Didn’t realise it was so hot there. Has it gotten worse in recent years?
It seems like it has but I’m not sure. Maybe I’ve just had enough.
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Wow, you visited a lot! You should share your impressions of the schools here as well: Colleges your child crossed off the list after visiting, schools that moved up on the list. Why?
I agree with srparent15. With that income, she won’t receive 50% funding from the Ivies. Rice does have some very competitive merit scholarships as long as she knows that she will have to turn down the school if she doesn’t receive one. It is just my opinion, but I believe schools use a large merit scholarship to lure in a student who might have their eye on another school. Some only offer merit scholarships to early applicants. Each school is different so make sure you do your research.
Is she National Merit? if so, you might look at USC. National Merit Finalists who apply before Dec 1 and are accepted, automatically receive 50% off tuition. Other top schools with very competitive merit scholarships include Duke (Robertson Scholarship is a separate application), Vanderbilt and WashU. She might look at the merit based Cameron Impact Scholarship. The application is pretty hefty but if she is a good writer and has a story to tell, it is worth a shot. Look in the scholarship section or the National Merit section for other scholarships as well.
As smiles2122 suggested, post this in a new thread under financial aid or college search and selection for perspectives from those who know more about schools and merit scholarships.
Hi there @Evie800 ! I was invited over here by a friend in this group that I know from the class of 2020 page. I just had a daughter graduate from Temple in Electrical Engineering and another that just finished freshman year in Comp Sci, so I can answer most general questions about Temple, dorms, neighborhood etc. Feel free to message me, but here are a few things.
- The campus is very cohesive for a city university. There’s a well defined campus that encompasses about 5x5 city blocks. There aren’t large grassy quads of ivy covered buildings, but the campus is very nice. The food trucks on campus (dozens and dozens in a non-covid year) are amazing and a big part of the campus vibe.
- Freshman generally live in dorms on campus, but housing is NOT guaranteed, even for freshmen. If your S applies and is accepted to Temple and thinks it’s a possibility, then get your housing deposit in early, as getting a deposit in early means you’ll get dorm housing. There are some dorms that are newer and more desirable than others, and students pick housing based on date of housing deposit. Again, message me if you reach a point where you need more info.
- Temple is in North Philly, and the neighborhood going south towards city hall (about 2 miles down N Broad St), is gentrifying at an astonishing pace. Center City is only a few minutes from campus, 3 or 4 stops, on the SEPTA Broad Street Line (Philly subway). There’s SOOO much to do there. Museums, restaurants, Chinatown.
- Going north and west of Campus the neighborhoods have typical city poverty issues, like you’d see in any big city. It’s a city campus, and like many other city neighborhood colleges, you need to be street-aware.
- It seems like every third person in Philly and eastern PA is a Temple grad. There’s a ton of school spirit, and lots of alumni connections. My graduating daughter got a “Go Owls!” in the email from the HR person for the company that hired her when she graduated, because the HR person was an alum.
Hope this helps. Hit me up with any follow up questions!
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I don’t think she will be NMS. She has a composite score of 213 and I doubt that will get her anywhere in the list in TX
Hey Everyone, if you’ve recently visited schools, consider sharing your experience as @lkg4answers suggested at Colleges your child crossed off the list after visiting, schools that moved up on the list. Why? I just added my recent trip to Colorado with S22 to visit University of Colorado Boulder and University of Denver. I look forward to reading your posts!
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If looking for an urban state school in the NE Temple is a good choice. However it is in a bit of a dicey area of Philly.
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Is your student is looking to attend graduate school? If so thats another very expensive proposition. As such it might not make sense to spend a ton of money on what will be a very expensive undergraduate experience at Ivies, Rice or other similar top ranked schools.
Moreover as others have mentioned even with her outstanding numbers the ivies and schools like Rice, Vandy, Wash U etc are all crap shoots. Even the top tier state school like UNC, UT, UMich, UCLA, UC Berkeley are crap shoots as well.
There however many really solid schools that will give a student like your daughter admission to an honor’s college and a large amount of merit money. And if she is shooting for med school, law school or some other expensive graduate degree there will be money available for that.
We are in a similar situation as yours. We have good jobs, have decent retirement and 529 accounts etc but to think about spending 280-300K of after tax dollars on an undergraduate degree just didn’t make sense for our family.
My D18 went to Clemson Honors College, got 15K per year in merit aid and with AP classes was able to graduate in 3 years. She will be starting law school at UF in August.
D21 got into Miami University (OH) Honors for nursing and got a full OOS merit scholarship. She wants either medical school or NP school so the savings in undergrad will really help her there.
Yes the prestige is great and the ivies and the top schools are wonderful schools but lots of kids come of out all kinds of schools and succeed as I am sure yours will as well.
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@parentofd22 I would reach out and ask the colleges. My son ED’d at Brown this year (deferred but got in RD) and our counselor talked to us and our son. And then when you apply ED, the student and parent(s) have to sign off. I had asked Brown a random question during ED which had an indirect financial aid question and I immediately received an email from them saying that if we are even on the fence about financial aid then we should apply RD. In general, I believe if your family financial situation changes materially from time off application, you can back out of ED. They made it clear to us that if we applied ED, we should commit regardless of financial package (that’s why they have the net price calculator). If you make $200k, I almost guarantee you won’t get any need-based aid from Ivies. I believe they only do need-based at Ivies.
