Parents of the HS Class of 2017 - 3.0 to 3.4 GPA

Parents Forum
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I would seriously look at this list of schools that haven’t filled to see if your favorite school is on it. Or to see if you can find a new favorite school. Hampshire is on the list currently. If these schools haven’t filled yet, they not only may accept yoru child, but may do so with aid, as they are not in a great place to bargain. They need to fill their classes, yes? Maybe?

For those applying next year, this list can tell you which could be a safety school. If it didn’t fill this year, it will need to rethink it’s plan for next year

http://www.nacacnet.org/research/research-data/College-Openings/Pages/College-Openings-Results.aspx

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@Dustyfeathers one thing I would say about St. Mary’s is to look at how strong your department of interest is. My younger sister went there but ended up transferring as she realized she would have the same professors over and over.

She did really love it there though!

I looked at that list this morning to see how S’s schools fared. About 1/3 of his list is here and not necessarily ones I would have thought which is very interesting! One had space but no housing so I wonder how that could possibly work if living on campus is required.

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Have you looked at the “Colleges that Change Lives” list of schools? Lots of nice options and many are generous with merit aid.

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Chapman is on the list. Interesting.

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@eandesmom and @RightCoaster, thanks for the welcome and the ideas. RightCoaster, how would you compare URI to UMaine? We visited URI and while it wasn’t my daughter’s favorite, she liked it enough to keep it on the list. It seemed to be about her speed academically. Her stats might be good enough to get a little merit aid, or even maybe into the honors program (if she can get a good SAT score). COA without merit might make it too pricey. I’m aware of the new tuition/fees for MA residents for UMaine–it would be a good deal for sure. They also have an honors program that might make what seems to be on the face of it a not very competitive school more rigorous. Naviance shows that my daughter’s stats for UMaine are well above the average accepted from her school, and given that her stats aren’t that high, that says something (something not very good). Neither she nor I want her to be at a place where academics aren’t taken seriously. For some reason she is rejecting UNH–we haven’t seen it yet, but she doesn’t want to consider it. I plan to talk to her about it to get a better sense of where the resistance is coming from, and her counselor added it to her Naviance as a school to consider, so it’s not completely off the table yet.

Anybody have anything good to say about Hofstra? I’m worried that it’s a suitcase school.

Regarding the CTCL schools on the NACAC list–I was really surprised to see them listed there. I was thinking the same thing as @Dustyfeathers – they may need to rethink how they are making their admissions decisions and in a way that may favor kids who fall in to the 3.0-3.4 GPA category.

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@“Queen’s Mom” : Chapman is only accepting transfer students, so perhaps their retention is down in one of the classes.

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Would take a closer look Univ of Scranton and Loyola of MD - they can come within your budget after merit. I have a kid with similar stats, and I would prefer either of these over a lower tier OOS public, with comparable costs. But we’re not Catholic and kiddo doesn’t want a Catholic school - so those got scratched for that reason.

I’ve taught at a Jesuit university and now teach at a non-selective public directional uni. I think the Catholic schools offer a sense of community and a certain “good feeling” that I can’t quite put my finger on.

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@mathprof63, we’re not affiliated with any religion but I see a lot of positives in some of the Catholic (particularly Jesuit) schools and those that aren’t heavily religious and fit D’s stats are on the list (at least for now–D hasn’t really weighed in on how she feels about it, but she is aware that money/merit will be major considerations). Still need to investigate the two you mentioned and Marist.

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D and I were pulling her list apart and putting it together in different ways to see if we could create a monstrous creature… oops, “to see if we could make it useful” – that’s what I meant to say. She did clear out a couple of schools. She is insistent on keeping some pretty reachy schools which is fine for now. But I told her she would have to “Show Me the Scores!” before any applications are sent and paid for.

Anyway, she divided the list into three sections: “visited”, “not visited but definitely interested”, and “apparently we haven’t done much work on these”. The schools in the first two lists are ranked, but the third list is just the random mess you would expect it to be. Now my job is to assign reach, match, or safety (both financial and getting in) to each school. D wrote up the list while we were discussing it. The number one spot on the “visited” list says, and I quote, “SMITH!!!”

@eandesmom
I don’t think you should have a college counselor, I think you should BE a college counselor! I have not opened up a single NPC (even though we’ll be needing $) and I’m so ashamed…

You’ve also reminded me that I need to look more at the % accepted. I tend to focus on the stats (based on PSAT for now – can’t wait to get those real scores!)

@klinska
Welcome! My D17 doesn’t have ACT or SAT scores back yet. I’m thinking she should take each test at least twice, but I guess we’ll wait until the scores roll in to make any definite decisions. I hear you about the weak EC’s – same thing with my D.

As per above, D’s number one choice (which I don’t foresee changing) of schools we’ve visited is Smith – right there in the same consortium with UMass. By stats I’d say Smith is a reach, but after our visit I think she actually fits in very well with the kind of student they’re looking for. So let’s just say high match/low reach.

