@eh1234 I completely understand . It is getting extremely hard to get accepted into quite a few of our instate schools . Kids whose older siblings were easily accepted just 2 years ago are being waitlisted , denied or offered a bridge program.
We in PA are in the same boat as @homerdog - state schools ridiculously overpriced and no state $ to speak of. Our local CC costs $7800 a year, though I think that includes dorm etc. However, wow ā 700 kids per grade?! We have 75 p/class at Dās school. Percentiles and ranking are kind of useless with that small a classā¦And no APs at all until 11th grade.
Meanwhile, she took a mock SAT yesterday - it was through the school and only cost $5 - I found out afterward why so cheap: weāre expected to take it home and grade it. LOL.
She took the SAT for real in 8th grade to qualify for CTY, but I want her to take it as many times as possible before it actually counts so I jumped at the opportunity. She takes a mock ACT next weekend; weāll see how she tests on each of them; I have no experience at all with the ACTā¦
Hereās something mind-boggling - she got there at 8 and they all sat there twiddling their thumbs for an hour because the proctor - from this independent test service ā was an hour late. He showed up and said his alarm never went off. I asked my daughter how old he was, figuring, like, 20, because who the heck uses that excuse after their 20s but nope, the guy was in his 40s, she said.
Needless to say, the school was highly ticked off and sent emails saying they are reevaluating their relationship with the service, apologizing for the delay messing up schedules and refunding us our $5.
https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/2015-16-state-tuition-and-fees-public-four-year-institutions-state-and-five-year-percentage
After reading @Gatormama 's and @homerdog 's posts, I became curious about cost of tuition per state. I found this graph that I thought may be helpful in our upcoming college searches.
Just realized that this may be helpful too. OOS tuition rates by state.
https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/2015-16-out-state-tuition-and-fees-public-four-year-institutions-state-and-five-year
@carolinamom2boys Good info! In IL, you have to add the fact that UIUC is really the only state school that kids consider if in the top 50 percent of their class. Illinoisā directionals (Northern Illinois, Southern Illinois, etc) are not schools that get attention from most students. UIUC in-state tuition ranges from 17K-20K depending on your major. On the graph you posted, the average of Illinois schools is more like $13K but thatās including all of the stateās schools of course.
@homerdog Clemson tuition is a around 14,000 and University of SC Columbia is approx 12,000 . These are the big draw publics in our state . We found that several of the privates in our state were able to compete financially once my older son received merit scholarships.
South Dakota, here we come 
Like @homedog, I also note that the PA rates are lowered by the lower-cost state institutions. I found this lovely nugget on the Daily Collegian website (PSU newspaper):
Penn State University Park was listed as the second-highest in in-state tuition and required fees among four-year public colleges or universities, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
The University of Pittsburgh was listed first with a tuition of $16,590 in 2012-13, and Penn State followed with a tuition of $16,444.
Class of '94 PSU grad here - I canāt believe how much it costs now! My nephew (a senior and PA resident) wants to go, but my sister probably canāt afford to send him. I think my 4 years there cost a total of $30,000 for everything.
VA schools are fairly reasonable and I feel like we have a variety of decent to great schools to choose from, but some of them have gotten so competitive. S19 would need a 4.1 GPA to feel he had a good chance to get in to VA Tech, which is considered the third best school in VA. If he is headed towards a STEM field and canāt get in, heāll probably have to choose between going 10 miles away to George Mason U. or going OOS, and I wouldnāt blame him if he wanted to go OOS.
@eh1234 In our state , the cut off for Clemson last year was 4.3 for admission. Less than that typically got an offer to the Bridge program or waitlisted. By the time DS19 would apply, I wouldnāt be a bit surprised if the cut off increased to 4.5 or higher depending on major.
I just really donāt know what the hell happened in the last 30 years. Granted, it was the stone age, but it did not cost a middle class salary to go to college just for a year. And granted, the population has increased, but they let me in and even gave me scholarship money, and I wasnāt tops in anything, didnāt do great on the SAT, etc etc. I worry that my kid, who may not be a top scholar, but is doing way better than I ever did, is up against much greater competition. Seriously, what the heck changed in the college student world to create this much cost and competition for what I wouldāve thought was a pool of available slots that grew right along with the population? Are there that many more millennials than Gen X-ers?
What changed is the assumption that everyone needs to go to college to be successful . Few become tradesmen (although in actuality they make a better living than quite a few college graduate) or join the service . College graduate has become the new expectation as HS graduate used to be. JMO
From a tuition standpoint we are middle to upper here for our instate options. As with so many others, the flagship is very competitive and not always an option for most kids. That said, none of our in state options offer much of anything scholarship wise to in state students. It is frustrating when the only truly affordable options are your large in state schools. We are lucky that we have decent options beyond the flagship but for a kid who really wants the small LAC itās a bit of a bummer. 14% of our HS goes to the flagship, about 8% to the top directional, 6% to the land grant university, 4% to a satellite campus for the flagship (and I suspect almost 80% commuter) and then another 4% to a different directional. In many cases kids will choose the top directional versus the flagship as itās a very different experience and size (not big on sports, no greek, significantly smaller without being small) experience and might be preferred even if they could get into the flagship.
I agree, to a point, that part of the problem is the mentality that everyone needs to go to a 4 year school and that we donāt do nearly enough to provide solid options for 2 year technical programs that stand alone but instead see it as a launching pad to the 4 year path.
