<p>CTCL is shorthand for Colleges That Change Lives. Any chance she is Hispanic or African-American? There are awards for those students with a lower PSAT score, though still significantly higher than 130.</p>
<p>I think you are giving way too much personal info on the internet with your picture, name of high school etc. income, class rank, scores. You need to be more anonymous in my opinion.</p>
<p>Hopefully she can bring her score up, but obviously even with a 170 PSAT she can’t get merit at Whitman, St Olaf, or Reed, Hampshire, NCF, Denison. Still, the CTCL’s have 40 schools, with only 6 too high for your daughter, and a couple that are essentially open admission (Emory&Henry, Evergreen State, Lynchburg) while a good 30 of them are right for her.
Therefore, she has a decent shot at a lot of those (34/40! :p)</p>
<p>Don’t use sticker price, use net price calculators.</p>
<p>You may want to check out Flagler in Florida, cheap sticker price but still a small college with lots of personal attention for B students.</p>
<p>You shouldn’t be disappointed. The number of students who are NMF is very low (2%?). Your daughter is an above average student, but not an elite student. I think your time would be best spent convincing her that the New Mexico schools are good and a great bargain for her. Another option is the WUE schools, but they are going to cost more and some, like Wyoming, limit the number of scholarships to only those with the best scores and grades. While she may have a chance, it is not a sure thing.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider in her budget is travel costs. Most of those CTCL schools are in small, hard to get to places. It is expensive to fly to the big city and then get to the small town. Two months ago I took two kids to colleges and the airfare, hotel, gas, were much more than I expected. </p>
<p>Set the budget, and have her work within it. I’ll bet most of her HS class going to college will be going instate. My kids went to grade school in Colorado and we were hearing about all the kids going to Florida and Kansas and Penn State. These kids ended up in Greeley and Fort Collins and other state schools. Dreaming is fine, but reality hits when it’s time to pay.</p>
<p>I think you should forget for now her PSAT score and just see what it is after she gets her score, since it’s highly unlikely she will get a score needed for NMSF. I know reading CC can give one a skewed outlook, but the reality is very few students are NMSF. What she should be doing is starting prep for the SAT and ACT and she should sign up and take both tests - as it’s often the case a student will do better on one then the other. </p>
<p>I also have a child adopted from Asia and what we found was that at a lot of LAC he was considered an URM and, imo, this gave him a boost to getting admitted, and in FA amount/merit we were given. We received considerably more FA than was indicated by our EFC at the college which gives only need based FA (no merit given at all to anyone.) </p>
<p>If she checks the box on the PSAT/SAT/ACT for Asian and she scores high enough she will likely receive invitations for colleges which have diversity weekends. I think they will pay for flights if you ask (not 100% sure of that.) My son didn’t go to any but it gave us an idea on which schools are actively seeking to diversify their student body. </p>
<p>Here is a CC link on diversity weekends. <a href=“Diversity Fall Fly-In Programs - #91 by planner03 - African-American Students - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/african-american-students/1539855-diversity-fall-fly-in-programs-p7.html</a></p>
<p>^^ I think it is another child who is Asian,not this one.</p>
<p>What she needs most is for you to outline reality for her. Better now than when she is a senior. She will have peers that won’t even go to college let alone go to a local 4 yr, she needs to look at what stats are actually needed for merit… I know we have had our eyes opened. She needs to know that academic kids don’t suddenly find the work ethic in junior year. Kids who get good merit have been putting the work in forever. </p>
<p>"I think it is another child who is Asian,not this one. "</p>
<p>Ok. I guess I assumed too much. </p>
<p>Whoever it is who is disturbed about the 50% (or so) graduation rate at the NM public Us, needs to know that 50% is actually a very good graduation rate for public Us. That is because the publlc Us often have mandates to admit everyone in state who has a GPA above X and/or a test score above Y. So a lot of kids who aren’t serious yet about their educations get in. Many of them don’t even make it to Thanksgiving. A whole bunch more are gone before second semester. Another set don’t make it back for sophomore year. What matters for you and your daughter is knowing that if she is indeed ready for college, and is indeed willing to put the work in, she will be fine. She just needs to set her mind to that, and do the studying rather than the partying/drinking/sleeping-through-class that would have her among the 50% who don’t finish.</p>
<p>Pmomof2 I wasn’t offended that you posted so much personal information with identifiers, I was concerned for your privacy and for your daughter’s privacy. Best of luck to you!! </p>
<p>Thank you naviance. Can someone tell me however to edit a post?</p>
<p>**how</p>
<p>^You have 15mn to edit your post. Look on the right under the #: there’s a little wheel. Click on it, then click “edit”. ;)</p>
<p>pmomof2 - Our Ds sound somewhat similar and we just went through this last year, looking for lower cost WUE schouls with some measure of wildlife sciences. @lab317 just did also so maybe she is still around. Our incomes and savings (yours and mine, don’t know about lab317) are also similar. </p>
<p>D’s list included Montana, Co State, Wyoming, and Humboldt State. Even with WUE, they were all much more expensive than our expected contribution, especially Co State. Montana gave the best offer at a little over $20k/year.</p>
<p>D ended up at the in-state U in the Honors College, a great option for kids with stats significantly above the average. </p>
<p>Have you run the EFCs for the colleges of interest? I’d think she’d be eligible for a lot of aid based on your salary.</p>
<p>It’s a matter of time spent looking at various packages available to see what the best fit would be. Usually, family income determine it more than test scores, except for some schools for some very talented students.</p>
<p>I always tell people that they should download a FAFSA application and fill it out so that they get an idea of their financial situation. It forces you to find all your financial information and list it in one place. It can be updated anytime. Once you know where you stand you can go on from there. It is a very good idea that you have started to look into this matter early.</p>
<p>Thx Magnetron for your input. I know Co state u had a good animal …zoology program. I try to make time to run
the Np calculators . I want to create a spread sheet of some kind to get it organized. Any spreadsheet ideas r most welcome. We have done the fafsa
already so I need to dig it out and look at it to understand it. My husband did it on the computer so I need to have him show me what he did. We were just going to update it once we do our taxes next year. Am I wrong or does it give u a different EFC for each college u are interested in? Thanks also to MYOS1634 for telling me how to edit. gee…only 15 min huh… I don’t see a wheel.</p>
<p>Sometimes you only see the wheel when you move the mouse pointer to the upper RH corner where it is and then it becomes visible.</p>
<p>Yes indeed my D is interested in Animal Behavior. We are California residents so the price of public universities is very high. She applied to the University of Montana, University of Oregon, UCSC and Humboldt State among many otters. She decided on a small liberal arts college in the end that came in around the same price as a UC. She chose it even though other schools have more course offerings related to Animals. Why? Her Chem class has 33 people in it, her chem lab has 16 both taught by full professors. The head of the Bio Dept is an animal behavior guy and his class at a UC would have a couple of hundred students. At her college he only has 18. She really thrives where she has the opportunity to interact directly and often with her instructors and classmates. She is doing that at her school.</p>
<p>Have her apply to schools she MIGHT be able to afford with scholarships and schools she WILL be able to afford based on your ability to pay. It is really important you don’t sacrifice your future needs so she can go to the school she likes best. Maybe you can help her out with other life expenses after she graduates if she goes to the school that won’t drain your resources.</p>