I am wondering if other parents would handle this situation the same or if I am rotten for “limiting” my daughter by this…
She is just a junior yet her PSAT score was an index of 223 (a definite semifinalist for our state of ME) and her weighted GPA will be well over 4.0 and she has other good stats and “thinks” she wants to go a pre-med route in college. We always thought she would go to college somewhere in New England since there are so many great schools here yet we were not realizing when we were thinking this just how expensive the schools are! We are one of those families that do not have a dime saved for college and would not have much to contribute yet also will NOT qualify for financial aid (don’t judge for our stupid past financial decisions!), no grandparents to lean on, etc…
Most of the really good schools up this way do not give merit aid - or give very very little - even if you are a National Merit Finalist. The schools she would have most preferred are Bowdoin and Dartmouth (at one point she thought Yale/Harvard but those would be a super big stretch) and neither give any merit aid (well $2000 but that does not help much towards a price tag over $60K/yr). We have now learned about the colleges that will offer either free tuition or even a Full Ride to National Merit Finalists. They are all much further away than we had thought she would go – all down south of us which may actual appeal to her since we are still buried in snow! She is open to considering going South in order to not incur undergraduate debt (as she is aware that me and her Dad struggle with our finances and debts to be repaid even though we make a very good living on paper). UCF, for example, offers a very tempting full ride (plus guaranteed admission into Honors College, laptop, special housing, etc.) and at least is in an area (Orlando) that she is very familiar with (yes, many trips to Disney) and has cheap direct flights back home. BUT is it wrong to push her toward a school mainly because it would be free??? Am I wrong not to push for her to try to get into the best school possible even if it means lots of debt for her and us?
Based on everything in your post, I would certainly encourage your D to go with the full ride assuming the universities are decent. Especially if she’s thinking about med school, why incur debt for undergrad when med school itself will cost a fortune? Push the full ride with my blessing and pay off your own debts first before adding extra on behalf of your D. It’s a sad reality, but nobody is going to pay for your retirement but you, and you’ll be in a world of hurt if you turn 65 with a ton of debt.
Let’s say she wasn’t a national merit semifinalist. What would you be able to pay each year for her college? That’s what I would say is her budget and then the application list gets formed from there.
There are some very selective schools that offer big scholarships (Vandy, Duke, UNC-CH, WashU, for example) but they are very, very competitive. But maybe those could be added to the list with the caveat that if she is accepted but doesn’t get one of the big scholarships, she’d have to walk away.
If the bottom line is that you can’t affort $60K/year, then she’s going to have to work with that, and better for her to know it now before she really starts applying and getting invested in Bowdoin or whatever than a year from now.
Maybe a way to go is to give her an upper limit to what you can afford… whether it’s nothing but travel expenses, or $5k, or $10k/year… and tell her that if she picks the free ride you’ll put that towards her med school tuition instead.
I would definitely hunt automatic merit. Don’t go into tons of debt!! I don’t know anything about UCF but a full ride is definitely worth serious consideration. My DD would probably go to school in Orlando in a heartbeat! We are a bit in the same boat, haven’t really saved for college but don’t qualify for need based aid. (And yes, several Disney trips.) So I have been looking at nearly every college in surrounding states and a little beyond for automatic merit- I’m not counting on any competitive scholarships. Right now we have found one that is affordable with her current ACT, and could get even better with an improved score. It is not prestigious but will get the job done. So far it’s DD’s favorite based on what she’s seen online, so fortunately I don’t have to “push” her into choosing it. I wish it was closer to home but she’s excited about being a little bit away from home.
One thing to consider if going far away, is the proximity to an airport. We had found another one, but it is 2 hours from an airport which makes flying home a bit obnoxious.
What I have done is search “colleges in ____(state)” and go to the Wikipedia list and visit practically every school’s website from that state, looking at their COA and automatic scholarships.
Good luck in your search, hopefully you find something everybody likes and is not expensive.
If you have been upfront and honest about finances (sounds like you have), and she has not already applied to schools beyond your financial reach, then you are just being smart. It’s cost-benefit analysis.
I think a lot of parents have these types of discussions. They all have different dollar signs attached to them, but fundamentally they are the same. My wife and I had the discussion with our son. He was choosing between California State University schools, University of California schools, privates offering aid/discounts, and full pay privates. Some schools might be two or three times as expensive as others. It’s important to put all those numbers on the table. High debt, moderate debt, low debt, NO debt. These are all important factors in choice. Heck, if someone had offered him a price of $0 at a good school, he could have made money because we would have PAID him to go there.
