When I went to college in the stone ages, I went to an out of state public university, but received a scholarship that gave out of state kids in state tuition. This was before grade weighting and my school had no AP’s I had mostly A’s, and not an impressive SAT/ACT score. I know it’s more competitive now but do those types of scholarships still exist? Our state has some of the highest public school in-state tuition out there.
My D19 is at Mississippi State, which offers that kind of scholarship.
Lots of flagships (and even more non-flagships) in the sorts of states that don’t get massive amounts of love here on CC offer in-state tuition—or better!—to OOS students, generally based on a GPA/test score matrix. (And for some—the University of Maine, for example—it’s all but automatic for everyone.)
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A correction: I looked it up, and Maine’s program isn’t as “everyone” as I’d thought—but the thresholds are relatively low, a HS GPA≥3.0 and SAT≥1120 or ACT≥22.
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Hi all. I am jumping into this thread for the first time. I spent a lot of time on CC years ago with my first but lost my username and login information when they did one of many refreshes. I recognize many of your names from those days long ago. I spent so much time on CC and credit the site with helping my first 2 successfully navigate the process. Then I dropped off and hid from everything college related during the pandemic. I am circling back again for DD23.
I have a class of 2017 who is graduated and well employed in field of study. My 2017 is one of those “average excellent kids” with nothing particular to stand out from the many thousands of other average excellent students out there. 2017 chased merit, graduated debt free, and had an amazing time at an out of state flagship. I also have a class of 2020 who is had specialized ECs and is on full ride merit. DD23 is just as smart but a completely different child. She is not as motivated and does not have nearly the ECs that her siblings had. A lot of it has to do with COVID and the aftermath. After the break from her activities for a year+ she has been slow to ramp back up and is not excited about anything that she used to participate in. She is more concerned about appearances (social media generation) and spending time with her peers (hiking, picnics, football games, painting and crafting, music). She is taking more rigorous courses and has just as high GPA as siblings but as noted, no really strong ECs. She is ok with this and has not really thought much about the college search. She loves high school and is in no rush for it to end. She wants to go to a ‘good school’ in her words - what she really means is one with a name that impresses her peers. 
That is something that the rest of us don’t care about at all. Waiting on first test scores and thinking they will be strong but not elite, sub 15% acceptance range - not that we could afford those anyway. We are looking for state schools that still offer strong automatic merit for scores and GPA. Do they still exist?
I am looking forward to learning from everyone and sharing this journey with all of you. I loved the off topic forums as much as the college search. I also liked learning about different regions and traditions from all of the other parents on the class forums. The college search landscape has changed as dramatically as the CC platform over the years. I don’t quite know where to begin this time - I think I’m just much more tired 
. We would ideally like to find another big merit school but feel like there are not as many options as in 2017. We are struggling with budget. Specifically, should we raise the budget for #3 because the others are launched and costs are now much less at home + merit is not flowing as freely? When we began long ago there were 3 to put through and lots of financial uncertainty. With 2 who came in significantly under budget there is the ability to spend more. Not sure it is “fair” to increase her budget considerations since siblings made decisions within the provided budget (approx $35k/yr), but also might be necessary for her to get a similar experience/outcome as her siblings. She is looking for a mid size → large sized school. She likes the Southeast, Northeast, Eastern Midwest (Ohio/western PA/Virginia/West Virginia). We are open to any suggestions or direction that anyone has to offer and looking forward to learning all about your college search journeys.
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Welcome!!
Does your D have any major in mind? Because her geography/size preferences aren’t really whittling things down, haha.
As far as state schools that still offer strong auto merit for scores and GPA, the usual suspects are still around; mostly southern schools, several full-tuition + offers. Just google “merit scholarship chart” and the name of the college. Bama and Mississippi leap immediately to mind. WVU, where my D19 goes, still has the merit chart, as does Kentucky.
We are/did chase merit and our schools are in the same general are as your boundaries. We also looked at Ohio U (OOS), and are targeting Temple and Pitt (in state for us) this time around. Safeties for us were in-state publics. I’d think that would be true for you also.
That said, if you have the $$ to raise the budget and the other two are not likely to grouse about fairness, and the college ends up being “worth it” - then go for it. Still lots of time before that decision needs to be made, though!
