Parents of the HS Class of 2023 (Part 1)

Parents Forum Class of 20xx Community
6979

We aren’t, at least right now. D23 is still in the midst of finishing applications, art supplements, and scholarship essays. We will wait until we have more decisions and then begin to eliminate schools, I think.

She’s applying to 13 schools. She has 3 acceptances so far, but only one that came with a full FA read (the other two just included merit so far). Cost will definitely be a factor for us. I have two financial cut-off numbers - an ideal number that I would like the yearly cost to fall under and a definite cut-off above which we won’t pay. The difference between those two numbers is about $10K.

Right now, the one full FA school falls under the definite cut-off but not the ideal. My guess is that school will come off the list eventually, once she is ready to make cuts, unless they manage to woo her further.

One of the others is above the definite cut-off, so if need-based aid doesn’t bring it down significantly then it will fall off the list as well. Neither of these two schools were in her top three, so I think she’ll be fine with that.

The final school is right at our ideal cut-off and she may qualify for need-based aid and/or additional scholarship funds that will bring it even lower. It’s also one of her top three so I think it will be on the list until the final decision is made.

No idea how the other 10 will shake out. Most of the remaining are targets or reaches (the 3 EA were likely schools) so it could be a short list. It doesn’t feel useful to try to sort through those now, when we don’t know results or cost.

We plan to make use of Accepted Student events to help get to a final decision, if she’s still deciding between multiple schools in the spring.

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Twin 1: He’s my easy kid. 5 schools applied, 5 acceptances. Merit scholarships from 4. The 5th we knew doesn’t give scholarships unless you’re NMF (Texas A&M). Out of the 4 merit scholarships, 2 were the same amount, the other two were the same amount as well, but double what the first two were offering. So those two schools with the lower scholarship amounts were eliminated. Now we’re left with 3 schools. By all accounts, Texas A&M is definitely the “best”/most prestigious…but he’s not guaranteed his major of Comp Sci…he’d be General Engineering for a year, then have to apply for Comp Sci, needing a 3.75 gpa to have a shot at his first choice major. That’s a lot of pressure. He decided he didn’t want to take the risk, and wasn’t feeling comfortable with the size of TAMU…70,000 on campus. It’s a huge school. So TAMU is off the list. The last 2 we’re left with: University of Texas at Arlington (local school about 35 minutes away from home) and University of North Texas (also local about 15 minutes from home)…Drum roll please…Over Christmas break he made his decision…University of Texas at Arlington it is!!! From the minute he stepped on that campus for the tour, he said it felt right. He likes the size, he likes that he’s accepted directly to Comp Sci and the relationships UTA has with Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing, he likes that it’s close to home, he’ll live on campus but can drop in whenever he wants…and most importantly, he LOVES the $$$ they awarded him. He only needs to maintain a 3.0 for his scholarship to renew. Easy Peasy. He’s sitting back and enjoying the last of high school and Senior Year.

Twin 2: 7 schools applied, 6 acceptances so far. He will most likely hear back from the 7th, UT Austin at the end of this month. Even if he does get accepted though we’ve already decided that he won’t go. The cost of living in Austin is just too outrageous. And I don’t feel like he needs to be in that pressure cooker environment. He loves Austin, but I’m hesitant to send him for undergrad. He can save that for law school.

The 6 acceptances: 3 safety public universities, 3 LAC’s. 2 safety public U’s have been eliminated. The third is Texas A&M…no merit aid, but the fact that he’s accepted to Mays Business School (highly regarded) we’re setting it to the side as a “maybe”. The 3 LAC’s: Austin College has been eliminated. It’s the smallest, he can’t get over the environment and city of Sherman and we haven’t heard good things about the condition of the dorms. Also, it’s the only school where classes count as 4 credits, it makes it very hard to transfer if you decide AC isn’t the school for you.

That leaves 2 LAC’s: Trinity University & Southwestern University. SU has given the most in merit scholarships and institutional grants and is financially a good fit. It has the flexible curriculum he likes, is close to Austin for internships at the State Capitol. It’s a little more artsy/granola/quirky then he’d like, but he can still see himself there and doing well. Trinity University: has always been his #1. He loves San Antonio. Loves the campus vibe. Loves the work hard/play hard style. Excellent matriculation to law schools (that’s his post grad plan). They didn’t award as much scholarship money as SU, but the full financial package will come in February. It’s the only CSS school he applied to, so if they come in good with grants and such, I think that will be the winner.

That’s our formula for narrowing down schools and where we’re at!

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6981

We received financial offer letter from one of the colleges for our daughter. Title says for the year 2023-24. So I was wondering how this works in sophomore, junior and senior years. Will they give the same merit scholarships in the coming years too? Is there any guarantee?

