FA would be separate though so if it was a meets full need school, based on the EFC then I would think @mcdmom’s S should have some options.
I would actually think it’s an NCAA rule, not a D1 one but really don’t know.
@oldbrookie – he will apply in-state to James Madison, along with VA Tech, but they are both “reach” schools.
@eandesmom – he takes the ACT on Saturday–he is participating in a free online ACT Cram Session as I type. He took the PSAT in October & I’ve been using that # along with his current GPA to research – it’s such a time consuming process.
I thought I had read that if a student had stats that met certain qualifications that the merit and the athletic could stack because the merit would be exempted. The stats I saw were 3.5 GPA, 1200 SAT, 10% rank, and I had thought that meeting one of these would be sufficient. But now that I go back to that site it’s unclear; it might be that you have to meet all three (which would make sense) and DS would be only two out of three 
. I’ll have to call the FA office and clarify.
DS is planning on taking SAT in May. It’s been very hard to schedule tests because they tend to fall on either state qualifier days or state championship days, and since DS is in play for state championships in three different sports (XC, indoor track, outdoor track) it ties up the schedule a bit. No complaints…it sure has been fun to watch him run!
@TheGFG , that is not correct. With athletic money, you can stack merit, federal and state need based aid, and any other types of aid available to athletes under the same terms as it is offered to other students on the same terms. What the athlete cannot accept is any need based aid from the college.
My daughter had 9 types of aid on her statement this year, including athletic aid, merit, grants from the school (not need based), state grants/scholarships/aid, federal aid, and federal loans.
Now I wouldn’t expect much from a track and field scholarship. The men’s D1 teams only have 12.6 scholarships to slice and dice among the entire team. It’s very rare to get a big piece of that pie. Most coaches are thrilled to have athletes earn merit scholarships or other scholarship to cover a good portion of their costs as that leaves more for others. One thing some public schools can do is offer instate tuition and sometimes that’s as good as a scholarship.
This is the NCAA rule. The Ivies have a special exception from the NCAA and don’t issue any athletic scholarships, and only issue need based aid so they can have an entire team being on 100% aid. Unlikely, but possible. If it is a school like Virginia or Stanford that meets 100%of need? No. If the student takes the athletic scholarship, no other need based aid. There are also formulas the school needs to use to determine if they are just putting the student on100% aid to avoid giving out athletic scholarships.
The key is the source of the money, I suppose. My D was forced by her top Div. 1 program to refuse some local merit scholarships because she was getting need-based aid.
If the local scholarships are because of her sport, then they do go against the team total. For example, if the local golf club gives her a scholarship for being the top golfer, then that is a golf scholarship and not a merit scholarship. If the local scholarship is from the NHS for her grades, it is fine to accept.
Thought I’d come hang in this thread since my D17 is in a kind of analogous situation. She has a high GPA and hopefully good SAT’s (keeping my fingers crossed), but almost nothing in EC’s and for that reason, I seem to now be hearing how important those EC’s are. I feel like I see a lot this here at CC: “EC’s are just ok, but nothing special: varsity basketball, 2nd chair violinist in city orchestra, editor of school paper. Several hours a week tutoring kids to read and building Habitat for Humanity houses”
Maybe a little bit of hyperbole, but not much!
Whereas my D’s list will be “Brazilian Jiu-jitsu for last 10 years (blue belt), Muy Thai for 2 years. Train 5 to 6 hours per week. Member of GSA. Tried to start my own club for people with learning disabilities, mental or neurological disorders, etc. (and those who want to support them). Could not recruit enough people to start club”
Which really boils down to one out-of-school sport, GSA member, and “did not actually start a club.”
Merit aid can also be tightly linked to leadership. And I do understand they wanted well-rounded students who are good leaders and good team players and who care about their community.
I guess we’ll just live with it at this point. Not enough money for any kind of summer enrichment.
Is there any magic website where you can see which schools do and don’t care about EC’s, or at least how important it is.
Okay, sorry for breaking in on your thread. I got through because I am pointy and not well rounded.