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Thanks for the reply. We live in the tri-state area - not too far from your area and will look at several of the schools you mentioned. I am just having so much trouble navigating this site now. I go to the “colleges that give merit” thread and it starts me at the beginning - 2005! - and I can’t seem to find an easy way to jump to anything recent. Schools that made the list back in 2016 no longer offer merit without need or have cut it back severely and raised their prices at the same time making them out of reach for what they offer. I just haven’t found the groove this time, or perhaps I am just so overwhelmed by this one that I am stuck!
She has no idea of what she wants to study - just what she doesn’t (medicine, biology, education). That is why we are looking towards big schools where she will have all options open.
She is confused and without direction. She doesn’t want high school to end. I think that it why she is avoiding it all. She asked me to help her narrow it down which led me back to CC. We would like to begin some visits this fall in the event of additional travel restrictions/campus shutdowns. We are waiting for her first rounds of test scores before actually visiting to make sure we she doesn’t fall in love with a dream instead of a valid option. I know I will learn a lot just by reading about the journeys of so many other families on here. I am sure I will get used to the new (at least to me) format of the site as well. I know we have some time, but I also know how quickly it flies.
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Hi @keepingupkids: I’m also going to jump in here as a first-time poster on this thread. I’m back for another go-round with S23 after just launching D21 after a hot mess of a college search process, due partly to COVID-19, but also in part to our refusal to pay 80K a year for college.
The TL;DR version is that she was a really high stats kid (3.97/4.66 GPA, Full IB, NMF, recruited athlete, etc) which she leveraged for a full tuition merit scholarship at lower T100 LAC. (The other part of the story is that she was very prestige-focused and furious with us for making her go to ‘that loser school’, but happily now that she’s there she’s found plenty of ‘her’ people and loves it). As I have posted elsewhere, I learned a ton about ‘chasing merit’ and am happy share what I’ve learned. And yes, you are correct: the landscape has changed drastically in just the last few years. Don’t trust anything you read that’s more than about two years old. That’s how quickly schools are shifting from merit to more need-based aid for middle class families. There is still plenty of ‘true’ merit aid out there, but you have to go a lot farther down the rankings than you used to get it.
If your D23 is looking at LACs, this thread is good, and there is at least one other good thread embedded in there as well. Or search my previous posts.
Re: S23, I’m hoping the admissions process will be less drama-filled this time around. He’s similarly high stats (currently ranked second in his class and ‘tests well’ so is currently prepping for the PSAT for hopeful NMF), although is not a recruited athlete like she was. He’s a more laidback kid than she is and not as prestige-focused (especially now that he has seen how ridiculous she was and how happy she is now), so fingers crossed.
A related question for the group: How much are you having your '23s prep for standardized tests? We’re making him do some prep before the PSAT (and he took the SAT last week and will probably at least once more), but I can’t figure out how much colleges are really going to care about test scores this time around. I do think that COVID will ultimately be the death knell to standardized testing, but I think it’s going to die a fairly slow death and maybe not completely in time for my kid. I think it will likely still matter for merit hunting which is why we’re still making him do at least some prep, but it’s pretty half-hearted this time around since it’s so hard to know.
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I also have a “tests well” kid. She was class of 2022, but applied to and was accepted at a top boarding school this year as a repeat Junior. Last year, she was in a cyber charter that offered a semester prep course as a for credit class. She took it, but said it was pretty useless and they did not even do a full practice test. She did no other prep and did fine. Her PSAT was enough for National Merit Commended but did not get high enough to move on. It does make me wonder if she had prepped what it would have been. Because she is repeating, the rules say she has to have a letter sent to college board explaining her 5 year path, and for her previous score to stand has to score the same or better. I have emailed college board twice asking for more information about this letter and where to send it but despite their website saying they respond in 48 hours no one ever answers. She takes it again next week. We basically used the pre-ACT and PSAT as her prep. And of course now she has an extra year. Personally I do not agree with test optional. I think that the tests add another layer of information about these kids.
