@lifegarding, the net price calculator on each college’s website is a good place to start. Some are very basic, but the ones that ask lots of questions about GPA, test scores, rank, etc usually give a merit estimate.
@lifegarding Yes, it can be done, but not at just any private school.
Both my kids recieved merit offers from private U’s that brought our cost down to the same as in-state after all aid was accounted for–in our case all merit, no need based. The key is careful research into what each individual school offers in terms of merit money. This can range from none to full tuition or full ride, depending on the school. Our kids didn’t apply to meets need schools at all, and only schools that offered enough merit to bring the cost down to what we needed–merit there was some chance would be offered to our kids. A private school that only offers up to half tuition wouldn’t have worked for our situation. Full tuition or close to it made private schools as affordable as living on campus at our state schools (15-20k out of pocket for us).
Thanks @carolinamom2boys , @mommdc, and @Parentof2014grad this is encouraging. I’d like her to feel like she can explore out of state private options if she might be eligible for merit aid. I will have her start to check the NPC whenever she sees one of interest, and also the two you shared, @carolinamom2boys.
@lifegarding I just wanted to chime in-with our D, our contribution was to be the cost of our excellent local state flagship.Anything beyond that, D had to make up the difference. She was determined to go out of state, and the options included both public and private. She wasn’t an A student, didn’t have top test scores, but she knew what her stats would get her and chose wisely to apply to a range of schools that gave merit for her stats. And she came down to the cost of our flagship with almost every one. She also took the guaranteed loans to bring the cost down even further, and applied for local scholarships. I’ve seen posts where these are snubbed as being not worth it, but well, $5,000 is nothing to sneeze at in our world.
Her HS had the kids learn about the NPC early on, and how to research the “true cost” of college, such as books nad travel. This was a real eye-opener to many of the kids, but it also showed them how a distant, private college can end up even cheaper than the flagship (as it worked out for us).
@sseamom yes, our plan has been the same for both of our kids…we’ve saved for in-state public costs because there are several good schools within MD to choose from for their majors, so they know if it’s going to cost more to go elsewhere, they will be responsible for the rest. I think this has helped our younger one stay more realistic about options, but I don’t want her to feel confined to instate public if she can find other options. I appreciate learning from others that this is definitely possible if she starts her search early and checks the NPC for those she likes.
@lifegarding my son got very generous merit offers from the 2 CTCL schools he applied to. Frankly, we were surprised by it! They weren’t full tuition; 1 was a bit more than half, and the other was about 75% of tuition, IIRC. Lots of great info on the Financial Aid/Scholarship forum, too.
@lifegarding my DS attends the OOS private that gave him generous merit aid. We estimate that his total COA for his degree will be within 5k of the cost of our IS flagship and the large local directional 20 minutes from home–except the IS schools may end up being the more expensive ones. Both increased tuition by a higher % than his school did for next year and have announced reduced aid for future students. Apply and compare the offers!
Thanks, @auntiek and @Cheeringsection. I wasn’t sure what CTCL schools were, so now that I’ve looked them up it looks like some other great options for her to consider. I think I’ll let her take the lead on which she’d like to apply to, then we’ll see how the offers look. We have a guaranteed tuition plan through MD, so that also weighs into our decision because it would cover the full cost of some of the more expensive public in-state schools, but if we tried to transfer the money over it would only cover the weighted average of all MD public schools, which is good but not as beneficial.
@lifegarding my D applied to both public and private schools and the privates as all gave generous merit aid (but some were more generous than others) so go to the NPC and run the numbers. We told her that no final decision could be made until we knew the actual price. Luckily the merit aid came with the acceptances or shortly after so we didn’t have to wait until the FAFSA was done.
Please keep your fingers crossed for my DD, she’s applied for a paying research assistant job and has an interview tomorrow!
@lifegarding My son applied to his state flagship, an OOS flagship, and several private schools. He didn’t make the scholarship group for the OOS school so that one was crossed off the list, really, even before they waitlisted him. As for the private schools, Macalester College offered him enough that it was actually about $2000 less than the state uni. Boston College came in at about the same cost as the state uni (without counting travel costs, which would add about $1500 for us) and the other two private schools were $4000 and $12000 more (the last two did not indicate there would be that significant a discrepancy when we ran the estimated cost through their calculators, so be advised not all need calculators are created equal).
And as with @auntiek, our daughter got good merit ($96k over four years) from a CTCL school (Eckerd College).