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Thanks MommaLue.
We have now decided to do RD for all colleges except perhaps Harvard.
If she can get into Harvard which is again ERA (non binding) then great else, we will look at what she gets thru regular admission.
One question I do have for the group is how many colleges do your kids normally apply? Is it a good idea to apply to 20+ colleges? Any pros/cons applying to multiple colleges?
The main issue with applying to a number of top schools is that most of them have supplemental essays that you have to write. For those kids who don’t love writing (like mine), this can be a chore. The application fees also add up.
Focusing on programs in the area of interest may help reduce the list of colleges. We looked at department websites, number of faculty, and extent of upper level courses offered to get a sense of how deep a college’s offerings were.
Because of our recent college visit trip, S22 has been able to narrow his list to ~10 colleges.
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IMHO you should apply broadly especially when a bunch are highly selective lottery picks. My D18 (35 ACT 4.0 UW 10 AP classes etc.) only appplied to 6 Brown, Princeton, UNC UVA Clemson and University of Delaware. She was only accepted at Clemson and UDel. My D21 with identical stats applied to 10 Alabama, Wisconsin, VT, University of Maryland, UDel, Clemson, St. Louis University, Miami of Ohio, and UNC. Was accepted at all except WL at UNC. Going to Miami with full OOS tuition scholarship.
20 sounds like a lot to me but I think 10-15 would be the sweet spot so she can apply to multiple lottery picks but still have some good safeties and schools that will give decent merit money.
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20 schools is a lot! Selective schools will each have extra essays. For perspective, my daughter applied to 8 schools and wrote 19 unique essays. Some schools have extra essays for honors college and scholarships.
IMO, the more selective the school, the more important the essay since it’s the student’s opportunity to show their personality and shine beyond their stats.
I think the sweet spot is 8-12 max.
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It really depends on if you are looking for lucrative scholarships and how much your child enjoys this application process. You don’t want your child to burn out on before he/she gets to the applications of his/her top schools. In addition to the supplemental essays on the application, many schools have additional applications with essays for honors colleges and scholarships.
I’m in California and we made a spreadsheet of schools early in the process. We compared application deadlines, cost of applying, cost of attendance, recommended high school courses, options for majors, match/safety/reach, etc. Through the summer and early fall, my kids re-prioritized schools and in the end, each ended up applying to 5 UCs (one application), 2-3 CSUs (one application, no essays) and 3-5 OOS/private schools which included at least one safety with an early admission notification and an easy application. (ex. NAU, ASU, Alabama). Other than that, they focused their essay writing on scholarship applications.
You may find that some schools have recommendations that your child may not have met. For example, Harvard recommends 3 years of social studies including both European and American History. My STEM child who had Harvard on her list didn’t take EHAP. She wasn’t in love with the school culture and eventually decided against applying. Most schools want two LOR on top of the counselor’s letter. MIT and CalTech both specify that they want letters from a STEM teacher as well as a humanities teacher.
Finally, don’t under estimate the pressure that your child is under. My oldest applied to NAU in early July and was accepted the same week. It was an extreme safety for him but he was THRILLED to be accepted and, surprisingly, it relieved quite a bit of stress.
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I agree with a lot of what everyone is saying here. My D19 applied to 14 schools, but a few of those were thrown in because they required no extra essays and no app fees. She was our first and we just didn’t know how accurate projections were. And similar to @lkg4answers experience, when she got into that safety school that accepted early, it was just a relief for her for the rest of the waiting process! For S22, I don’t see finding 14 schools. Right now we’re trying to get to 8 that represent a balance of reach, target, likely. He really has 3 schools he likes a lot - 2 reach and 1 likely, so we’ve been trying to find other schools similar to his favorites to fill out a nice spectrum of possibilities. Our daughter’s college counselor was adamant about NOT applying to schools you don’t really want to go to - no “just to see” or “just in case.” And honestly, I think it was really good advice.
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Our D22 is touring colleges right now. So far Northwestern, UPenn, JHU, and Case Western. Out of these, JHU and Case had actual tours. Only Case is moving tours within buildings.
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Older D only applied to 7 schools, and one was a single click on the Common App (no essay, no fee). But she intentionally stayed away from reach schools - at about top 10% in HS, she was always at the lower end of the AP/challenging classes, and didn’t want to keep riding that train. (She got into all but the freebie).
Younger D’s list starts with MIT, Caltech, Stanford and CMU SCS, so I’m making sure to extend it to at least 2-3 matches and 2-3 safeties. The downside is my current count of 30 essay/questions (though some are as short as 50 words). I think we’ll end up at 9 or 10.
She wraps up a summer class in about a week, and band camp starts in early August. So we’re just starting to look at who is open for visits.
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@RichInPitt Beware, some of those 50 word questions are the hardest to craft and will take time. The ones for Stanford can be particularly helpful for the aspiring student.
“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”
–Pascal
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My daughter thought one school’s essays or questions required x number of words but then realized it was characters. It was much easier to slash it down once it was thought out. Of course that’s double work.