Need a reality check/advice, sorry long winded ;)

College Search & Selection
1

I would love advice on how to guide our D, a sophomore.

Her stats so far are very good. 4.0, currently taking her 1st AP, 4th AICE class. All others honors. Finished Freshman year ranked 3/526. Slated to take 2 or 3 APs + 3 or 4 AICE classes Junior year. For those unfamiliar with AICE, it is a Cambridge program widely used in FL. Weighted the same as AP here, but wondering how it is weighted out of state??

Scored very well on first PSAT- in lower end of National merit. Will be well prepared for next PSAT. Expecting SAT scores in the low-mid 1500s.

Family income expected to be between $65,000-$70,000 in 2018, (thinking that will be the year they use to calculate?)

Question is, the best she can hope for here in Florida is to attend University of Florida. Very good school, well liked by those we know who attend. It is VERY affordable. (She will have Florida’s Bright Futures scholarship.)

But she wants to reach higher. She is starting to get excited about the chance to go to a really great school, maybe within top 20? UF was just ranked 50th by USNews.

We cannot afford much more than what it would cost to send her to UF.

So, do we encourage her to apply to, and hope for, the chance to go to a much better school? Even applying for fun costs money and we don’t want to get her hopes up that even if she were accepted, we could never afford more than $5,000-$10,000 a year. Do they offer huge scholarships in these situations? Free rides? Or do we steer her toward getting excited about UF and possibly going better for grad school?

She is not a minority and both parents are college graduates.

She wants to be a Biology major- right now thinking of a PH.D in Biomedical studies.

2

I think it’s important that you have the talk about money now. You should tell her that you can afford no more than “X” per year and that the college search for her will be guided by that. NOTE: you aren’t alone here. Many, many of us are in this situation.

Next, if she continues on her path, she should have many opportunities for merit scholarships. If she is a National Merit Finalist, there are full-tuition and some full ride scholarships that will likely be available to her. (I say likely, because schools can change those from year-to-year.)

There are other schools - some very competitive, like Duke for example - that do offer big scholarships, but they are incredibly competitive.

Last, run the Net Price Calculator on some of the top-20 schools she might be interested in. You can find these on each college’s website. Assuming that you don’t own a business, rental income, etc., those can give you a good idea as to what a particular college may cost you if she is admitted. For us, if the NPC showed that the school would be more than 7-10K/year than we could afford, then it either came off the list, or remained on the list with the caveat that if she was accepted but the financial aid was insufficient, she couldn’t attend.

3

Your initial screening can be partly statistical.

Based on your daughter’s trajectory, she would almost certainly be able to get into one of the ~121 colleges more selective than UF:

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-610-smartest-colleges-in-america-2015-9

Regarding affordability, your family’s prospects may be good as well:

http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2016-09-19/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need

In terms of her interest in biology, this sampling of schools may be worth reading through:

http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/lists/list/colleges-to-consider-if-you-want-to-study-biology/117/

4

Actually, for a current sophomore going to college in 2019, the financial aid forms you will fill out in fall 2018 will include your income for this year (2017), and your assets on whatever day you fill them out. Also, when you get to that point, you should look into application fee waivers, or schools that are free to apply to.

That US News list of schools that meet full need is a good place to start. About 5 or 6 of them (like Harvard, Yale, Stanford) would essentially cost nothing other than personal expenses for an income of $65-70K. About another dozen schools (like UChicago, Penn, Swarthmore) say they meet full need without including loans in the package, though your D could take some smaller loans if necessary. Most of those should be affordable.

The 40 or so schools that say that meet full need but include loans might or not be affordable, depending on how much they think you can pay, as compared to whether you can pay or reasonably borrow that much. Running the Net Price Calculator as suggested is good advice.

It’s also worth considering that schools that require loans, even if affordable, could easily lead to $25K in loan debt. If UF would result in zero debt, she’d have to weigh that against how much she’d prefer another school.

But I would think if your D keeps up her grades and scores it would be worth applying to a couple of the schools with the top financial aid, and a few of those that meet full need with loans. And, of course, to a couple of state schools, or other safeties.

5

:-bd Another Florida Cambridge AICE family!

In general, most selective schools, would view AICE as being the same rigor as AP or IB. However, some will not award college credit based on your AICE test scores (like they would for AP or IB). The Florida public universities HAVE to award credit for AICE test results, as well as AP and IB test. This is something to keep in mind. Your daughter may roll into UF with 30 to 45+ college credits (and able to graduate a year early), perhaps only 6 to 9 at Georgia Tech, and nothing at an Ivy league school.

You can (and should) look at schools outside of Florida. Some schools offer merit scholarships, but the top 20 to 30 schools would only offer need based aid (with a few very selective merit based scholarships). Your problem is finding a school that is “better” than UF, while also being competitive in cost. Those schools tend to be very selective.

If your D does earn National merit, she would qualify for the Benacquisto Scholarship (formally called the Florida Incentive Scholarship or FIS). This scholarship pays full Cost of Attendance (COA), that’s $20K a year, room, board, tuition, books, etc. You can search the UF forum for more info on this scholarship.

Keep in mind to be competitive at the most selective schools, your daughter needs to be working on her extracurricular activities. These schools use holistic admissions (as does UF), so it’s important she volunteers, get involved in clubs, sports, take leadership positions, etc.

For example, UF has two very selective merit based scholarships (Lombardi and Stamps). Check out the Scholar Bios:

http://www.honors.ufl.edu/prospective/lombardi-or-stamps-scholarships/scholar-bios/

Good Luck!

6

Better scholarships? Free rides?

Well, think about it…what type of students go to the best schools? Students like your child’s expected stats. So…no…they won’t give big merit scholarships or free rides because then the whole student body would go for free.