D just finished interim. It was an exhausting month for her. 4-1-4 sounded so great when applying but it meant only 2 weeks home and a really tough month of intensive reading and writing during interim. She decided to not come home or go skiing with classmates for the week between interim and 2nd semester. Wanted to just relax at school, get laundry done, do some quiet walks and drawing. But she sounds good, just tired. She’s starting to think about summer internships. It’s hard to be hands off, but I am. I’ve no idea what she’ll end up doing for summer and I slightly worry it will be like her summer after senior year (taking art classes and hanging at home). Oh well, she’s charting her own course now.
At home S19 missed the sign-up for AMC10 at school (it’s a math competition). He’s been studying all fall for it, and I reminded him every two weeks to not miss the sign-up. ‘Ms. xxx will send an email. I haven’t gotten one.’ Finally, I made him email the teacher since I was sure the deadline was in January. He missed the school sign-up by a week. Sigh. His school could easily register for a second date (takes 10 min tops), but refused even when I offered to pay (cost is peanuts relative to all the other entrance exams). Teacher said he missed the deadline and the school will not bend over backwards for his mistake. Great thanks. Couldn’t we have some consequences that don’t impact his college applications next year?! I could force the issue but since one of the math teachers will be one of his letter writers, it’s not worth the risk of them getting more annoyed at him. A college on the other side of the state is offering the exam, so he’ll just have to take a day off school and we’ll drive there.
Well, the good news is that D was offered the position at her top choice for the teaching residency. In fact, was THEIR top choice. But although it wasn’t spelled out on the website or in the literature, one must be 18 at that site and D will not be 18 until next October. This is the first time it’s been a real problem, and the other two sites can still pick her, but only after all those who listed them 1st are interviewed. They did ask her to reapply next year and she has two guaranteed options for working/interning in our hometown if it comes to that, plus another couple of summer program applications out. And I think I mind more than she does, but still.
Oh, and she has made it through the first round in the honors program application process at school, and has an interview for a spring internship at a state government office on Friday.
Oh @sseamom I feel bad for her. She reached such an achievement at such a young age yet can’t have it 
I’m glad she has other opportunities though. She’s a very bright young lady. And good luck to her with the honors program and the internship interview! I applied for a job in admissions last week and am waiting to hear back. I have no idea if I’m even eligible for the job because I don’t have work study but they took my application so we will see.
Been away from CC planning summer vacation, dealing with logistics of getting DS home a couple of times during the semester and attending to fires at the office. Bad news is DS will not be going with us vacation. There is another trip he would like to do and we agreed that taking more than 1 week off from his summer job was NOT a good idea. They were kind enough to tell him he could take some time off but he should not take advantage of that kindness. The good news is that everyone gets more of what they want on vacation when there are less people to consider. It will be an awesome trip.
DD20’s club sport has begun and it requires some OOS travel so that makes the logistics of getting DS home a bit more complicated. Trying to gather all the details now so that I can get that squared away and focus on my work until spring break.
Congrads to all working on nailing down their summer work or trips. It is great to hear our kids are finding their way.
This group is so quiet now…DD got the spring internship and starts tomorrow-she’ll be working about half days on Mondays and Fridays. She confirmed that one of the other two sites for the summer teaching residency will take under-18 students-and she should hear from them in mid-March. Four weeks from today she will be home for 10 days of spring break-can’t wait to see her.
Good for her @sseamom !
DS will be home in 28 days for spring break. He gets a full 2 weeks off. 
Heard from DS today that he “knows who a few of his roommates will be” next year. Guess that means he is not going with the standard double. Guessing it will be spring break before he shares any more details.
Looking forward to seeing my D in a few weeks. She has been busy with work and school.
I accidentally unbookmarked this group and temporarily forgot about it! Oops.
We’ve turned our attention to the logisitcs of May. Gotta get D16 and her stuff home for the summer. Gotta get down for graduation for D13 and get her moved out of her apartment.
Then, D13 & take off on a mother-daughter post-graduation vacation. It really is an exciting time.
DD flew back to school today. Her spring semester will start on Tuesday. Tomorrow they will have a career fair. She has been sending tons of resumes out, but so far nothing finalized as far as internships for the summer. I enjoyed her company for a six weeks, but miss her dearly now and count 51 days left until spring break. Her winter externship was amazing. She got to meet really interesting and talented people.