<p>Im the mom of a junior in a private catholic hs.... her interest has always been medicine and she has the academics to most likely make this a reality. Buy the time my kids graduate from the Catholic system I will have invested over $100k per child for k-12 in tuition alone. Needless to say I do not have much saved for college. So I need to explore all the opportunities available for academic scholarships and financial aid. Can anyone suggest a starting point for this? We just began looking at colleges this week and hope to have it narrowed to 3 by the end of her junior year. Thanks for any tips to get started. </p>
<p><a href=“Links to Popular Threads on Scholarships and Lower-Cost Colleges - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1678964-links-to-popular-threads-on-scholarships-and-lower-cost-colleges.html</a></p>
<p>However, first things first. Student needs to do as well as possible in school to have as many options as possible. Also, taking the SAT and ACT in junior year can help give more of an idea of which colleges and scholarships are realistic. That also leaves the possibility of retaking the initially higher one in senior year after more preparation.</p>
<p>Welcome to CC! You’re way ahead of where I was at your point…I had imagined I had this Harvard-bound kid only to discover here at CC that she was merely a prince among princes…with lots of kings above her 
so after i received that dose of reality, I was much better able to help her plot a course to happiness…</p>
<p>First of all, you need to decide how much you can realistically afford per year for four years for your D’s education, keeping in mind other children’s’ upcoming needs, retirement savings, etc. Right now, you can fill out an online EFC (estimated family contribution) estimator like FAFSA 4caster to get a sense of what the government considers your ability to afford. Keep in mind that the figure you will get is per year, not for all four years. For many people, this is the first step, and it is a huge wakeup call. You may or may not consider it a realistic figure, but it gives you a ballpark of what might be expected by colleges. </p>
<p>There is a helpful book, Paying for College Without Going Broke by Kalman Chany, that explains the whole financial aid process very clearly. It’s probably available at the public library.</p>
<p>Many families with an unaffordable EFC look for merit aid opportunities conferred by colleges that want to attract students with high test scores and grades. As ucbalumnus points out, though, you need your D’s test scores and end-of-junior-year grades to know which colleges would see her as a competitive candidate for the big merit awards. Look at the sticky at the top of the Parents’ Forum:</p>
<p><a href=“Schools known for good merit aid - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums”>Schools known for good merit aid - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums;
<p>Why do you want to narrow it down to 3 colleges by the end of junior year if you are looking for big scholarship money? You may have to cast a wider net.</p>
<p>Thx for the link… she took the psat and act test prep in her sophmore year and scored well. (in the ranges to apply to professional colleges) The real tests will begin this month. So I hope to get those scores in the next few months. Her GPA runs around 96 average since middle school and thats with challenging courses (APS, Honors etc) Anything else to consider?</p>
<p>Great suggestion on the estimator. I pay about 10k for high school currently so I would be ok with that ball park. Younger sister still has 6 more years of junior/senior high… 3 was a number just to narrow it down but not for any good reason than to just feel like we did our research early enough and to avoid senior year stress. Thanks for all the great info!</p>
<p>If she is interested in medical school, she should minimize student loans for undergraduate, avoiding altogether if possible. This will mean that you (her parents) will need to pay, and/or she will need to get good scholarships. </p>
<p>The most selective private colleges in the US are so-called “need-blind/meets-full-need” schools. These places do not give merit aid; they give financial aid only. So if your EFC if high, you will be expected to meet it at these schools, regardless of whether you feel you can really afford it. </p>
<p>What state do you live in? Some states have very strong public higher ed systems that are affordable and offer in-state scholarship opportunities for strong students.</p>
<p>Are you an east coaster? Were her sophomore PSAT’s over 200? If so, you may be able to find a full tuition merit granting private school. </p>
<p>If you are expecting high SAT’s, two schools that you should be seriously considering are Temple and University of Alabama. Both will give full tuition scholarships for Reading and Math SAT’s over 1400. (Actually, Temple is up to 1420 this year). At most, you’d be on the hook for room and board. </p>
<p>Which state are you in? Your state’s flagship may be your best bet, particularly if it looks like you’ll be under the magic SAT number for really big merit money.</p>
<p>There is a parent’s of class of 2016 thread you should check out</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/class-20xx-community/1296016-parents-of-the-hs-class-of-2016.html#latest”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/class-20xx-community/1296016-parents-of-the-hs-class-of-2016.html#latest</a> </p>
<p>Also @halfemptypockets–aren’t only the junior year’s PSAT in the running for NMS?</p>
<p><a href=“Schools known for good merit aid - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums”>Schools known for good merit aid - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums;
<p>I often see this link. It starts in 2005. Are you suppose to read through the entire thread? Or is there a “list” somewhere in that thread with schools that are “currently” known for good merit aid?</p>
<p>Buy a Fiske guide to colleges. Look at Finaid.org for some background on aid- also Financial Aid for Dummies and the book NJ Sue mentioned. Casually visit a few local colleges- small, large, so she starts to get a sense of what attracts her and what turns her off. It doesn’t matter if these are realistic targets, it’s just a way for her to take a step. Make these first visits low pressure look-sees, maybe have some fun that day. </p>
<p>As you get certain colleges in mind, run their NPCs (Net Price Calculator.)<br>
Don’t fall for the notion of “Dream Schools.” If you need aid, the right schools will meet a balance of your and her needs and wants.