However, those schools often give good need-based aid, so if your income is modest and you have minimal assets and minimal home equity, then maybe the cost would be similar to UFlorida minus Bright Futures.

Is that your cost goal? UFL minus Bright Futures? So, maybe about $20k per year? Or are you hoping for paying less?

Remember, if your DD makes NMF, then she’ll get a total free ride to ANY Florida public if the state keeps that great offer. That free ride includes the estimate for personal expenses.

7

I personally think that New College of Florida is a hidden gem of a LAC (I consider it a near-Ivy when you look at alumni achievements: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1893105-ivy-equivalents-ranking-based-on-alumni-outcomes-take-2-1-p1.html). They send a big percentage of grads on to grad school and should be quite cheap for you.

Also, (other people) note the income level. At that income, fin aid at the richest privates can be quite generous. Run Net Price Calculators on various school websites. They tend to be extremely hard to enter, though (just near-perfect academic record and test scores would not be enough).

8

Some thoughts for the OP:

1 - Be happy you live in Florida. The state and UF have made a concerted effort to make college affordable for studious kids in your situation. If UF will be free or close to free, you have a great safety. Just make sure to take the application seriously, but she should get in.

2 - With UF as a safety, she can swing for the fences for a tippy top school that will give lots of need based financial aid. With your income, she might get free tuition at a number of institutions if she gets in. Run the NPC for schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford etc. to be sure. For someone with a family income of $80,000 per year and assets (not including home equity) of $200,000, tuition would be $7,000 per year at Harvard.

https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator

She should probably plan to apply SCEA to one of these schools, RD for the rest, and cross your fingers.

3 - If you are worried about application fees, many of these schools will waive the fee for kids in your income level. She probably will not get into one of these tippy top schools, but she has a better chance than most.

3 - If your D can make NMS, it would open significant scholarship money. Schools like Baylor and Oklahoma give free tuition and other benefits for NMS, while schools like USC will give half tuition. Just make sure that she preps for next year’s PSAT. The son of a friend scored enough to qualify for NMS as a sophomore, but did not prepare for the junior year PSAT. His scored dropped 5 points and he missed the cutoff. On the other hand, our oldest missed the cutoff as a sophomore, but prepped for the junior year PSAT and passed the cutoff easily.

4 - Whatever school she gets into, it sounds like she will do very well. Good luck!!!

9

Believe VA schools must award AICE credit

10

OP needs to learn some of the basics about financial aid and it might be good for some to recommend a few good books, maybe How to Pay for College Without Going Broke. Or Financial Aid for Dummies. I learned a lot from Finaid.org, but that was years ago and I’m not sure how fully updated it is…

The basic idea is affordability and not letting her get the notion of “dream schools,” but to be rational. Run the NPCs. Haunt the web sites for colleges that interest her, to learn what you can about what they want (even, expect,) beyond good grades/test stats, rigor, and a handful of hs activities. (This is different than where they suggest hs course distribution.) And know that “leadership” is a quality, much more than just having a title.

Get this background, then the next questions will form.

11

Tuition at Rice - a top-20 school - is free if your family income is under $80,000. Assuming mid-1500 SAT scores she has a shot at getting in.

12

Look at the schools that meet 100% need. Of course, the private schools on that list (I think they are all private) each decide what that “need” is but if total family income is less than $70K, assuming assets are modest, and depending on how many dependents, and how many of those dependents are in college at the same time, the finaid packages might fall in budget. When you say no more than $10K/year, does that include the student loans your child can take out? Does it include the monies she should be earning and saving for the next two years? Will she be eligible for work study? I think most families with modest earnings still need to come up with at least $15-20K/year to have more than a few choices. I know in MA, our state flagship would cost approximately $18K for a family with income at $70K and moderate assets. FIrst year loans can total $4500, work study I believe is $2000, so there’s $6500 right there.

Then there’s the chase for merit aid. Shoot for schools where your daughter is in the top 25%. Between financial aid and merit aid, there should be some good options out there.

13

Heck, because she’s lucky enough to live in FL, just NCF is an affordable good option.

14

I still say, first, understand financial aid, how it works, the vocabulary, the pieces, the principles. Don’t scattershot your efforts among random college names suggested.

Eg, jumping into “meet full need” before you understand the basics of how “need” is calculated leads to so many frustrated threads, so much misunderstanding.

15

to reiterate, if your income is below 70k, it is likely that most or all of these top private schools will be about the same price (or even cheaper than) the University of Florida. You can run the net price calculator for each school on its website.

16

Be careful how you go abut this, OP. Eg, for Meet Full Need schools, one of the above links says, with an Expected Family Contribution of 15k, “Your child is lucky and gets into a $50,000 school that promises to meet 100% of its students’ financial need. That means the school will provide $35,000 in aid.”

Not. There are other components, the student contribution from summer earnings, any work study offered. And, how that individual school packages student loans or not.

“After the Stafford Loan is subtracted, the family would get nearly $30,000 in grants/scholarships (free money) to attend this school.”

Usually, even for the most generous colleges, NOT.

17

Wow, I can’t thank you all enough for the fabulous ideas & info- so glad I asked here. So very informative & eye opening. I have a lot of research to do.

The thought of coming out of undergrad school debt free is very very enticing. We will have to wait and see how well she does on the October PSAT and go from there.

Best of luck to everyone!

18

If your income is under 65k, you could also consider the Questbridge program as a possibility: https://www.questbridge.org.

19

Based on your daughter’s nascent interest in LACs, she could look into schools such as Swarthmore, Haverford, Colby, Hamilton, Mt. Holyoke, Pomona, Reed and Carleton.