pocket. When your son is ready for his 3rd and 4th year of college, he can use some of that banked money. The reason I suggest this is that the annual limit is $5,500 for freshmen, $6500 for soph and $7500 for juniors and seniors, for a max of $31K. If your son attends cc for 2 years but still needs $10K or $11K in loans in his junior or senior year, he will be unable to take all of that in direct federal loans. He would have to resort to private loans or you would have to take out PLUS loans. So if you want to keep them direct loans, he can take it out and bank it while at cc.</p>
<p>I feel your pain Justmakinit. Until a parent learns more about the education system, we just assume that “If your kid studies hard, they have the potential to go anywhere they earn a place.” But, college is outrageously expensive for most folks. Further, the value proposition for college is changing. A 4 year degree (even from a prestige school) is no guarantee of a job any more upon graduation in your field, and in order to guarantee yourself a job with a good income or in your field, you may need more even education to compete (which means you have to budget your funds all the way through graduate work–not just 4 years). As the OP, I was grappling with these realities. It’s really good to hear from folks (katwkittens and others) who say things will be all right. There are options—you just have to dig for them. But, the rub is that I have to bear the disappointment/hurt while my kid comes to the same realities that I’ve faced over the last week. No, you can’t go anywhere you want to go—even if you earn the right to get in. It’s a hard thing.</p>
<p>
I have to wonder when this came about. When I went to college back in the 70s we still had to figure out how to afford school. That is one reason I went to a service academy.</p>
<p>OP, if your child can indeed get into the Ivies and you still can’t afford it that’s because your family is blessed with income. If you still can’t afford it (and I am in that situation) it’s because you choose not to.</p>
<p>Do a search for a thread by a poster named momfromtexas. It’s a very old thread now, and some of the scholarships are no longer available. But the strategy momfromtexas used to find maximum merit aid for her two kids is timeless.</p>
<p>skrunch,
I havent read through the entire thread, but if it hasn’t already been mentioned, you can help your rising sophomore get merit aid. Have her start preparing for the PSAT test so she can become a National Merit Scholar! First, find out if her school gives PSAT tests to sophomores[ the test that counts for NMF is the one given in the Jr year, but many students have the opportunity to take a “practice test” during their sophomore year] . Find a way for her to take that test is not at her school, then at another. Given her advanced standing in some classes, she will probably score hi on many areas. What matters is the cutoff score for your state. So when you get her test results back, take a look and see if her scores are above your state cutoff number. If they are not , then she can raise them by starting to take practice SAT tests. The Collegeboard has the best material to prepare-a book that contains dozens of past SAT tests. By practicing a lot, she will not only raise her PSAT score, she will be better prepared to take, and do well on the SAT test as well.
A high PSAT test score can be the difference between winning hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition merit awards, or not winning them at many colleges. </p>
<p>Take a look at these 2 threads that detail the colleges that offer full tuition scholarships to NMF’s [ go to the last page of this thread for the latest info]
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/649276-nmf-scholarships-updated-compilation.html</a></p>
<p>and the “rules” of how to become a NMFinalist
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/1365011-faq-psat-sat-nmsf-nmf-process.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/national-merit-scholarships/1365011-faq-psat-sat-nmsf-nmf-process.html</a></p>
<p>There are other colleges that offer 1/2 tuition merit scholarships to NMF’s, such as USC, among others.</p>
<p>I don’t know that much about the state schools in VA, other than UVA, W&M, Tech, JMU and Mary Washington. My brother lives there and he feels that they are all excellent colleges. He is hoping his daughter can get into JMU. HIs older one went to West Virginia University, and got a merit award there that brought the cost a bit lower than going to an instate school, and I believe her scores were close to your child’s. </p>
<p>Also, my son and my cousin’s son, each got full tuition scholarship offers from small Catholic colleges near home. If they had taken that option and commuted, they would have gotten a private college education pretty much for free. That these school made these offers made them even less expensive than community college that only gave my cousin’s son a token amount, and my son would not have gotten a dime. We are fortunate to have inexpensive local 4 year, degree awarding state schools that were also options for all of my kids–for some with full tution plus expenses paid, so that even the low tuition would have been covered. So look around you and see what is there that might offer some scholarships or are state schools to which commuting is a good answer.</p>
