<p>Wow, thanks for all the comments. In no order:
You don’t have to convince me of the relative value of UVa/VT. Her preference for Col/JH is more the feel when she visited (and the larger city environment). She loves UVa, we love UVa, she understands the finances, and believe me, she’s never made a peep about life being unfair. Whatever her academic accomplishments, her best characteristic is her heart, and she is/will be 100% positive whatever happens.
As for the concern about “the poor have it easier”, far from it! Again, I wouldn’t trade places with anyone, nor would she. It just makes for an easier ROI decision if there’s less money required to purchase the good (i.e., an ivy/stanford/mit education). I’ve seen 4 kids close to us in the last year go off to those schools without it having been a hard financial decision: 3 because they got so much need-based aid, 1 because his folks were rolling in it. This happens to be the 1 time in life that there seems to be a mild advantage to being in a different tax bracket.
And I have multiple degrees from UVa in Engineering, and have seen the broad range of opportunities open to UVa grads (lots of friends ended up in law, med, business, etc), so I’m with Purple Titan-- VT great specific engineering education, UVa better broader opportunities.</p>
<p>BTW, @mom2collegekids touches on an important point. On CC, people focus waaaaaaay more on what school you go to than what you major in, but the major has more of a say on how employable you are in many fields.</p>
<p>I met a girl from my HS who graduated in BME from WashU. She’s a year out of college and still unemployed. Obviously a bright kid (and BME is a tough major at any school), but due to familial reasons, she has to stay with her dad, and there simply aren’t opportunities in what she’s interested in where they are located.</p>
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<p>We just don’t visit schools we aren’t prepared to pay for-- why torture the child?</p>
<p>^^^Although I personally would never take my kid to a school we know with certainty we can’t afford, I do think there is some value in figuring out what you like. Our D was happy to visit schools we couldn’t afford with her friends. Until she came upon a school she really liked. Now if we can’t afford it, she won’t even go. </p>
<p>But the upside to visiting that dream school was that it allowed her create a concrete list of what she likes. We’ve put together a nice little list now. </p>
<p>If being in an urban locale is so important to her, Pitt and UMD give big merit awards to some of their honors students (OK, College Park is suburban, but it’s on a Metro line). GTech and Rice both have a few big merit scholarships, but they’re tough to get.</p>
<p>Is her PSAT good enough for National Merit? If so, she’d get at least a half-tuition scholarship from USC (and full-tuition scholarship from UT-Dallas).</p>
<p>Personally, I’d take UVa over some of these, but I’m throwing them out there as options (and UVa isn’t a lock; publics may not value the legacy aspect as highly).</p>
<p>Does UMD give big merit apart from Banneker/Key?</p>
<p>FYI
list of private univ & LAC that offer merit money, and list of publics. Some of the top-ranked publics have surprisingly reasonable OOS tuition:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php”>http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php</a></p>
<p>This is true. For instance, UIUC, UT-Austin, Purdue, A&M, and GTech are all very respected in engineering and all have COA of $40K+ but less than $50K (UMich and Cal have COA of $55K-$60K) even with no scholarship money.
Plus, at UIUC, there’d be no tuition increases (you keep paying the rate that you entered paying).</p>
<p>UMinny has a COA of $33K. UW-Madison is around $40K.</p>
<p>Compare to Columbia and JHU with COA of $60K+.</p>
<p>Plus, the publics tend to be more accepting of AP credits, so you could possibly save money that way (though you should check major requirements and research availability of key classes).</p>
<p>Living in VA with relatively great in-state public options, looking at OOS publics may not make as much sense, but they would for someone living in a state that doesn’t have in-state options that are so strong and/or flagships that aren’t exactly cheap (i.e. PA/NH/VT).</p>
<p>BTW, if you are full-pay and interested in engineering, co-op can be an attractive opportunity. Research co-op placement rates, however, (and scheduling of required classes) or mandatory co-op schools.</p>
<p><<<
Research co-op placement rates,</p>
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<p>What exactly does that mean? Would that look at the number of students in co-ops vs the number of eng’g students at the school? Or does it only consider the number of eng’g students who sought a co-op? Would it include students who sought them, but didn’t have the grades to realistically get one?</p>
<p>@purpletitan</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids:</p>
<p>Yes, that. My understanding is that at the non-mandatory co-op schools, not all students who want a co-op may get one (and maybe not all would at mandatory co-op schools either, but those schools have an incentive to get as close to 100% of their students placed as possible). </p>
