National Merit Finalists! KY, OH, FL, TX ? Full Rides $$

@2sunny Congrats to your son.

@wustl93 Thank you!

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Have not applied to AL, because there are no easy non-stop Flights. I see they give 5 years of Tuition, and then 1 year of basic Dorms, plus $3500 per year, if GPA of 3.3 is maintained, plus other goodies.


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PLUS and add’l 2500 per year for CS, from the College of Eng’g

It’s not too late to apply for this if you’re a NMF.

OK I will ask my son about AL (then he’ll have 22 Apps! )

:)) I’ll try to post when I know about where my future Scientist will go ! And then I’ll give you tips on finding YOUR Dream College ! He had good experience already interviewing with Princeton, Duke, & Harvard!

@Mom2aphysicsgeek yes, anyone can find success almost anywhere, as they find connections, do Co-ops, attend job fairs, etc. The average starting published salary for CS is $100,000 (entry level), and per UTD (on phone today), it is approx. $50,000. That’s why students/parents gravitate to a Carnegie Mellon. Our friend goes there for around $20 K per year for everything! Fabulous !! Crunch the numbers. A reason why kids LOVE to check out very best COMP. Science programs! Ah! The dream come true. :))

@Mom2aphysicsgeek The $100,000 is for Carnegie Mellon.

@mom2collegekids Very kind of you to tell us about the AL offer. I looked at dorms/campus online, and you are correct. It is gorgeous!! I can see why people would go there. We have too many choices on our List, so we will decline… & as the weeks progress, we will need to remove more from our List.

@2sunny I do not agree with your assessments, but that is OK. Thankfully, we can all help our kids find their own paths. From my perspective, Avgs are always avgs and individuals are what leads to different outcomes. Knowing my student and what my student’s personality and strengths and weaknesses are what impacts their college selection.

Cost is another one of those issues where avgs don’t matter. I can read all day long about how top schools are generous and make themselves affordable for the middle class and it won’t make it true for us. So, using your CM example , on their website they state:“We do not award any scholarships based solely on merit. Carnegie Mellon offers Carnegie Scholarships to academically- and artistically-talented middle-income students who qualify for little to no need-based financial aid. You must apply for need-based financial aid to be considered.” That statement pretty much guarantees they they do not offer large enough Carnegie Scholarships to make them affordable for us bc when we are looking for scholarships, we are looking for close to full ride awards.

Fwiw, our extremely advanced kids (not all of our kids are, but the ones who are) have found that specialized honors programs on avg college campuses have been great fits. They receive focused mentoring, unique opportunities, excellent career guidance, etc. My ds who graduated from an avg college now at 5 yrs post graduation is making about 1.5 times the amt of the avg salary in his field. His education was incredibly low cost (I am trying to remember, but I think we paid around $3000-3500 per semester) and his school is not a name brand. It has not negatively impacted his career at all. He constantly “exceeds expectations” (his corporation’s lingo) and has received numerous promotions.

Everything is relative to individual outcomes.

@Mom2aphysicsgeek Carnegie won’t give near a Full Ride, but they make it affordable by Grants. As I stated, our friend goes there as Engineering student, and only pays $20 K a year for everything, which is LESS than going to our state school. They also review Offers made by other colleges. A lot of people do not realize this, until they fill out the FAFSA and CSS and go thru the hoops.

We feel fortunate to give our son his DREAM (whether he takes the Full Ride from a large state school, VS a Top College, or IVY is HIS OWN FINAL decision…We have a very small family, so we can accommodate his DREAM…)

Some students would not thrive in LARGE state schools, and others would be happy.
Some students would dislike a tiny Liberal Arts, and others would be happy.
Some students would love the IVY, and others not as much.
Some students want a TECH school, other wants a whole based learning.

However, I feel that students can find success at college that does not have a special name brand…
but I think it “might” be easier for an MIT or Carnegie Mellon CS student to make connections with Google, Facebook, etc. (IF that was HIS specific path… not everyone needs be in those exact companies)

Also, not everyone gets a FULL RIDE, or HUGE scholarship… so for those who do NOT… it is
NICE to know that some private colleges will give substantial GRANTS to middle class (and can easily be
LESS than a huge state school… In fact, SOME private colleges will in fact MATCH an offer that you got
somewhere else, or students do PAID RESEARCH at these TOP colleges… many options)

After we see our Final Offers in late March, I will give tips on how to:

  1. Get into your dream college
  2. Maximize your Grants/Offers
  1. Because not everyone gets a Full Ride, or even close to a Full Ride.
  2. And those private TOP colleges may be cheaper, than a state school (once you do the CSS, FAFSA.. and figure out which top colleges and IVYies are actually recruiting kids with huge internal Grants and Endowments...)

@Mom2aphysicsgeek Just to give example:

At Vanderbilt, they offer these Merit:
The approximately 250 recipients of these scholarships—one of our three signature scholarship programs—are guaranteed full-tuition awards plus summer stipends for study abroad, research or service projects.

In addition, they offer need based Grants from Vanderbilt (which has HUGE endowments)

@Mom2aphysicsgeek By the way, the main topic of my post was to generate Feedback on where student might go as a National Merit Finalist with choices in KY and other states. So, perhaps you can help Finalists choose their destination by stating where you would go as a Finalist. Do u have feedback on any colleges which offer Full Rides to finalists? And where did your kids enjoy school, & why… Pros/cons of where your kids graduated from… to help future families.

It is obvious from your posts that you really don’t care what other people are saying. There is so much disconnect between what people post and your responses.