I visited Goucher with my D11 and we both really liked the school. It was very warm and welcoming. Her stats were well above their averages, but from a HS with basically no “rigor” (no weighted classes of any kind) and weak EC’s. She was offered a $20,000/yr scholarship but did not go. In case you visit, I would warn you that it definitely feels like the very small school that it is.

We are also looking at UMaine and UVM as mentioned by @RightCoaster. Just by chance we are having an extended family vacation this summer about an hour from Burlington, so we’ll certainly visit UVM.

@Dustyfeathers
I never thought to use that list as a kind of preview. Several of D’s schools are on it, so hopefully a good thing.

Well, I guess I’m off to rank some schools and maybe even look at an NPC or two. Wow it’s late – Happy Mother’s Day!

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@snoozn I’ve been hearing consistently good things about UVM. I’m sure that you will like it. I feel like it’s growing in reputation along the East Coast especially. A friend of mine from Spain’s daughter decided to go there. Like, they live in Spain and she decided she had to go to UVM. Also I just met a woman whose child from one of the most competitive high schools in the US (like the Washington Post declared probably incorrectly about this high school: there are no average students there) who has decided to go there. It’s a really nice size and the city of Burlington is really nice. There’s a pedestrian mall near the campus with bookstores and coffee shops. Near there, like two blocks away, is a coop grocery that the whole town seems to shop in. Uniquely though, they decided to carry not just the Whole Foods type of food in their shop but things that regular people of the area also buy, in an effort to be inclusive. I was impressed with the delicious salad bar-type buffet . . . tasty! And if your D is into things like tofu and tempeh, they actually know how to cook it well! If she isn’t, there’s no need to worry. I think your D will like it. I’m excited for you.

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@snoozn lol, thanks. I would agree that we don’t “need” one however when the free offer presented itself, why not. It has done a couple of things. It opened up the geographical constraints. I’m not sure that will hold but it did allow for some list expansion. They may have been schools I’d have found, maybe not, I have been a bit more narrowly focused program wise and it did add more “general” options to the list which is probably good as S could well go a different direction.

If I am honest with myself I probably limited it a bit to help minimize that…I would prefer a degree that has better employment opportunity rather than just what is fun to study. I’d like it to be both mind you but it is simply harder with certain degrees.

She also validated several schools I’d been pushing him to consider (gently) and now they are officially on the list. That was helpful! She did pick some though that definitely hit things that were deal breakers for him and they came right off. She will need to work on the more subtle things that are important to certain kids and not just look at programs, stats and location. The (hopefully) real benefit is that in theory she nags and keeps him on track with common app and essays and they will do some non mom nagging essay review.

I tend to go overboard with metrics. S17 would probably die if he saw the sheet (he gets the abbreviated version). He knows how I work and would laugh but wouldn’t want to look at all that data. Right now my spreadsheet tracks and then weights the following factors and we end up with a stacked rank list that is based on FIT score + RANK score

Reach, Match or Safety has been determined but doesn’t impact the stack ranking. That is based on published stats and our Naviance. Which do not always line up so that is interesting and there are 2 schools on the list no one has ever applied to, one with only 2 kids so I am not sure how meaningful Naviance is in those scenarios.

Just for kicks…here is what I look at.

FIT
S17 criteria +
Program options variety/strength +
Cost criteria +
Mom’s criteria

*= FIT Score *

S17’s criteria
*Trees, Mountains, Rain, Snow, upper half of the country (or really upper 1/4-1/3) No hot sun, humid, dessert
*Pretty campus, preferably traditional collegiate in feel, Cool college town or close to urban activities but not necessary right in a big city.
*Not in hometown.
*Liberal, or at least not conservative, green (with an obvious emphasis on it), LGBTQ friendly and overall tolerant in general. Not religious.

Program options variety/strength that I track are
*ENVS/Energy/Policy BA Options

*ENSC/Energy/Policy BS Options

*Environmental Engineering

*Energy/Renewable/Sustainable Engineering

*Other Interesting Related Programs and minors/dual majors

Cost Criteria. I’ve run NPC on every school. I believe I’ve run it conservatively and hope that in the case of LAC’s there is a bit more money out there, we have a non contributing NCP that will have to be documented and college tuition we cannot count on the other side and I am hoping that a profile school will have some flexibility there but we will see.

Of course when it comes down to it, cost will be a huge driving factor and I can do all the ranking I want but we could end up looking at all safeties or low matches as frankly that’s all we know we can afford. The current list breaks out into thirds, financial safeties, ones with a gap that could possibly be surmountable with slightly better offers and ones that one paper we should perhaps not bother even applying to.

Mom’s criteria is entirely subjective based on cost/program and rank, adding in where I want to pay to travel to (or not) or my general gut feeling about a location so is a bit of double counting to be sure but it’s my spreadsheet. LOL!

RANK
USNWR A for B

4 yr Grad Rate %
4 yr Loan Default %

Economist Median $

PR “Green” School y/n?
Payscale ROI Engineering

Payscale ROI Non Engineering

How many of these they “hit” my completely subjective target score for each is counted and that number becomes the Ranking Score

And yes. I overthink everything.

