NPC, Merit Scholarships and Stress

My daughter has slightly lower stats and received $10,000 a year merit/departmental scholarship from University of Michigan, which is an instate school for us. Everyone likes to say that state schools are the most affordable, what state do you live in that they are not? MI costs around $28,000 a year for residents.

Illinois. When I run the NPC I get $50k a year. Most IL students gets better packages going OOS.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2018/04/13/taxpayer-costs-soar-as-illinois-public-college-university-enrollment-drops/#22dbb5e71018

I just ran the calculator again and got $31k for U of I. The numbers have changed. The NPC has changed.

@dopefuture

It looks to me like you entered your kid asnan out of state student hen you got the net price of $50,000. That has NEVER been the cost of attendance for instate students.

I dont know if this is always true but often the schools with the better public/global health are the colleges with med school. One of my son’s high school friends went to UAB for bachelors in public health on free tuition scholarship and is finishing her funded PhD at U Michigan. Her entire university experience cost her parents about $50k total!

Take a look at the Trent Lott Leadership Institute at Ole Miss for majoring in Public Policy Leadership. The honors college there is impressive with class sizes of around 15 per class. My son recently toured the school (he’s interested in their CME program) and we were very impressed. Admission to the Honors College and some of the special programs like Trent Lott and CME are very competitive.

With your daughter’s stats, she would get automatic full tuition and with a good application possibly qualify for additional scholarships. Unlike many other schools, Ole Miss allows stacking, so overall COA could be very low.

Thank you so much for all of these GREAT ideas. I really appreciate the time and effort all of you have put into your thoughtful answers.

@dopefuture

Your in state flagship would be an excellent place to start.

If you are in a western state, you can get reduced reciprocal rates at other states in the west (minus TX). However, if you are in CA, WA, or CO, your best bet for value/prestige are going to be your instate schools. Apply early for best consideration.

http://wue.wiche.edu/search_results.jsp?searchType=all

There is good (but not guaranteed merit) for high stats kids at U of Arizona, Arizona State, U of New Mexico, and UT-Dallas that will probably get you within range of your budget. I know high stats students at all of these, who followed the money, and are having great experiences. They increasingly are attracting a lot of students from CA, because the cost can be less than CA publics for high stats kids.

Other places that are strong for merit are U Alabama (Tuscaloosa or Huntsville) and U of Miss.

If she wants to try for the brass ring and apply for (very) competitive merit based scholarships by separate application that go up to full tuition, try Wash U, Vanderbilt, Duke, UNC, UVA (?), U of Richmond (private), Case Western. Some of these have STEM-specific scholarships.

These scholarships (also long shots) emphasize community service and leadership.

http://www.stampsfoundation.org/partners/

Women’s colleges can also offer good merit - Mt Holyoke, for example. Most LACs that offer merit scholarships, however, won’t be enough for your budget. Typically, you might get a maximum of 1/2 of total cost discounted, which will still leave 30-35K left over to pay per year. Some exceptions are Denison (OH), Lafayette (Marquis Scholarship), Muhlenberg ¶. I think that Rhodes, Centre, and Hendrix also have a few larger scholarships, but I don’t remember the details.

If your child is interested in engineering, most LACs won’t support it except in 3+2 programs, which I wouldn’t recommend. Other science/math concentrations can be very well supported in a smaller environment.

My advice - lock in an affordable safety as early as possible (auto merit for stats) that your child would be happy to attend. Then try for the long shots.

Best of luck to you! The good news is that it is possible. There are many excellent schools in the US. Your child may end up at one that you have never heard of before, but will nonetheless get a superb education and a memorable 4 years.

What’s the logic behind this? And my first reaction was, who cares what the school counselor wants? Do what’s best for your daughter.

“5.1 GPA on a 4.0, so the 5.1 is weighted. Her unweighted GPA is 3.99 (I think). Since 9th grade all honors classes, plus to date 4 AP’s, 4 more AP’s 12 grade.”

That is statistically impossible on a 4.0…might want to recheck. That means base courses such a FL1 and 2 are 4.0 as would be PE. Honors are 4.5 and AP 5.0. 8 AP’s wouldn’t come close to raising the gpa that high.

@moscott my experience is that there are almost as many ways of computing GPA as there are high schools.

@mathmomvt True but then the overall gpa would be misleading for determining top schools. Based on a typical = scoring scale it would work out to about a 4.3 weighted on the usual 4.0, 4.5, 5.0 scale used.

@dopefuture you refer to your daughter as “D17” is she taking a gap year or are you saying she’s 17 years old? On CC D17 would be read as Daughter Class of 2017 because for college discussions it’s more helpful to know the year of graduation than the age.

@mamaedefamilia list of schools is spot on. At UT Dallas she’d likely get their highest AES which would cover full tuition and and a stipend to help with room and board, your out of pocket expense would be around $6K a year or she could try for the the very competitive McDermott Scholarship https://www.utdallas.edu/mcdermott/about/award

Be aware that all the competitive scholarships have applications that are a lot of work some have early dead lines. The McDermott application is due January 3 (this includes getting recommendation letters in) and you must be accepted to UTD before applying for the McDermott Scholarship. I think UTD starts accepting applications in August.

I’d recommend picking a few schools where she is very likely to get enough money to meet your budget and apply to them as early as possible, having a few early acceptances at affordable schools will take a lot of the pressure off.

@mamaedefamilia

Good ideas…except the west coast exchange schools…The OP is in Illinois.

I believe New Mexico does have guaranteed scholarships…Amigo for example.

According to Naviance her unweighted GPA is 5.1. This is not uncommon at her school. She is not taking PE and takes an AP in that time slot instead (excused from PE because she is a Varsity athlete). Never taken any regular classes, all honors and AP’s.

According to Naviance her unweighted GPA is 5.1. This is not uncommon at her school. She is not taking PE and takes an AP in that time slot instead (excused from PE because she is a Varsity athlete). Never taken any regular classes, all honors and AP’s. DD thinks AP’s are weighted higher than a 5 at her school.

Sorry 17 years old

@thumper1 You are right, I missed the post where the home state was mentioned.

To clarify for @dopefuture - merit at UNM, U of A, ASU, and UT-Dallas is not limited to western states. Amigo scholarship at UNM would bring COA to in state rates (less than 20K). I know a girl with 33 ACT and similar GPA to your daughter who got full tuition at UT-Dallas. She was just under the National Merit commended score. ASU and U of A are not auto-merit but your D would be competitive for merit at both.

@dopefuture The weighted more than 5 for AP would help to calculate. So she never took any foreign language classes or electives in HS?

I am sorry if the 5.1 GPA is difficult to understand. All I know is that Naviance is clearly stating she has a 5.1. All classes including language and electives are Honors and if I say much more it will create privacy issues.