My D23 took a paid on line course for the ACT which was self paced. She’s done ok on previous PSATs but not great. At the end of the class she took a practice test and got a 29. When she took the real test in September she got a 33 which was a real relief. She is going to take it again because her math was only a 27 and she said she wants to improve that score. However, we told her to take a break and do it at a time where her ECs aren’t so busy and she can go through the math section with a tutor. As many have mentioned, a 30 would bump her superscore to a 34 which can make the difference in merit. However, we aren’t telling her that to keep the stress off of her. She has a friend studying for the PSAT 9 hours a week and that makes her a little sad about the things socially he can’t do. Apparently his brother was NMSF and he feels the need to do the same.
my D23 didnt study for the PSAT. she was . . . as FSU was on our radar! but now that they don’t offer full tuition; just sort of lost interest on putting all sorts of time into a one-and-done test.
we are merit hunters and will try to have her focus on the ACT which allows for a taking it more than once. Although i’m completely unsure how merit works with ACT and superscoring now that kids can take different sections. I guess it’s up to each individual school. (?)
wishing everyone the best this week! 
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@bgbg4us - I’m confused, what do you mean the ACT allows for a taking it more than once - SAT does too, I thought?
Or are you referring to being able to retake individual sections - is that just the ACT, and is that what you’re referring to? And how does that work, does anyone know?
Anyway, S23 is doing virtual tutoring. He is, and D19 was also, wayyy pointy … close to perfect or perfect scores on the reading/verbal side, and cratered math scores. Well, in CC world, at least, haha. In the 27-29 range, I think.
We have Pitt as a solid #1 or #2 option, and on our tour over the summer they said they would not consider test scores for scholarships even if they were sent. I really am dubious about this; people on the Pitt 22 thread are clearly sending them, and getting decent merit, seems like better merit than those who send nothing – so who knows (throws up hands).
Seems like she might also fit at an LAC? Is she more humanities-oriented or more the sciences or math world?
Maybe look at some of the PA/Ohio LACs that give decent merit.
Baldwin Wallace, Denison, Otterbein, Miami of Ohio in Ohio; Dickinson, Ursinus, Juniata, Muhlenberg, Franklin & Marshall, Gettysburg, Bucknell in PA.
Oh! The not-so-easy-to-find way to get to the end of a thread is this tiny blue line along the right-hand side … very thin, and you click on it with your mouse and drag it down all the way to the end.
@AnonMomof2 --I have emailed college board twice asking for more information about this letter and where to send it but despite their website saying they respond in 48 hours no one ever answers.–
I actually got a human on the phone relatively quickly when I needed to resked the ACT a day beforehand and the human also waived the change fee. Maybe try calling?
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There should be a slider on the right side of the screen (but not the extreme right) that you can use to drop down to the most recent posts.
In my experience it’s a bit glitchy and you may have to slide it down a few times as it decides to load everything from X% of the way down, but it’ll get you there.
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To jump to the bottom of a post on an iphone is different. When you click on the thread and it takes you to the beginning (or the last place you read), there is a blue box on the bottom that shows what post number out of how many there are that you are on. Click the box. It then brings up a new box that says jump to… and you can put in the last post number (or any number), or jump to a date.
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Thank you for sharing that it can be glitchy. I can’t for the life of me find a slider bar on the post “schools known for good merit aid” that is pinned at the top of the parent forum. I don’t know if it is because it is a pinned post or if it is due to the sheer age of post and number of responses. There is no slider for me. I did find the slider on some other posts and tried several times to get it to move to more recent threads. I have had varying luck. After racing through several years (!) it would jump back to the beginning of the thread in some of them. I’ll keep trying!
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I’m not sure if this will work, but this should (I hope) take you directly to the most recent post in that thread (which was just a bit over a month ago): Schools known for good merit aid - #1996 by terrieralum-dad
Also, there’s a thread where people have been occasionally posting tech issues and the site administrators have responded sometimes, might be worth mentioning the issue there: Welcome to the new CC Forums!
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No test prep here. I have a kid barely treading water mentally who hangs around a 3.3-3.4 gpa. Forcing standardized test prep on him would push him over the edge. He will never be competitive for merit against 4.0 plus kids. We will be looking for average schools that may cut him a bit of a tuition break.
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(Messaged deleted).