@eandesmom, so much overlap with your S and my D. Humboldt only came off the list because they didn’t have any “fall-back” majors she was interested in if she didn’t like the one engineering major. U of Wyoming came off because they have no Brazilian Jiu-jitsu studio. I don’t remember having Western Washington on our list, put sounds interesting. I’m going to take a look if it’s WUE.
One possible idea if your S would be willing to leave behind the water and huge trees (probably not, I’m guessing) is Hampshire College in MA. My D11 was pretty similar in being a B student, test scores ok but not great. No honors, AP’s or rankings at her tiny non-traditional high school.
After our Hampshire visit, they shot to the top of the list. She didn’t have a preconceived “this major is what I want to do” and Hampshire is perfect for that. She wanted to combine anatomy study, dance, and education as it has always been her ambition to bring dance into elementary schools for exercise, artistry, learning about anatomy and injury prevention. A Hampshire prof she spoke to assured her that she could definitely put together something like this.
(Long story short, she didn’t go due to too much money even with decent merit, but she is still pursuing her dream!)
The other great thing about Hampshire is the 5-college consortium (Hampshire, Mt Holyoke, Smith, Amherst, UMass)) with cross registration. He could take engineering classes at UMass or Smith (yep, they allow guy students from the other colleges!) Anyway, D and I thought it was such a great place that I thought I’d bring it up even though the geography may be wrong.
@snoozn I love that you go into detail. Your EC comments crack me up. I feel at such a loss there. SS11 applied to one school and went there. SD14 applied to a few but got her ED choice and that was that. She didn’t have much outside one one life consuming EC but it wasn’t enough to make her hooked at her dream school.
Which frankly is for the best, I’m relieved she’s not playing D1. But I digress. At the level S is looking at I have not clue how important the EC’s will be. I’d like to think S has ok EC’s, but maybe not.
I mean really to me, forming and being the president of the pun club…that’s valuable to colleges? VP of the Marxism club? Which he also helped start (only as a response to the formation of the republican club lol). Sure, he’s a 2nd degree black belt in Tae Kwon do but that was done in 7th grade. Played one season of two HS sports. Only to try to get a PE waiver? Do those count? Seems like a bit of a joke and this is my kid we are talking about.
4 years of musical commitment to me is worth more. But for a STEM kid who chose that over doubling up and a more aggressive course load, is it? Seriously it feels like the only EC that might count for him is Student Council and helping lead the implementation of campus wide composting. Maybe, maybe a summer mission trip means something.
That said, dream school Reed is likely to love his clubs. Lol!
It’s just kind of ridiculous. I have looked at some of the sites that will say “how important” things are. GPA, test scores, essay and EC’s. Some seem to care and others not.
Hampshire sounds worth looking at, not sure cost wise but it might be ok geographically. The bigger question might be I’d it was liberal enough and not too preppy for the hipster Seattle kid. I’m also looking at Drexel and Purdue. SUNY ESF is back on his list. Love to co op options at Drexel.
He does have honors and AP’s but they don’t rank. Which is good I think.
Western WA has an honors program that could be good for your D. It is a great school, very very highly regarded here.
Your reason for taking Humboldt off is exactly my concern with the school. Have you looked at San Diego State or UCSC? Both are too warm for S but had nice options. I liked the envs curriculum at Gonzaga a lot but he won’t consider it.
I’ll try to see where I found the notes in how schools weight the various things. It has to be looked up by school but it was out there…somewhere.
Pun club, Marxism club and composting? I love it! I think Reed and Hampshire would both appreciate those as well. I had looked into Reed a bit, thinking it would be a great fit for D11’s BF (who founded the composting club at their HS). Great unofficial motto they have.
D11 is a total hippy and the very liberal vibe at Hampshire is part of what she loved. Preppy? Definitely not. Check out the wikipedia entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampshire_College) which I think gives a pretty good description. Out of the other consortium colleges, Smith (D17’s first choice) is very liberal and probably Mount Holyoke as well. I can’t say for Amherst or UMass.
