@roycroftmom What school list? We don’t have one. I have only listed the schools she has seen over the last few years whenever we were in the US. It is not a “school list.”
The thing is, though, even if you were just showing her schools that were along the way, why just show her schools that are out of your price range? There are lots of other schools in and around NYC, DC, and the Connecticut River Valley, for instance.
@PurpleTitan - Because these trips were years ago before the actual process of selecting schools was in the picture. We make very few trips to the US. The last was when she was in 9th grade. At that time the nitty-gritty realities of the college application process were not on our radar. Having coffee at a Yale bookshop/coffee house and wandering the campus didn’t seem like such a big mistep when visiting the area. Hindsight being 20/20 I am sure we would have taken the time to do more sidetrips.
She would qualify for in-state tuition at FSU and would probably also be able to get their $2,400 academic scholarship. That would put the COA below $20K.
I agree with Mooop and PurpleTitan, within your parameters, trotting out the same LAC marquee names ad infinitum makes no sense.
Why not a German or Swiss polytechnic? There are programs entirely in English, the cost is well within your budget, and your student is already abroad. She will have her choice of science or “employable” options.
Coming to the States for an inexpensive, high-quality education–outside the flagship state system or service institutions and without having financial need or qualifying aid factors–is like going to the desert for ice cream.
Whichever poster said “Welcome to the US Naval Academy” was correct. That would appear to be your only option, except of course it is unlikely to meet your request of “liberal” environment.
@cvalle It really boils down to making sure you and your dd are on the same page when it comes to budget and ensuring that she has schools that you know are 100% affordable without competitive scholarship awards.
The approach we have taken with our kids (who have a smaller budget but a high EFC) has been for them to pick 2-3 unlikely, extremely competitive scholarship at top schools, 2-3 extremely competitive scholarships at avg schools, and 2-3 guaranteed scholarship schools. It has been a good approach b/c it means that they have options. They know budget drives decisions so acceptance at a top school without the competitive scholarship means the school is no longer an option.
For our kids, they have not been awarded the unlikely, extremely competitive scholarships at top schools. My dd was awarded an extremely competitive scholarship at an avg school and another extremely competitive scholarship at a more selective (not tippy top) school. Our ds was awarded competitive program/dept scholarships that stacked on top of an automatic admission scholarship. For both, if they had not applied broadly, they would have missed out on excellent opportunities. (Both received token merit to top schools or large scholarships that still made the cost too much for us even though the scholarships did bring the cost below our EFC. We need the cost to come way down.) Both are glad that they had schools they knew they could afford b/c waiting to hear about scholarship awards/special program acceptances/dept awards would have been incredibly stressful if they couldn’t have afforded anywhere without them.
Believe it or not, the US Naval Academy does not necessarily flunk the “liberal environment” criterion. A friend of my daughter’s since kindergarten went there, very much inspired by 9/11 (which was the beginning of 8th grade for them). He is a birthright Quaker, with both parents and a sibling deeply involved in left-wing social justice work. Obviously, his thinking was a little different, but less than you might think – he was not being rebellious, and the apple didn’t fall that far from the tree.
Anyway, it’s not like the Naval Academy was a hotbed of socialists, but it was not hard at all to find a significant liberal subculture there including both midshipmen and faculty. He got a lot of support and companionship in working out his left-wing ideas of military service.
German Unis are tuition-free, but besides being big publics, they also aren’t very flexible.
You basically just study your major.
University of London International undergraduate degrees are rigorous and super-cheap, but that’s because they are distance programs and mostly self-study.
Ahh, The Great Merit Chase. For a budget around $20K, I’d first start with schools where the COA is no more than double that. Then find the schools where she falls into the top 10% and which offer full tuition scholarships. Search for schools that will WANT her, not the other way around. We did the merit chase and it worked for us.
Credit for IB tests could potentially knock up to a year off at some schools, but you need to go in already knowing your plans so you can squeeze in everything you want and are required to fulfill in to 3 years.
If she gets school awarded merit, Texas schools will give in state tuition as well. UT is not known for giving merit unless you can get thier 40 acres scholarships which is very competitive.
An issue is going to be the 20k limit, in that many universities consider that even at instate, publics, 25k is the new normal (if not the new cheap… )
But all in all, she’s going to need to apply to a lot of different types of universities.
LACs in a consortium (IE., applying to Smith and taking classes at UMass Amherst… Or the reverse; Goucher/JHU; Ithaca/Cornell; St Mary 's/Notre Dame; Agnes Scott/Georgia Tech…) may also be something to look into.
Wrt UAlabama automatic presidential : it used to be 1400 and full tuition. 1490 is close to 1500 required by mcDermott and a 1490 would warrant way more through AES/collegiumV than what the presidential at UA is offering.
BTW is that a 20K/year limit because of cash flow or you have to keep total educational costs to $80K or you don’t want to spend more than $80K total on undergrad?
All those are understandable positions, but I’m just thinking that for many pre-health careers (those that require a grad degree), total educational costs (including loans) would be almost certain to top $80K total.
Cvalle, did your DD take the PSAT?
As a US citizen she COULD qualify for college sponsored NMF full tuition scholarships IF her PSAT scores were hi enough.
THESE lists, complied by CC parents, is where you should start your search for the ALL important safety colleges that you CAN afford to pay for AND where your DD is assured admittance.
http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/
http://competitivefulltuition.yolasite.com/
http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/psat-nmsqt-psat-10/taking-the-tests/international
@menloparkmom - she did. Unfortunately the cut off for students abroad is set at equal to whatever the highest cutoff is for any state. She missed it by a few points.
@PurpleTitan we need to plan to be ready to pay for undergrad and grad school for both of our children. Keeping undergrad costs low is what will allow us to do that.
Grad school, if you mean PHD, is fully funded (or nor worth doing). Note that in the US, a typical Master’s degree is done en-route to the phd, although there are ‘terminal’ master’s too which are seen as cash cows by most universities.
Med school is different and very costly, unless the student is admitted to a very costly MDPHD program.
Research-oriented PhD programs will be fully-funded.
Professional grad degrees like law, business, health, and professional Master’s will cost money.
Keeping undergrad costs low may make a lot of sense.
The big divide is between pre-health and non-pre-health, IMO. For a pre-health path, you almost certainly want to go to undergrad in the US. For anything else, you could consider the whole world.
- correction... A fully funded MDPHD (no cost to student or parents)
And yes, almost all law/business/professional master’s programs are cash cows that throw off money.
That doesn’t mean that a Yale JD or Stanford MBA aren’t worthwhile, however.