I think you should research threads at specific schools to see how much kids got from the schools. We thought we couldn’t afford a particular school, but daughter loved the school. She applied, got it, and we got enough money to make it almost as affordable as our state school. Just explain to the student at the beginning that they can only actually attend a particular school if they get enough aid.
I agree. There are very few schools we could pay outright. Basically, Bemidji St., Delta State and the like. And we have considered them. I think running the NPC before applying is fine, while reminding the student that it will all come down to FA.
@labegg Thanks for the anecdotes. I needed to hear them.
@Booajo Thanks for the tip! I don’t think she would like their core. But I appreciate the tip nonetheless!
@Kardinalschnitt, some kids really like DECA and mock trial, do you have that at your school?
No shortage of EC’s here. S is in Chorus, Show Choir, Musical, he also has a part time job on the weekends.
@mommdc Hi! We don’t have either ot those (had to look up DECA), though she is about as anti-business as they come. Our choir and string programs are very strong here but dd is not musical. I’ll encourage her to continue visiting the seniors and go out for bball and softball. Kids in Europe don’t really have part-time jobs until they start university. She would looove to have one. I think she really, really wishes she had grown up in the States. She envies the jobs and driver licences!
@Kardinalschnitt Thanks for the list of rolling admissions schools in VA. I guess I was thinking of public schools - those are all private. Shenandoah is a possibility. The others are in remote, rural locations that my son wouldn’t like.
You mentioned ECs. My son’s only EC is cello, which he is pretty active in, but not stellar. He tried a couple of things freshman and sophomore year, didn’t like any of them and quit right away. And he’s never been interested in sports. Tried a few when he was younger and he’s just not athletic. Just could never get him interested in anything other than cello. Huge bummer. That’s something I’ve been really worried about in terms of college. You see these massive lists other kids have of all the activities they do and it’s terrifying. But he is who he is, not a big joiner and needs a lot of downtime or he seems to feel overwhelmed.
We’re having trouble coming up with reach schools. He’s going to apply to William & Mary but I really don’t think he’ll get in. (Public) Need to come up with at least one more.
We went to see Goucher College yesterday, a small college outside Baltimore that’s one of the Colleges That Change Lives. It’s lovely and I really liked it and I think DS did too. I could definitely see him there. It has some really innovative aspects to its curriculum. Very expensive though.
Suggest that your son work on one of the crews for the musicals or theater dept. Most schools have tasks ranging from lighting and sound to swinging a hammer and paintbrush or doing tickets and publicity. It’s work that occurs out of the spotlight and doesn’t require much more than a willingness to learn.
@persimmony My DD16 is currently a sophomore at Goucher College. While the school’s sticker price is quite high they are very generous with grants/scholarships. Her stats were not exactly what I would call stellar and she received enough money from Goucher to bring the cost of attendance in line with our state school.
@Kardinalschnitt Did you ever look at the automatic merit aid University of Toledo (Ohio) offers OOS? Makes it very affordable for OOS. They have rolling admissions and offer additional competitive merit aid. They require freshman and sophomore students with permanent addresses outside of 25 miles to live on campus.
http://www.utoledo.edu/admission/freshman/scholarships/2018/out-of-state.html
http://www.utoledo.edu/admission/freshman/tuition/2018-tuition.html
http://www.utoledo.edu/campus/tour/
@GoingGrey That’s great to hear. How does she like it? What major is she interested in?
@StPaulDad Was that suggestion for me? Good suggestion, but he’s actually playing in the pit orchestra for the fall show and also played for the spring show, which was American Idiot, pretty cool.
@persimmony She likes it a lot. She is a Special Education major and Dance minor.
Her only “complaint” is that the male/female ratio is quite skewed which leaves for a very “shallow” dating pool. LOL!!! Goucher is almost 70% women. That’s one stat my 2018DD is checking religiously when picking LACs to apply to!
@GoingGrey my daughter really liked the dance program when we visited last spring. The school is too small for her, but her friend loved it and applied. We are looking at Towsend for their BFA, but were not able to visit. Has your daughter overlapped at that school for anything? Kids or parties, etc? Thoughts?
@BuckeyeMWDSG Hey there! Thanks! Yes, Toledo is affordable for us. I do like their BS in Biological Sciences. That’s right up dd’s alley. Still, ISU is better-rated at places like Niche and Rate My Professors (these are my sorta preliminary methods of guaging a school from afar) and more affordable. But I’ll pass it on to her and see what she says.
@GoingGrey Interesting! For some odd reason I’ve always pictured Goucher as a school full of nerdy/theatre boys! Funny how we get these impressions!
Goucher and Towson are our neighborhood schools, so I have some opinions on them. Child won’t apply to either because he wants to get away from Mom and Dad, which I respect.
Goucher is very good with financial aid. You can walk to the mall from there, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, and downtown Towson seems to be a decent hangout town, from an old fogey’s perspective. The campus has a lot of green space, nice for an inside the beltway school.
Most of the kids in our school end up going to Towson. They do not have enough housing, so a lot of kids live in rentals near campus, some of which are quite pricey. Our theater program does stuff in their arts building. It has a lot of small black box performance spaces, one big proscenium theater.
@persimmony It was initially for @Kardinalschnitt but my browser was not displaying the edit icon properly and I couldn’t get back to edit the son/daughter within 15 mins. Glad your cellist found a place. My DD always played in the pit as well (violin) and found it a fun way to use skills that would otherwise have found little place in her school.
@StPaulDad I didn’t realize that was for me as I have a daughter. Excellent point! She was asked as a sophomore to act as stage manager for the musical, but she ended up trying out and getting a part. She used to be quite interested in the whole stage lighting thing. Unfortunately, only two kids can declare it as an elective and it always seems to go to older tech-y boys. Not sure who it went to this year but she hasn’t mentioned it as a possibility.
@GoingGrey I didn’t realize what a big gender imbalance Goucher has. That might be a big negative. Not sure how my son will feel about it. All his friends are boys. But he does like the Gaming living group, whatever they call it. 
A parent on the tour kept asking why the dorm hall was all girls…well, that’s why, lol.
@ninakatarina We went to the Towson mall after visiting the campus. That’s all we saw of the surrounding area - seems like upscale suburban? My son previously said he didn’t want a small school, but I simply told him we were visiting so he could see a small liberal arts school. Most of the other schools we’ve visited were VA state schools. I think he will to go ahead and apply, particularly since they gave him an application fee waiver for visiting.
Goucher was a women’s college so they’ve struggled with gender balance. It may be easier to get in for male applicants, I don’t know, I haven’t done a deep dive into their statistics.
@ninakatarina thanks for the info about Towson. I’m not sure why we didn’t fit it in when we went to visit Goucher. We won’t see the campus until we are there for her audition. Luckily, it is not a bad ride from Philly. I understand the wanting to get away. We have that with Temple. We are stuck though, finding BFA programs is not easy.
@amom2girls - have you looked at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music? (It’s not just music - we have it on our list, vaguely, because they have a good theater program). Total COA is about $43k and they have decent merit, I think.
ETA - they have a BFA program.