<p>My oldest son’s close friend did take the full tuition award and commuted to the local school. When he finished college, he had a double degree, also was offered admissions for a free master’s, had several local internships, a well paying part time job, some full time job offers as well as a decent car already paid for and no loans, but some money in his bank account. He was far better off than my son and others who went to schools with more name recognition.</p>
<p>The thread thumper mentioned:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/291483-update-what-i-learned-about-free-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/291483-update-what-i-learned-about-free-ride-scholarships.html</a></p>
<p>
So true. The operative thing is that we (Americans) believe that education is the great leveler. We don’t believe that the most elite, expensive schools should be only for the richest (as, for example, the Rolls Royce). At the same time, we don’t want to pay the taxes required for every student to buy a Rolls Royce education. So we fund massive public education systems, which in some states are better than others. Not only that, but not everyone who could buy a Rolls Royce is actually allowed to do so. You have to get accepted first.</p>
<p>As a parent you come on a jumbled and confusing scene. Schools tell you “hey, don’t worry about the price, we work with you”. Estimators and other parents tell you “hey, you can’t really afford that”. Where do you turn? CC brings you back to REALITY, which is that for some parents there is no way that paying for uber-escuela at $50-60K makes sense. You have to scale to a number that feels sane and do your best to get there somehow.</p>
<p>Recent experience in the “real world” apart from college dream land - family member needed a second opinion on potential neurosurgery. Many doctors had been consulted and the difficult to obtain referral to top surgeon was secured, other top rated doctors in metro area had assured me that this doctor was the very best in his field. So I checked out for myself and looked up where doctor went to med school. Found out he went to state undergrad and state medical school…and has professional accomplishments that go on for pages. There are plenty of doctors in his field who graduated from more prestigious undergrad/medical schools but they were not recommended to us as the definitive opionion.</p>
<p>You have to keep a perspective on things in the college quest, otherwise you intensify the harsh realities of life in an unrealistic and unnecessary way. Not being able to attend school X will not make or break you, it’s what you bring to the table. Given the extraordinary cost of education it is unfair to lead kids into taking on too much debt when affordable options are there - your dream school should be the one that you can afford to attend and public institutions can be excellent options.</p>
<p>My husband and I have been thinking about the whole question recently of what we’re actually paying for. My sense is that there are lots of places where you can get a great education, including the state flagship, but that often the private college is promising some sort of educational experience in addition to the education – you know, the chance to connect with fascinating students from all over the world, to broaden your horizons, to think about things you’ve never thought about before, something more than just being pre-professional. I was fortunate to go to a top-notch private college many years ago – and it was somewhat worthwhile to me because:
-I was from a small town
-I hadn’t travelled the world or met foreign students before
-I encountered lots of majors that I had never heard about before and ultimately chose one.</p>
<p>But part of me feels that my kids don’t actually need that experience in the same way that I did because: they’ve travelled abroad on school trips, we’ve taken them on some amazing vacations, including abroad; I"m fortunate to work in an international field as does my husband, and so they’ve already met fascinating people from all over the world, and because of the education my husband and I have already had, they’re aware of majors and career paths that I never was at their age. Thus, I find myself wondering if they actually need that college experience the same way that I did, or whether we should save the money and just focus on getting them a degree. Does that make sense?</p>
<p>I think Momzie makes a very good point. I remember being very impressed by a classmate who’d actually lived in Japan…my kids have residency in a foreign country. I didn’t feel that they needed to make college choices based on broadening their awareness in quite the same way that I’d experienced.</p>