Funny that CA would be too warm for your S when I think I’ve only ever heard other CC posters saying a college location is too cold for their student!
Thanks for mentioning Western Washington. Looks they have an energy concentration in EE and at least a couple of renewable and environmental classes. Their website is not the greatest. Only one EE prof has a profile describing his interests and research. Going to mention the school to D today and I’m betting it will go on her list.
I hadn’t checked further into any UC’s or CS’s since the WUE ones didn’t have what she wanted and I’ve heard CA publics give very little aid to OOS kids.
Do let me know if you find that website. D and I are concerned that since she is mostly looking at smaller schools, they may put a higher emphasis on EC’s.
@eandesmom, I don’t know your financial limits nor do I understand the details of the environmental and engineering curriculum you’re seeking, but I thought I’d mention the University of Vermont, which has a great natural resources school and does offer engineering majors as well. It offers some automatic merit aid for OOS students.
@snoozn I loved what I saw on Hampshire’s site, thank you for pointing it out to me! I’ll need to look at stats and $ but it’s got some great fit potential if he doesn’t go the engineering route, right up his alley. Love that it’s liberal, huge huge plus for us. Yeah, he’s a funny and fun kid. Not exactly cookie cutter.
It’s funny S since wants sustainable/renewable energy as well but we are focusing on the mechanical route versus electrical, but did note Western’s EE option as a backup to the options over at Huxley. I think the Policy or Policy + Business majors suit him best but we will see. We are touring in May. Here in WA it is regarded as a tie with Washington State I’d say in the rankings scale with only UW as being higher for state schools.
CA publics are horrid for $$ in general, Humboldt being an exception as it’s WUE but only UC Monterey Bay seemed remotely a fit on the other WUE options, and that was pushing it as far as S was concerned anyway.
I will definitely find the “weighting” site, it is somewhere in my bazillion bookmarks. It was pretty interesting as I looked it up by school and kept thinking I needed to log that somewhere lol.
The sun thing is funny, I didn’t realize he was really a vampire until this all started. He does go to the lake a lot and camp and hike and hang out outside so it’s a bit odd. Not really quite sure of what his definition of too hot is as it seems subjective but when he was asked how far away the school could be, he said he didn’t care and Maine would be fine. Florida or Texas…not.
@rosered55 We are focusing on sustainable energy engineering (renewable/alternative) with a mechanical base or environmental engineering offerings that include an energy component, either energy resources or perhaps a minor in energy engineering. He is less interested in the soils and water aspect of environmental engineering. On the Environmental Science and Studies side, likely more focused on policy and policy as it specifically relates to energy or actual energy programs where we can find them. There are also some Energy Resource Management programs we are looking at (BS and BA) but there aren’t that many out there.
Vermont would be absolutely lovely but way out of our price range. Looks like OOS is 55k so even with the max OOS scholarship shown at 17K would be over our limit. And, with S17’s stats, he would likely be in the 6K ish merit award range. We will not qualify for anything with FAFSA, our EFC is more than the COA at Vermont. Which is ludicrous but the system does penalize remarriage fairly heavily. We may have a shot at arguing that at a CSS profile school but who really knows.
Hampshire is one that is far out of our price range however it does seem on the surface that S has some things in his resume that might qualify scholarship wise in a non traditional way and then we can hope for a profile adjustment. May be worth a shot even if on paper it doesn’t look affordable.
Ideally we are at instate flagship pricing, all in (28k) or lower. Can go as high as 32 but would prefer not to.
@snoozn I forget, did you guys look at University of Nevada - Reno? WUE, offers a minor in energy and has Environmental Engineering. Which is what we are look at for Colorado State. Oregon State as well though it’s a specific energy program, 2 years in Corvallis and then 2 in Bend. It’s still on the pricey side for us and S is saying “no” on the too big rah rah side but the program looks quite good.