That said, It really boggles my mind that the vast majority of private schools all have a total COA averaging 50-65K per year. Many, if not most, do not meet full need. How is it possible that 1) that many people can afford full pay at these schools? 2) how can ANY undergrad degree be worth that kind of money? Even for those that are generous on the need side, at best you might come down to your in state pricing and thatās generally only the tippy top kids. The sheer dollars kill me.
@carolinamom2boys I am so sorry about the rank and class size. I am grateful we donāt rank, or weight. It does make it very hard though to see where you child might fit in a scenario where only weighted is reported
@eandesmom The only reason that I even care about rank is for our state supported scholarships. Unless something should change dramatically , he will get the second tier which is 5000.00 annually ( believe me Iām not complaining). Weāll just have to see how things play out. Thereās really nothing that he can really do to bump his rank other than do well in the classes heās taking. Heās already taking advanced classes. We arenāt ones to play the ranking game. We didnāt do it with my oldest , and we wonāt start now. My DS16 took advanced classes because he wanted to be challenged. Weāll have to wait and see.
@carolinamom2boys if we had state supported scholarships Iād care a lot too! My S17 is a very mid stats kid so itsnāt in the running for a lot of things anyway but there are zero state funded scholarships at any of our schools as far as I know. There are, of course, donor scholarships for state residents but thatās definitely not the same thing and more often than not there is zero auto grant criteria available.
@eh1234 ā this is what my D19 is trying to wrap her head around although she is not sure what she wants to major in. We know UVA is definitely out of the picture due to her freshman year grades, so she is setting her sights on either VA Tech or JMU. She definitely does not want to go to GMU, especially since it is just a few miles down the road.
@eh1234 and @OrangeFish we are clearly neighbors. My oldest is at UVA and I would love love love for S19 to have that option as well as William and Mary and VA tech. But, while S19 is almost certainly brighter than his sister, and a better test taker, he is not good at doing and/or turning in homework. He never gets below a B but what annoys me is that these should be Aās if he would just do and turn in work in a timely fashion.
On the other hand, I refuse to believe the above schools are totally out of the question for him. D15 got in to UVA despite having (for UVA) low SATās and middle of the road to slightly low GPA (for UVA) due to a lack of honorās options in her first two years of high school (we moved into the state). She also did pretty much no school sponsored extra curriculars in VA. But she had some really good internships and some other stellar well rounded person qualifications. Her experience makes me believe that statement that schools really are not looking just for the stats but at the whole application. Oh, and she also only took the SAT and ACT once each and refused to do any test prep classes.
Coming back to S19, we are focusing this year on just enforcing that he must turn in all assignments.He is extremely resistant to micromanaging and nagging about whether he has done his homework so that is the deal. We are completely hands off until we see the first missed assignment or tanked quiz (in his case a surefire sign he didnāt do a reading) then the nagging begins for awhile until we back off and wait for the next missed assignment. It has to be on him and he knows what it will take to get into a college he wants to be at.
@mom23travelers I think itās a good plan to tell kids up front what the expectations are. That way they know whatās coming from the parent if they drop the ball.
Our S19 has never written down any assignments. Goes from class to class and never writes in his day planner. He remembers all of the homework just āin his headā. I swore when he started high school that I would demand to see his planner with the homework each day written down. That lasted about two weeks and then I got lazy. He stopped using the planner one week later and he didnāt miss one assignment all year. This year, I didnāt even buy a plannerā¦but he knows that, if we see assignments missing, we are headed to Office Max to get one!
Of course our eighth grade daughter has the most beautiful, organized planner in the history of planners. Color coded, super neat. Maybe itās just the difference between a boy and a girl. He told her all of that āworkā in her planner is a waste of time. :))
@mom23travelers weāre trying a similar strategy of just enforcing that all assignments are in. Iām a bit of a micromanager, so this could be a challenge for me. LOL
I did see a neat homework app that I thought could be helpful, my boy never did write anything down in his planners all these years. He didnāt seem to thrilled with the app either. I guess Iāll just sit back and let him figure out a system that works for him.
@LexieAnn Thatās what I keep saying, figure out a system that works for you. He insists that his system is writing things down in his school provided agenda. I reply that that is a great plan but it only works if he actually does it.
Sigh, the honest truth is I know this boy is going to be fine no matter what school he ends up at. I want him to be able to go to UVA because
a. it is a great school that I think would fit him well,
b. as in state it is a fantastic value for money, and
c. it is the perfect distance from home.
But ironically enough after sending two off to college in two years, I am finding my natural desire to micromanage is being overtaken by my desire to simply enjoy this final kid for who he is in the three years I have left of being a parent of a child at home. And who he is is not a typical, easy to fit into a box kid.
@mom23travelers ā D19 had a rough freshman year due to not turning in homework AND assignments on time. She has a 504 Plan for extended time on assignments but teachers also have due dates, so she learned about the Snowball Effect first-hand. 
This year, she has stayed on top of things (so far, but weāve only completed two weeks of school!) so I am trying the back-off-Mom approach, hoping sheāll keep it together better than last year. She is making smarter choices (for example, choosing not to audition for the fall theatre production and instead only sign-up for a crew) so Iām doing what does not come naturally to me and keeping my mouth quiet.
I, too, think UVA would be a great fit for D19, but I also see possibilities for her at VA Tech and JMU. But Iām doing my best to not add to the stress level.