The offer she got is too tempting. She got full tuition and almost half of room and board making the cost under $5k/year. But if that doesn’t come in the next years we will be in trouble.

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Look for the fine print. All of my kids’ scholarship offers have included if they are renewable and if so, what GPA is needed. A lot of times this information is also on the school websites under the financial aid/scholarship tabs.

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6983

Thank you @Momof3B

6984

If part of her aid is need not merit:
At most places, you have to reapply for need-based aid each year, and they CAN change it. I would check with the financial aid office if it is really important to you to try to get an idea of why or how it would change. You might then intentionally put off certain financial actions (buy/sell house, etc.) until your DD is out of school to make sure the amount of aid stays pretty level. With our oldest, we just couldn’t be sure we could do that. (We have had to make cross-country moves to four different cities since she graduated from HS in 2017) If you can predict your next years/salaries pretty well though, you might be able to find out the factors from the school that matter to the next years’ calculations and be careful not to change those.
That sounds like a great deal for your daughter, so I hope it works out!

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6985

Thank you @sursumcorda

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Is that “all in” including travel home, etc. ? Trying to figure out a realistic idea of that type of cost since our S24 is only considering schools where he would need to fly home for breaks and then if that should also be added to the total. Depending where these schools are, flights could be significant for us.

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For me, no - but I have lots of travel points. I did have to fly my daughter home for a “panic” first year (not cheap) and for our dog who was about to pass - but if you need to save $$, you can bring your kid home just at Winter Break - and that’s it…that could be a tradeoff of attending a higher cost school.

I personally would take COA and add $3-5K to it. Another posted told me their children learn to be thrifty. I can see both ways. My kids aren’t. I let them eat out because eating in a dining hall again and again is just too much for them., shop, get their hair cut. If you’re greek, that adds to it - especially girls. Mine doesn’t have a car but I tell her to uber to be safe. Kids go on trips - for a night or for spring break.

So for planning, I’d pad the # but you know your kid better. The school COAs (google your school and cost of attendance) - they include travel - although that varies by kid of course.

In my case - I set an artificial #. I’m way under via a little luck (my daughter got an additional $25K a year AFTER she accepted) and my son chose Alabama over Purdue (about $20K a year less).

My # was set artificially - i.e. I don’t see the value in spending $80K a year. I’m not even sure I see it at $50K but I put it there knowing that’s what school cost. I’m a little bit different in that I can afford more, but simply didn’t want to afford more.

If you’re on the edge of what you can afford, I’d add another $5K - just to be safe. Your child’s education should not rob you of your future stability.

Hope that helps.

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Yes, we’ve visited Loyola Nola (we go to Nola a few times a year - only 2 1/2 hours from us in AL). Unfortunately because we are gulf coast we haven’t had a chance to actually visit some of his other top choices - RIT, Northeastern, UDenver and Case Western. Hoping that ‘showing interest’ doesn’t have to include a campus tour and that an email to Admissions Counselor will suffice. I don’t think RD comes out until March so the wait will be long.

He has similar stats but not as strong as your son and no hooks - 6 year varsity swimmer, Team Captain and All-County, Sectional and State Championship teams for 6 years (they can start varsity in 7th grade) as well as swims year round on USA club team since he was 8yo and is a regional finalist; President of Model UN and Secretary General for county convention; Key Club for volunteer activity (but limited activity due to covid interruptions and his swim schedule); 33 ACT, 4.43wt/3.95un, rank 15th out of 386 (top 4% of class); will graduate with 9 APs and has the AP Scholar recognition; has some local ‘scholarly’ recognitions - Tulane Book award last year and Scholar of the Week from one of our tv stations this year - but no time to do research or internships between work and swim practice.

Good luck to your son too! My D18 had a great ‘application season’ but different major and different schools … I think my boy is great (and has same stats as she did!), but so many kids are groomed for this process these days and can hire essay writers and go to testing tutors. We never pushed him to check boxes only do things that he truly loved. Fingers crossed it was enough! He has good safety options and is ok with them (and knows they would be cheap!) … just wants to get out and see a little more and have a different experience than attending 13th grade at big In-StateU.

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Alabama is one of his schools - we are touring in April and we live in MA so def not a school we would drive back and forth other than move in and move out day (and maybe not even move out). It also looks like a school where he could get nice merit aid (as long as he keeps grades, etc. were they are) So that will help.

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6990

Well this is totally our thinking as well. Hard to stomach, especially if you know they will likely be going to grad school, etc.

6991

Bama has a table - as does Arizona, Mizzou, UAH (if you want smaller) and more. Schools like WVU and Miss State have scholarship estimators - as do for privates Bradley and Hofstra.

