Parents of the HS Class of 2023 (Part 2)

If I recall correctly, I believe your daughter is a big fan of biking. These are some schools I’d give some serious consideration to if your daughter is thinking about doing a late application.

Salisbury’s sticker price is about $35k, but I don’t know if it is still giving scholarships. It has lots of opportunities to explore your daughter’s academic interests, but is a smaller campus with about 6700 undergrads, so smaller than most publics. It appears to be in a cute town, and with its location on the eastern shore of Maryland, there are lots of water possibilities. Salisbury is also considered a bronze level biking university.

U. of Louisville is a bit larger, at a bit under 16k undergrads. Its sticker is around $40k, but as a New Jersey resident your daughter would automatically qualify as a Regional Scholar which would give her a minimum of $10k/year and up to $16k/year, depending on her academic stats, perhaps bringing costs down to as low as $24k/year if she has a weighted 3.5 GPA and a 29 ACT/1330 SAT/comprehensive review if TO. It appears as though the campus is 2.5-3 miles from the waterfront park & botanical gardens, with those miles going through Old Louisville and Downtown, which definitely seems as though there would be lots of stuff going on in those areas. U. of Louisville is considered a silver level biking university.

Florida Southern is more intimate, with about 2800 undergrads. It appears to be right on Lake Hollingsworth, which makes up part of the Lake-to-Lake Trail which, according to Wikipedia, “is an urban 26 miles (42 km) network of paved multi-use paths that runs between numerous lakes in Lakeland Florida.” The campus appears adjacent to a historic district which itself is near the downtown. Sticker is about $53k, but it appears as though scholarships may still be available (it still has an Apply Now button and indicates that all students are automatically considered for merit aid) and the net price for families earning more than $110k is below $30k. Some of its programs that might interest your daughter include marine biology, integrative biology, and environmental studies which appears to be more science based than social studies based. There’s even a 3-2 program where Florida Southern students can apply to complete a 2-year Master’s environmental studies degree at Duke after their third year at FSU.

@2plustrio’s suggestion of Jacksonville also has possibilities. It’s another intimate school, with about 2600 undergrads. It offers a degree in Marine Science as well as a major in Sustainability, Geography, and Environmental Planning with concentrations in either Sustainability and Resiliency, Geography and GIS, or Environmental Planning. You can call, but I wasn’t able to find any deadlines to apply for scholarships (which appear to get automatic consideration once you’ve applied).

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