There are all kinds of limits kids have to live with when picking a college - academics, athletics, financial, location. If you limit her financial options, you open up her location options.
Perhaps you can just tell her that you can contribute $X (sounds like not much if you “struggle with finances”), which is the net price limit (as a pre-med, she will not have as much time to work to earn money, the medical school application process is expensive, and it is inadvisable to borrow when expensive medical school may be in the future), and if she chooses a lower cost college, the leftover is available for medical school costs.
The answer to this situation (take the full ride) becomes obvious.
For a premed NMF, follow the money. Your D will need a debt-free education with excellent grades and a high MCAT score. She will have her choice of several truly excellent programs for no / very low cost.
We were very upfront with our premed S about what we could afford, which wasn’t much. Our agreement was that he could apply to places like Tulane or the UCs if he wanted to, but we would exercise a financial veto if the aid didn’t work out.
We toured four high dollar NMF schools with good premed programs (UNM, TTU, OU, UTD). He loved two, liked the third and didn’t like the fourth. He loved UNM and TTU so much that he decided not to tour anywhere else, and he applied to just those two. He was auto-admit at both, and both offer full rides to NMFs.
Texas has several other good options for NMF premeds. So does Florida (UCF is definitely one of them), but S decided Florida was too far away from home. UNLV also offers a full ride, and has a brand new med school. Alabama has good programs at Tuscaloosa and UAB. Check out Kentucky, too.
My advice is to start planning some visits.
Congrats to your D!
ETA: We’re on the wrong coast from you, but let me know if you’d like links to visit reports for the schools we toured.
ETA2: Here’s the thread for this year’s crop of NMFs. It’s a little long, but there’s lots of discussion, especially near the end, from families with premed kids about what schools they’ve looked at and how their final choices are shaping up.
This is not all about money. It is about fit and quality of life afterward. So yes I think you are wrong to just focus on the money and attempts to limit your daughter. How much money do you have? If you don’t have much money then Dartmouth wont cost you very much. If you have a lot of money then fit regardless of price is important.
Oh I think Fordham’s Presidential award is a full ride or close to it. They also have full tuition for NMF. My D was NMC and got a 34K scholarship with no financial need. Its not too far from Maine.
Med school is expensive and she will have tons of debt from that alone. Include several free or almost free options in her application list. Florida just passed a law paying all costs of attendance (tuition, room, board, fees etc…) to all out of state National Merit to certain Florida schools, including UF and FSU. Called the Benacquisto Scholarship. UF is a top 10 public school and FSU is around the top 30 public school. If you can go to a school like that for free, saving money for medical school, you have to look at it. Also would give about half tuition to U of Miami, and Miami has other scholarships which may stack for her and give her about full tuition.
We have a high stat daughter too and she wants to go into social work or education. Our thought is, if she can get a full ride somewhere she could take a car with her to school and we could pay her about $500 a month spending money while she’s in school and conserve her college savings for graduate school. If you can swing an allowance like that maybe it would make seeking a full ride more worthwhile.
@FrozenMaineMom My D is a freshman in college and she knew from the outset that she needed at least a full tuition scholarship. I made sure she loved her safety school that guaranteed at least full tuition and then she applied for a large number of competitive full rides and one super reach school, which she paid the application fees for herself. We would not do anything differently (well maybe applied for a few even more competitive full rides). She’s having a great experience, is challenged, and has far more opportunities than she can realistically take advantage of in 4 years.
Don’t go into debt or stretch beyond what you feel comfortable with. Your child will be fine going to college on a full ride. I’d recommend locking in a couple that are guaranteed then shooting for some of the uber competitive full rides at schools that are a good fit (they are more competitive than getting into Harvard or Stanford).
Check into Jefferson scholars at UVA. Best of both worlds- top rated school and free ride. If she liked Bowdoin, she may want to look at LACs like Grinnell, Kenyon and Dickinson, all generous with merit. Possibly Hobart as well.
Medical schools want highest GMAT and highest GPA. Why not U of Maine? They send kids to medical school - there there is even a good medical school in Maine affiliated with UNE. Which, (UNE) by the way gives good aid and she could pre qualify to go to med school from there as long as she keeps up her GPA while an undergrad.
If you do not have the money for undergrad, how will she pay for Medical school? If the answer is all loans then “love the school that loves you” and go to the best school, with the best fit for her that gives you the most money