Simply, grants require need. Period. If you as the parent cannot afford your estimated familial contribution as calculated by the school (yes, FAFSA, CSS, or institutional specific forms), then grants will not make the school affordable. It is a fallacy to state substantial grants make schools affordable. They may make them affordable according the institutional definitions, but that does not mean they are affordable to individual family’s. (Our EFC is significantly higher than $20,000 and we cannot even afford $20,000.)

Next, you mention Vanderbilt’s full tuition scholarship. Vandy’s room and board alone is around $16,000. The kids who are eligible for being offered those types of scholarships are kids who would be competitive for full ride scholarships at lower ranked schools. Kids that aren’t competitive for full ride scholarships at lower ranked schools might get accepted into some of the top tier schools but are in turn going to be dependent completely on need-based aid bc the competitive scholarships at the higher ranked schools are insanely competitive. You have to be top of the top for those scholarships.

That is the point. You cannot make blanket assessments in order to “give tips on how to maximize grants/offers” bc the fact is that this process is far more nuanced. I have kids who are competitive for top admissions, but those schools are absolutely unaffordable. The only way they would be affordable would be by extremely, extremely competive scholarships (like Stamps) that some of them offer. That is not an application strategy. They are better served applying to lower tier schools that offer large scholarships and specialized honors programs in order to maximize scholarship potential. We have had 2 older children take that approach. Our current college student is attending on full merit scholarships (our cost, $0.) Our 12th grader’s costs will be low to fully covered. (We have to wait and hear back on her final awards.)

DREAM is never an option for our kids. Period. It just won’t happen. Costs drive our decisions. Investigating schools that offer large competitive merit scholarships and then assessing where they fit in the applicant pool (they need to be competitive for that individual institution) is a far better application strategy bc they need affordable options.

If you can rely on grant aid and know you can pay your EFC, you can have a much different application strategy.

I was typing when you posted #51, but my answer remains the same. There is no single answer. Students have different needs and families need to investigate institutions individually. For example, my 12th grader wouldn’t want to attend Bama. It has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of Bama. It is strictly bc she wants to be able to take advanced Russian courses and they don’t offer them. Knowing whether other families like Bama or not (her brother loves it) is really moot.

I have to agree with @Mom2aphysicsgeek we are in a similar situation though we can afford a slightly higher EFC if we had to, but certainly would not qualify for grants.

@2sunny I discussed your beginning salaries, $100K CM vs $50K UT with my DH, he works for a very large international high tech company and is involved in some new higher situation. He pointed out that UTD graduates are more likely to stay local where the cost of living is MUCH lower than NY and CA. He reminded me that when we transferred from Boston to the TX campus he didn’t get the same amount in annual raises until his salary was comparable to other in at his level to adjust for the much lower cost of living in TX.

Different schools use different terminology and ‘grant’ doesn’t always mean ‘financial need.’ At DD’s school, it seems to mean ‘not based on merit.’ She has an ‘alum grant’ for knowing an alum and that was available to any student, not based on need. She has a ‘visit grant’ for visiting the campus before applying (being accepted? something like that). She has a Florida Resident Assistance Grant (FRAG) which is not based on need but rather on being a resident of Florida and attending a Florida private school (it’s a state program, not school, and everyone gets the same amount). Music or talent awards are often called grants.

An NCAA athletic ‘scholarship’ is officially called a Grant-in-Need, and not based on need at all, but on athletic ability.

Don’t refrain from applying to a program because it is deemed a grant just because you have no financial need. I don’t care if they call it a grant, scholarship, award, prize, medal, gift, or bonus - as long as they are giving DD money, they can call it whatever they want.

@Mom2aphysicsgeek What I’m simply saying is that NOT everyone is in the same EXACT boat that you are.
Here is your Quote: “DREAM is never an option for our kids. Period. It just won’t happen.”

Well, that is OK— because that is how your Reality is.

But MY reality is that DREAM will happen for My Son:

!. He can take the Full Ride at a state school.
2. Or he can explore Private College. There are several Privates in my area that he could Commute to (and he already won Scholarships from them).
3. He won Math/Science medal for rensselaer polytechnic institute- If his dream is a Tech school.
4. Wait for Other Choices

We are lucky because I will not FORCE my son to take the Full Ride, if he is more COMFORTABLE going
somewhere else… However, by driving to Merit Week for KY, he can see IF he Likes it.

So, perhaps you can try and see that people have different perspectives.

and I feel blessed that I CAN tell my son that he has a CHOICE (so that way, he won’t feel like he was
OBLIGATED to take the Full Ride… although it could be a wonderful opportunity)

By the way. my Father went to Carnegie for Master’s and they GAVE him a 100% paid scholarship.
In addition, Case Western told me that students might get FREE tuition for 4 years in STEM.

So, broaden your horizons, and accept our DREAM may come true… as we work with each and every college
based on our situation (which is quite different from yours) and

TRY to accept that not everyone has the same views that you do.

P.S. I never said a kid NEEDS to go to an MIT to be successful, but it certainly should be explored IF he can afford it.

@twoinanddone Agreed. You need to understand invividual school’s terminology, similar to MIT calling their need-based grants scholarships, but they have nothing to do with merit.

But, I don’t think that is what @2sunny was describing in terms of CM being generous with grants making them affordable.

@2sunny ??? I am not saying anything to you about your personal situation.

@twoinanddone

I agree it’s best to always apply for each scholarship.

@3scoutsmom ^I also agree about different standards of living in various cities (like in CA, it would be way higher),
keep that in mind about entry level.