I need to go back and look at your list 
Probably not exactly what you’re looking for, but here are two of Wisconsin’s non-flagship public universities: Stevens Point, which is known for natural resources, https://www.uwsp.edu/soils/Pages/default.aspx; and Platteville, known for engineering, https://www.uwplatt.edu/civil-environmental-engineering. Both appear to have COAs at or below $23,000 for nonresidents.
Hi @snoozn I like your dog! Dogs in new snow = pure joy.
I know what you mean about EC’s, some of the lists out there spook me too. I’ve read that schools are beginning to value a few EC’s that show genuine interest and commitment above a little bit of everything. Music to my ears as there simply aren’t any more hours in our day for more so I hope it’s true. I guess it varies by school.
I too have been pondering this whole leadership thing. There are several definitions of leadership and I think we are going to focus on some of the lesser ones, like helping those around you to be better than they would otherwise be. Still thinking about it here.
@eandesmom re: “Puns, Marxism and composting”, my 92 year old father and your boy would have A LOT to talk about! But seriously, I think your kid’s EC’s sound great. A musical instrument all by itself is admirable.
@mdcmom – 3 at once! You have a lot on your plate. In the spirit of “It could be worse” my brother has triplets – THIS will be an adventure in a few years.
Back on topic - Have you looked at any of the other Catholic schools beyond St. Bonaventure? They have a very good reputation for our B students and generally have strong sports programs. In post #5 on this thread OnTheBubble mentions a few. A few others which might have been on our list except they don’t have our sport are Loyola MD, Providence, Manhattan College. I think most are d1. Also a near-by ski area offers a free season pass to St. Michaels students – would have been a selling point to my genius, 18 year-old self.
I don’t know very much about track but I’m wondering, if there are only 12.6 athletic scholarships spread across the whole team wouldn’t many of the best of the best follow the financial aid $ to d3 schools? Don’t know if there is any way to research that.
In our neck of the woods both Seattle U and Gonzaga are excellent schools for our B students, good with merit and strong in sports. I think both are D1. Not sure about the Oregon catholic schools.
^^Life has been busy but so much fun! It’s hard to get used to the quiet now that two are away at school.
I have been looking at other Catholic schools as they come up, but so far the NPCs haven’t worked for us, and even SBU is a real reach, financially. But I’ll look at the ones you mentioned, thank you! As far as money goes, if it’s a SUNY school we can probably swing it without any athletic $$. But for the private schools, a few thousand in athletic $$, if stacked with academic merit, might bring them into range. SBU is only planning on having 20 kids total on their new team, so their athletic $$ ranges from $2000 to $9000.
DS seems very stuck on D1 because he wants a chance to compete against the tippy top athletes, even if the chance is slim. When asked whether he’d really prefer trying to walk onto a big D1 team to having a guaranteed spot on a D2 or D3, he chooses the former. 
. He’s very very intense about his running. I guess he’s a lot like his brother and sister…it’s just that they were similarly intense about their grades. DS’17 makes me nervous because being intense about athletics rather than grades generally doesn’t give as much of a payoff, in the long run. But trying to redirect his intensity has been futile, so we’re just trying to give him the best advice we can. 
I thought track meets often went across the NCAA divisions? Not all the time, but for some meets? It happens in some other sports too, like rowing; our D2 rowing teams often compete at meets with D1, D2, and D3 teams there. A team in my daughter’s D2 (ranked top 10) conference played a D3 team (ranked top 20) this year, and D3 won but teams were very evenly matched. The competition in lacrosse is pretty even between the lower ranked D1 schools, top D2 and top D3. My daughter was recruited by all three.
I bet if your son checked the times for some D2 and D3 schools he’d find them competitive with some D1 schools. Not Oregon or Colorado or UCLA, but some D1 schools. I know, sometimes no arguing with an 18 year old.
^^This is interesting and definitely something I need to check out! We’ve been looking a lot at times at tournaments but I haven’t looked closely to see which divisions the teams are in. And it’s true that the tippy top D2 and D3 athletes compare favorably with many D1 schools, but not at the championship levels and apparently that’s what’s most important. /