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I’m having trouble running NPCs. We have an “interesting” financial situation here and the online calculators aren’t really equipped to handle it.

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In case you are all interested, lol, here is what the list looks like with all that junk filtered in

Financial and Academic Safeties
Humboldt State
University of Wyoming
Western Washington University
Washington State University (S is refusing to consider this one but I’m tracking it anyway)

Financial Stretch
These could be doable but it would mean S taking out the Federal subsidized loans and some belt tightening. They are a mix of mostly safeties/matches but a couple of reaches and one high reach. On a couple of these if S improves his stats a touch, they can move into the above category.

University of Montana
Linfield
Gonzaga
UVM
Oregon State
Ithaca
University of Puget Sound
Reed

Financially insurmountable with current data
Lewis & Clark
Kalamazoo
Muhlenberg
University of Oregon

There are a few outliers that could come back into play, University of Washington, Evergreen in particular. Both have been taken off the list but are kind of there in the background if needed.

University of Maine is also a possibility due to their new tuition match program but they don’t have the program variety I’d like to see.

Of course the challenge is that overall, I am more excited about the schools in that stretch category than the ones in the completely safe category.

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@“Queen’s Mom” I can relate to the NPC challenge. I am hoping that it is not accurate for our situation but won’t really know until we get there. I have been told it is not accurate for remarriage scenarios (both CP and NCP) and for business owners. I have hopefully erred on the conservative side so anything more will be a pleasant surprise but hopefully nothihng is less than what I’ve found.

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  1. I think the Maine tuition match is only for New England states.
  2. If the NPC lives in another state, your son might be eligible for IS tuition. Colorado grants it.
  3. Not everyone is eligible for subsidized stafford loans. Because her EFC was above her remaining COA after applying grants and scholarships, my daughter was only offered unsubsidized for the first year.
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@eandesmom: Love your spreadsheets. I have a similar one in the works, but I also use a spreadsheet that I bought from a woman who has been compiling the data for years. I don’t think I can post here but pm me if you’re interested in knowing more about it. She also has a blog that’s a wealth of information. I used the spreadsheet when DD14 was looking at colleges and it’s extremely helpful since all of the data is in one convenient place.

Regarding Wazoo: the teen/college network, says WSU is conservative and not so inclusive. But YMMV.

Spykid has a list too:

Does it have the programs I’m interested in?
Are there attractive women?
Is the food good?
Is campus diverse and LGBTQ friendly?
Are there attractive women?
Is the food good?

LOL!

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@eandesmom Wow, nice list, lots of possibilities. My D is only considering Portland State University and Western Washington at the moment. Many schools in your list are too small or too far inland for her narrow requirements. University of Oregon did come in high on the NPC. She will apply at an in state directional university. Doesn’t have to go there, but I would like her to apply to keep an option open.

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@brindlegreyhound my friend’s son will matriculate at Western Washington this fall. They’ve toured several times. He and the family liked the vibe on campus, has the program he’s interested in and is the right price. Very different from PSU as WW has a stand alone campus and PSU is more urban.

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@twoinanddone that is what I thought at first as well, regarding Maine but in looking at it, it is all states starting this year. Rates different for certain adjacent states but there is an amount (13,200) for “all other” which makes it match almost exactly with our in state.

Interesting point on the in state opportunity potential if the NCP is out of state. Which he is (Indiana) although technically and legally I don’t actually know where he lives, aka I couldn’t prove it without it getting ugly. I may know in an ad hoc way but not in any official way. As there will be zero cooperation on that end I am not sure there is much point in checking on that but…it is good information to have, it had never occurred to me.

I didn’t mean subsidized, S will never qualify for subsidized, they would be un.

@Agentninetynine I love your S’s list. Food and cute girls are definitely on S’s list although right now food may be higher up. Of course the challenge with food is it can’t be measured until you tour LOL! There are lots of reasons S won’t consider WSU (and UW for that matter). It is large enough though that I know he’d find his peeps if he did go there.

@brindlegreyhound PSU was on our original list but S decided it was too urban and commuter. We know many kids (and I know many adults lol) that have gone to Western and all love it. It’s actually more competitive to get into than WSU. Really the only downside to it for S is no engineering in his area. We have always seen it as his safety but he is starting to get excited about it. We will tour on Saturday and see, I do hope it lives up to what he has made it out to be in his mind. I do kind of feel like dropping U of O entirely. OSU has better options for him and I just don’t see U of O making any kind of $ offer that would make sense so why bother. The LAC’s are more of a wildcard financially. Still, the list will get cut quite a bit I am sure and somehow I feel like I am missing that “perfect” fit but oh well.

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The downside of not weighting.

S17 and the gang took me out for Mother’s Day breakfast. We were chatting about a number of things college and testing related, discussing where his GPA is at right now etc and he made the comment that he had the worst grades of all of his friends. Which broke my heart (and surprised me). I know he has one of the more rigorous schedules of all of that group, significantly more so than some and while both he and I know that is the right path and that colleges should see the difference…he was really hung up on the numbers. Because we do not weight, or rank, that’s really all he has to go on besides test scores and of course…kids talk.