Hi!
I was hoping to get some advice from parents about choosing where to go for college. I am a senior and have toured many colleges, but none of them have stuck out as the perfect fit; I just have a few that I like more than others and could see myself at. One of these is my state school, which is decent but not great academically. I would not be hugely disappointed to go there, especially since it would be inexpensive for me to attend, but I was hoping that college would be totally new experience and location, and lots of people from my high school go to this state school. Ideally, I would go to a college where I’d be the small fish in a big pond, but the colleges that offer me that atmosphere are prestigious and extremely expensive. My parents are upper middle class and have said that they will pay for anywhere, but there is about 200k in savings for me, so many of the 65k/year universities that I like would be a stretch financially (impacting their other savings). It would be extremely surprising if I got any sort of financial aid anywhere. I could also see myself wanting to go to grad school (perhaps law) so it would be nice to have the extra money from my savings to use towards that if I went to a cheaper school. I realize that this situation is not uncommon, so I was wondering if anyone had advice that helped them make a similar decision. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this!
There is no “perfect fit”, so it’s best to let go of that dream right now.
If you have designs on grad school, it looks like you’ve rationalized yourself into your state flagship.
There are indeed a huge number of choices. It might help if you can give more information.
For example, what state are you in? Do you have some sense regarding what sort of major you might want for undergrad? Do you prefer large schools or small? What are your grades (unweighted GPA is better than weighted since the method of computing weighted GPA varies so much) and SAT or ACT scores?
If you live on-campus, then university will be a “totally new experience”. Regardless of where you go there will be a great many new people who are NOT from your high school.
An increasing number of careers do require or at least benefit from grad school. As such, saving some of your college money for graduate school is generally a good plan.
@Muad_dib It does feel like I’m making that choice, but since I obviously have never made such a huge financial decision, it’s hard for me to process the amount of debt that I would come out of grad school with. Some days I feel like it would be worth the debt for an exceptional undergrad education, and other days I’m too scared of the debt to even consider more expensive schools.
@DadTwoGirls I’m in Georgia, I’m not sure what major I want to pursue but I’m thinking either political science or international relations, I have a 1510 on the SAT, and my UW GPA is a 4.0 but I will have taken 8 AP courses by graduation and have made all A’s throughout high school. Of course you are right about college being a new experience regardless of where I go, I’m just worried that I’ll get to college and it will be the same types of people as high school, just different faces. I don’t hate my classmates or anything, but the ones that would be typical candidates for UGA are not the kind of people that will challenge me or go out of the way to challenge themselves, and I’m worried I will regret not going somewhere with a more academically motivated student body that will push me out of my comfort zone. (Not to bash UGA, there’s lots of great people and scholars there, it is just a very different vibe than what I get from others schools I’ve toured like Duke, Vandy, Wake Forest, etc)
You have very good stats. You may want to look at colleges that will likely give you merit money.
I agree with @1214mom. You could certainly get merit scholarships at many top 100 institutions. Google college names and merit. Most in the top 10-20 will not have merit but you’d be surprised.
If you want to be a small fish in a big pond – but not the big pond in your back yard – look at some of the other high quality flagships that you could afford with that $200k, with room to spare… like:
UW-Madison
UM-Twin Cities
Purdue
Indiana U
U of Florida
…to name five awesome flagships that are under $50k per year. There are more.
Also check out schools that offer significant merit aid, both public and private.
Your best bet in terms of public schools – unless you qualify for sizeable auto merit at an Alabama or an Oklahoma – is still your flagship. Sure, a bunch of kids from your school might go there, but it will still manage to offer new experiences. And it’s hard for a full-pay applicant to beat the in-state flagship in terms of value.
You are not choosing a college yet. That time will come in the spring.
But you are choosing colleges to apply to.
To make sure you have several good and affordable choices come spring, you need to apply to the right schools.
Once you have acceptance to several good affordable options, you can focus on what each has to offer you in terms of academic and other interests and opportunities.
@mcco18, have you looked at Georgetown or GW? My D attends GW, and got a substantial merit scholarship without being needs based , and having lesser crudentials . UGA was not for her for similar reasons, and she decided to apply out of state. Also Indiana, if you apply before nov 1st, has merit aide. It doesnt hurt to apply to some of the other great schools and see what happens.
I agree with the first poster…there is no perfect school.
You have already figured out you want to be a big fish in a small pond…do you have some smaller state colleges in your state? Some states have excellent ones. Also, like others said, look for colleges where you are above the average so you can get merit money.
If you are seriously interested in IR, American would likely give you merit money. My son liked it more than some of his more reachy colleges. Great opportunities for term time internships. You’d almost certainly be invited into their honors program.
Also ask your parents to run the Net Price Calculators on a few schools - some schools will give financial aid to people with good incomes.
I agree there are no perfect fits out there - some will have what you want academically, others you may prefer the location or social life. My older son cared only about the major, (comp sci nerd since 2nd grade), but my younger son, who was less set on a major, needed to look at places that would be okay even if he didn’t major in IR. He really wanted a defined campus, but also didn’t want colleges in the middle of nowhere, and insisted that colleges be bigger than his high school. (Which was large.)
Thank you everyone for the advice! I will check out the colleges mentioned and ask my parents to run the NPCs for a few potential colleges.
Honestly, don’t sour on a school like UGA because the people that you know who might attend aren’t the type of students you see yourself around. College is what you make of it. These types of students will pick classes where there is an easy A or where attendance doesn’t matter or are so large that they can hide in the back row with their phone. You, however, can pick more challenging classes, can sit on the front row and engage your professor in and out of class, join meaningful groups and really dig into your major, visit the study abroad or fellowships office to look for opportunities or get involved in student government. Take a look to see if you qualify for honors college. There will be many like minded students there.
Apply to a good selection of schools and see what offers you get. Then visit and you may see the school with new eyes. You may get some good choices OOS or you may see that it is hard to walk away from state scholarship money if you want grad school.
UofSC has great honors program, BTW, but deadline is soon. Also good money. D found Honors students to be very intelligent and hard working and loved it (and she went to HS in same town).
Also, don’t just focus on OOS public schools. I found privates tended to give more merit based awards. There is a thread of colleges know for merit money, or something like that. You may want to look it up
That’s helpful, thank you @1214mom !
You have the right attitude going into this process. You’re not hooked on prestige, and you have the stats to get some merit money if you choose wisely. Definitely look at some LACs–these may cost less than an OOS flagship if you get a merit scholarship, and this will allow your parents to save their money for grad school.
for a list of colleges that offer merit $$ -study this list carefully.
Scroll down to post #3 and good luck!
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/2006094-2017-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-p1.html
And look out for early application deadlines for merit scholarships!
It would be a shame to not be eligible for a merit scholarship because you missed the deadline!
Definitely request info from American. Look at their EA and honors deadlines. It’s excellent for IR and would likely offers you significant merit. Same thing for Dickinson. GWU may also offer merit (worth a try even of not as certain) and Tufts might.
Tufts doesn’t offer merit, and is the reach for everybody category.