Kid can’t do fall solo and ensemble for choir but can still do spring. Sad his acapella competition got canceled though.
Back from our visit to Austin College for Thing 2…and it went fabulous! He’s now pretty sure he wants a small LAC that has a Hogwarts vibe vs a big rah-rah public state university like TAMU or Texas Tech, although we will still have him apply to those since he’s an auto admit and would most likely get into the Honors Colleges at Tech, University of Houston etc. I’m glad he’s forming likes/dislikes, I just need to figure out how to pay for it now lol.
Here’s our recap:
Pros:
-Close to home (1 hr 10 minutes!)
-Very intellectual vibe
-Dining Hall food looked amazing and varied and is all you can eat, open 7:00 am to 9:00 pm.
-Lots of great opportunities for internships, study abroad and research with the Jan Term (basically a mini mester which everybody is required to do)
-Designated faculty mentor the entire 4 years
-True liberal arts education that will allow you to craft your own major if you want
-Small, compact campus
-With his current stats, Potential to qualify for their top merit scholarship and they stack other scholarships (if he chooses to continue to play euphonium in their concert band he could get $$ plus there is a scholarship you can qualify for if an alumni recommends you…my cousin and her husband are alumni lol)
-No application fee
-Guaranteed housing on campus all 4 years
-Very diverse and multicultural student body
Cons:
-Sherman and the area directly around campus is a dump. Old, dated, NOTHING to do.
-Dorms are very dated
-Campus buildings are dated, some look downright depressing…but others have been completely renovated so it’s a very weird dichotomy lol. Overall, the campus isn’t very aesthetically pleasing, but I think that bothered me more than him.
- With an enrollment size of 1200, it’s smaller than our high school’s total enrollment lol. His class of 2023 has 1100 kids lol…I worry that the novelty of a small school may wear off?
He sat in on a Ethics/Theory class and came back to us with the BIGGEST smile I’ve seen in a long time. He loved it. His exact words were: “It’s so great to be around people who actually KNOW what they’re talking about”. The professor included him in the discussion and treated him like he was a student there. He was so stoked. There were a total of 12 students in the class.
So that’s where we are. We plan to visit TCU, Trinity University (San Antonio) and Southwestern University in Georgetown, also one of the Colleges That Change Lives schools. SMU is too much of frat boy party school for his liking, so not interested there. I think TCU & Trinity may be a tad out of reach financially even after merit aid, but we’ll see.
Now that I know what direction he’s leaning towards, I need help identifying other LAC’s that could be a match. Financially, we’ve concluded that after merit aid and federal loan, we need to stay between $20-$25k. Austin College’s cost of attendance is $56,000…their top merit aid scholarship is $32,000, and then there is the potential to stack other smaller scholarships.
At the end of sophomore year his class rank was 78/1100. His weighted numerical gpa was 104.247… 3.65 unweighted/4.55 weighted. The first grading period for Junior year ended on Friday. He finished with a 90 in AP Physics 1, 100 in band, 94 in AP Lang/Eng 3 and 92 in AP Psych (we’re on accelerated block scheduling, so only 4 classes a term and two 9 week grading periods in each term). Recalculated GPA and class rank will be released next week and I’m pretty sure he’s going to inch up from those stats. He got a 26 on the Sept 11th ACT…that was his first time taking it and he did not prep (he hasn’t been to any workshops or practice sessions at his prep center that we prepaid for since mid summer because of marching band commitments). He’s retaking the ACT Oct 23 since we already registered for it. I know he could crack 30 and get to the 32-33 range if he tried/wanted to.
With all those parameters, what other schools should I look at for him?
***Editing to add: Rice & Vanderbilt would be dream schools for him but super duper reaches and also super out of reach financially I think. Our combined family income is under $150k, but we own 3 rental properties that are completely paid off aside from the home we live in so even with the Rice Investment and and need based aid, the balance remaining would be out of our range with 2 other kids in college at the same time.
Am I looking for a unicorn here?
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My son is taking the SAT in December and wants to “wing it”. He tells us he will only participate in two test prep tutoring sessions after he receives his scores and plans to take SAT again in March. His choices, his journey and just going to continue to back off even though it is difficult.
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