<p>I can already hear you sneering but you say you are a VA resident and money is an issue. My son has a friend who received a full ride to VCU engineering. The dorm for engineering students is all single rooms with private baths. They recently built a Bio-Med facility and they say 94% of the graduates of the program are accepted to med or dental school. VCU has its own med school (MCV). </p>
<p><a href=“http://biomedical.egr.vcu.edu/about/”>http://biomedical.egr.vcu.edu/about/</a></p>
<p>Does your daughter have a good bit of community service? There are quite a few large scholarships out there (Coca-Cola and GE/Reagan come to mind) that don’t have a need component. There are others that I can’t remember right now. If you start searching some of the scholarship sites, you’ll find others. I know that Coca-Cola is due Oct. 31. Don’t put these off. These very large scholarships have time consuming app processes, but they are worth it if you can knock $10-20,000/yr. off your COA. Oh, another one is Elks. She will need to have hundreds of hours of service to be competitive for most, though.</p>
<p>@OspreyCV22:</p>
<p>Just for clarification, which program? BME only, I presume? Of course, that’s of those folks who manage to stay and graduate with the BME major there.</p>
<p>I looked here:
<a href=“http://www.pubapps.vcu.edu/bulletins/undergraduate/?did=20504”>http://www.pubapps.vcu.edu/bulletins/undergraduate/?did=20504</a>. Looks like they have a practicum that provides hands-on research & medical experience, which probably helps with the med school apps.</p>
<p>Good to know for those pre-meds out there.</p>
<p>However, one thing to keep in mind is that VCU does seem to use the committee letter system, which means that only those kids who are considered good enough for med school are endorsed by VCU for med school. It’s one way to keep that admission rate really high, but if that doesn’t help you if you’re a borderline candidate and VCU’s pre-med committee doesn’t endorse you, since you’d then essentially have no shot at med school.</p>
<p>I have no idea about any of it. 
I got the numbers from the link I posted. I only replied because I’m local, and have seen the Bio-Med building and noted various news stories about the program. And my son’s friend claimed to have received a full ride. It would stand to reason that an urban university with a med school would offer some practical experience though.</p>
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<p>For UIUC, the CoA for engineering is $50k. It is likely over $50k next year. It does fix the tuition for 4 years, but OOS students do not expect financial aid. UMich’s CoA is $55k, but there are more merit aids and low income OOS student may still get significant amount of financial aid.</p>
<p>@billcsho:</p>
<p>UIUC likes to state a high COA for some reason. Tuition and fees at UofI is $35K for engineering for all 4 years with no increase. For UMich, it’s $42K for underclassmen and $45K for upperclassmen (probably more like $48K by the time you get to that level). Cost of living, room, and board in the cornfields of central IL won’t be higher than in Ann Arbor. In fact, renting off-campus will almost certainly be cheaper than the listed room&board at UIUC.</p>
<p>And yes, I’m laying out options for someone who will be full-pay everywhere. For someone who qualifies for fin aid, many elite privates would be cheaper.</p>
<p>My D was accepted by UIUC last year and received the financial aid package. The CoA was $49,780 including boarding. She is now attending UMich and will pay upperclassmen tuition next year due to the number of AP credits. The difference between upper and lowerclassmen tuition is $2100 for in state and $2500 for OOS this year. The OOS tuition is a little bit over $42k this year and room/boarding is $10.5k. The total CoA including books and other expenses is $55k. These are real numbers, no speculations.</p>
<p>See the UIUC CoA here: <a href=“http://www.osfa.illinois.edu/cost/undergrad/nonres_1415.html”>http://www.osfa.illinois.edu/cost/undergrad/nonres_1415.html</a>
It matches the number we got last year for engineering. Room/board is actually slightly more expensive than UMich.</p>
<p>@billcsho:</p>
<p>??? And here’s the UMich COA: <a href=“http://www.finaid.umich.edu/TopNav/AboutUMFinancialAid/CostofAttendance.aspx”>http://www.finaid.umich.edu/TopNav/AboutUMFinancialAid/CostofAttendance.aspx</a></p>
<p>For upperclassmen, it’s $58K.</p>
<p>If you compare only tuition and fees, it’s $35K for UIUC Engineering vs. $45K for UMich upperclassmen. Where’s the speculation in these numbers?</p>
<p>And actually, looking here: <a href=“Tuition & Fees | Office of the Registrar”>http://www.ro.umich.edu/tuition/tuition-fees.php</a></p>
<p>UMich Engineering tuition for upperclassmen is actually $47K/year.</p>
<p>^ The only problem is you are showing the 2014-2015 LSA CoA, not the CoE CoA which the OP needs to know. The CoE tuition is the highest at UMich. Besides that, there is likely a 3.4% increase in tuition for OOS for 2015-2016. “No speculation” is referring to real CoA for engineering school obtained from the financial aid office, not a calculation by myself.</p>
<p>So you realized that and update your post above.</p>
<p>Just to clarify that the $2100/$2500 more for upperclassmen tuition I mentioned above is per semester, not per year.</p>