With a Bama, Arizona, Mizzou - you know how much you’re getting up front - and it’s why they draw. Bama flat out buys kids in. But if the SEC thing is too much then there’s UAH.

There’s lots of schools with great merit for kids that want to pay little. Truman State, Murray State…these are smaller. Southern Illinois has (or had) no OOS tuition. Western Carolina has set OOS tuition at $2500 a semester.

So for those very concerned with money, these schools are great. When someone is a super high achiever, doesn’t have need, and is looking for merit - Alabama is inevitably in the discussion. You know b4 you apply - and the National Merit Finalists get financed like football players (ok, not quite).

60% are from OOS including a ton from the Northeast so you won’t be alone. You’d like find flights to Boston or Hartford not so bad. My son’s first year roommate was from Phoenix. I thought it was nuts - but he took the 3 hour 15 minute bus to Atlanta to save money on flights home.

Ultimately, if you find the right school, you can figure out the travel - or non travel.

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6992

I think it’s hard to predict grad school this early. Many can say it - but will they do it?

What is their area of interest? That will impact a lot too.

Either way - good luck. If you’re uncomfortable parting with your money, then don’t. Between UMASS and other publics and privates, I’m sure you can find a decent school to fit your budget needs.

Just make sure you apply only to schools that can get you to your #. Not all will - because at many schools you won’t know the merit. But in that they could. For example, my daughter applied to Washington & Lee as they have the Johnson Scholar. So it could get us under $50K. While she got in, she got no $$ - so it didn’t work. So that was a swing and a miss. Same with Pitt - in but no merit. But it could have worked.

The flip side was the Alabama, Florida, Florida State, South Carolina, Miami Ohio of the worlds that we knew would make the $$ - so we had schools of assurance.

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As for narrowing lists down, we’re not yet. My son does not want to visit any schools unless he’s accepted. He visited some junior year just to see type and size, but once he decided he wanted a big research university, he didn’t want to visit anyplace else. We’ll be waiting on the UCs until March and then he’ll hopefully have a few choices to visit and compare vibe, but I’m afraid he’ll just choose closer to home. We shall see.

As for cost, while we can make anything work, 80k a year would hurt. We’ll hear from USC late March. It’s a reach and the most expensive. My son could get a little money from them for NHMS, but we’ll see. Hopefully he will have good UC options, but I feel like it’s a crap shoot. I will laugh if we end up having to choose between Alabama full ride and USC full pay.

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S23 applied to 5 schools, 4 of which were EA. He got into the 4. The 5th won’t send decisions until later this spring but it’s lower on his list anyway. We were able to visit all of them and he was noticeably different at UO. He hasn’t committed yet but that is where I’m certain he will go. We wish it was cheaper but we didn’t allow him to look at any schools we weren’t willing to swing. Thankfully it’s close(ish) to home so we don’t need to worry about much in the way of travel costs.

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6995

First….best of luck to all of you awaiting decisions. This time of year can be a lull that is just no fun! But soon enough you will have your admissions results.

Actually, my kids were not thrifty. But they had jobs during college which funded ALL of their discretionary spending and books. We paid the full costs for them to attend college, and between working in the summers, and vacations…and having a job during the academic year, they were easily able to fund their discretionary spending. Since we were paying for everything else, we didn’t think that was too much to ask.

So for you folks look at colleges and costs, I think it’s important to be upfront about what you will and won’t pay for in terms of discretionary spending.

College costs are higher now than when our kids attended, and we thought costs were high then! But we also felt that we couldn’t take our money with us, and having well educated kids was something we wanted to pay for. So we did. Because we could.

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6996

There’s likely other big research schools closer to home that are solid - U of Arizona, ASU, etc. that maybe could be a hybrid - close to home and reasonably inexpensive or WUE schools like Utah, Oregon State…

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6997

He’s accepted at University of Arizona and waiting on Purdue. If he has to go out of state, I can’t see not taking the Alabama offer. He applied to 7 UCs and 3 Cal States. He has UC ELC, so he’d be offered Merced if he didn’t get in to the UCs he applied to, but I wouldn’t pay 160k for Merced, probably even for Santa Cruz, over a full ride at Alabama. If he has good UC options or Cal Poly SLO, those will likely be his top choices, the closer to home the better (for my son). USC would be the wild card. If he’s accepted, it would be hard to discount, even at the price tag.

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6998

We aren’t even close to eliminating schools. The only progress our daughter has made is thinking that maybe she doesn’t want an absolutely huge school like Michigan State. And she’s warming to the idea of having flexibility in academic rigor. So she can tailor her schedule as needed throughout her time there.

We are still waiting to hear from many schools - both for admission and money.

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