And know she will grow much between now and senior year- and then that first semester.<br>
And that you will make it through this! Have fun.</p>
<p>Merit aid is an overly broad term encompassing large scholarships, such as those given by the University of Alabama for National Merit scholars, and the more widespread private-college custom of discounting tuition a little as a marketing tool for a wide range of students that the particular college accepts. Tuition discounting is an enrollment management strategy that varies from year to year, school to school in response to changing circumstances, and there will be no central database for these kinds of awards. It sounds like what the OP’s daughter is really looking for are the big merit scholarships, more than the tuition discounts. </p>
<p>Look for endowed, named programs (i.e. Buntrock at St. Olaf, or Marquis scholarships at Lafayette), that are quite generous, but are more competitive than the standard merit-aid discounting for decent but not tippy-top candidates. State schools usually have published and transparent standards for various levels of scholarship support on their websites (score and GPA based). Once the OP’s D has narrowed down the kinds of schools she is interested in, she can do a more focused search for tips on the merit aid thread.</p>
<p>@Tami524 You might want to look at Rosemont College. It is a small liberal arts Catholic school near Philadelphia. My son and I toured the school. It is nice and quiet campus that has the feel of a shrunken down Princeton campus. It has a BS/MD program with Drexel Medical School that guarantees a medical degree if your daughter is fortunate enough to get accepted. Rosemont provides nearly a full tuition scholarship to high achieving high school students so without financial aid, the cost to attend will be about $12000 with the merit award.</p>
<p>One of the aspects that really intrigued us was the attention you will receive from faculty and staff. One professor stated that if you didn’t show up for class, it was small enough of a campus for him to seek you out and find out why you didn’t go to class. The average class size is about 14. </p>
<p>Unlike advice of many who will tout the Ivy’s because they provide great financial aid packages, it really is unrealistic to bank on any of these schools since getting in is practically requires a miracle. So while you wait for the miracle, schools like Rosemont are available as a safety school.</p>
<p>BTW Rosemont has cross registration with Villanova, Bryn Mawr, several other catholic colleges in the area so your daughter would have the best of both worlds. Villanova is a ten minute walk away from Rosemont.</p>
<p>"… 3 was a number just to narrow it down but not for any good reason than to just feel like we did our research early enough and to avoid senior year stress."</p>
<p>We took a different approach with our two sons. There were several schools that my older son really, really liked. But pretty much only one of them was what we’d generally call a safety (our state flagship). So, we looked for schools that weren’t his favorites but that had important attributes that made them somewhat similar in important ways to his favorites, and he applied, ultimately, to eight. Ironically, he wound up at a school that started out as his fifth or sixth choice, that didn’t even make the list until fairly late in the process.</p>
<p>One thing we learned from the first guy is we were able to better gauge what a “safety” was, as our younger son’s academic profile was very similar to our older son’s. We also learned a thing or two about a few schools we didn’t know going in. But the one thing we learned is that if you want to have a bunch of options at the end of the process, you have to have an even greater number at the beginning, especially if you’re applying to highly-selective schools. So, our younger son applied to 12.</p>
<p>Unless your daughter is applying only to schools where you think she’ll be a lock, applying to three schools may leave your daughter with very limited choices at the end.</p>
<p>It’s hard to make recommendations without more info. You need SAT / ACT baseline - how many APs and what were the scores? What kinds of ECs, etc. All that said, now’s the time to start looking / thinking. The Fiske guide is a great place to start. There are tons of schools that have solid merit aid … <em>if</em> your scores are above a certain threshold which is usually somewhere in the 1350-1450 range for CR + Math, depending on school. You’ll certainly want to apply to more than 3 schools … we found that 12 or so made sense. Also, make sure all schools aren’t in the same ‘bucket’ (i.e big universities, small liberal arts) - a kid can change his/her mind towards the end - and it’s nice to end up w/ a range of choices, i.e. state school, big/small, urban/rural … you never know. Good luck - and if you post a bit more info I bet you’ll get more targeted advice.</p>
<p>My daughter only applied to 4 schools, and she got into all of them. They were not easy schools to get into either. She did want to spend a lot of money on application fees. They add up fast. </p>
<p>We started at our daughter’s high school. The guidance office there had several scholarships that weren’t advertised anyplace else. They also had lots of information on what state aid was available to college bound students. Check to see if the city you live in has a foundation for scholarships. I’m in San Diego, and my daughter won a great scholarship through the San Diego Foundation. The more local the scholarship, the better the chances to get one.</p>
<p>I would temper all of this with where your daughter was thinking of applying to. Also, if becoming a doctor is her goal, she can do what my brother in law did. He just took the prerequisites to get into dental school and in his junior year of college, he applied to Cornell and got in. Four years later, he got his DDS. No he doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree but he doesn’t need one, and he saved a years worth of undergraduate tuition.</p>
<p>“She did want to spend a lot of money on application fees. They add up fast” - Yes, but they are small change compared to the costs of college. For many families, it is worth the investment to try for a variety of options. </p>
<p>For many families, those fees add up fast, and can mean a semester’s worth of books. </p>
<p>And when you are scraping every $ together you can, those kinds of expenses are huge, and will never be small change.</p>
<p>@ laralei #9, You do not need to read the old part of the thread. For very long/old threads, start at the (last) most recent page and work backward.</p>
<p>Does your daughter want to go to a Catholic college? Any geographic limits? Need PSAT/SAT or ACT ballpark to suggest schools. (I understand that she hasn’t tested yet, but did she take PSAT as a sophomore? Has she taken any practice tests recently?) </p>