I have to disagree about the Frost in Frostburg having nothing to do with the weather. It is routinely at least 10 degrees colder there in the winter than the northern suburbs of DC in Maryland where we live, just a couple hours away. Lots more snow, too. Of course, the weather may be more the norm for you hardy western Pennsylvanians anyhow. (My D applied to Slippery Rock and IUP, but was deterred in small part by the weather).
We visited Frostburg, and it was quite nice and had the cheapest tuition of the Maryland state schools we looked at. The town seemed a bit depressing, though.
Our youngest is a junior and we have also started the college search and live in PA. We could probably afford one of the PASSHE schools if she could commute but nothing close enough. I am at a loss on where to go with her, I am really pushing her to study for the SAT. She is currently 24 out of 405 in her class, but her grades really swing.
For those here that mentioned York college of PA, have any of you signed up on the raise.me website? I know York is on there. We signed up, but so far looks like the scholarships are probably equivalent to the “average” aid given by that school. I guess the difference is that the raise.me site scholarships are guaranteed.
@laralei If you are interested in commuting, most of the PASSHE schools have transfer agreements with community colleges, as long as you take the course of study. It seems like a good route and the money saved by going to community college could be used for room and board in years 3+4. Just a thought.
What I like about York is that the scholarship eligibility is clearly stated on their website; e.g. you get this score and have this GPA, then this is what you eligible for. Many southern schools do this, but other colleges are not so transparent, or you have to dig for info.
Well, the issue w/ the community college is that tuition w/ general fees is slightly over $9K for the year, so not a huge savings over the PASSHE schools and she would need to travel, about 45 minute drive one way. No bus service, so we would need to get her a reliable car, so I don’t see any real savings that route.
We are looking at every possible option, but w/o top grades, it does make it harder.
I do have a question on the GPA. Every site I have looked at for scholarships goes by a 4.0 scale. The HS uses the 100 scale. She currently has a 95.6 (something) GPA. On the College Board site it is converting to a 4.0, but the raise.me site is showing it as a 3.7.
My D is a freshman at Temple this year and the recent news does have me concerned but she seems to be taking it in stride. The school is in a large city and in a bad section to boot. But most city schools are, so it’s a part of going to college on a city campus. Temple has created safe ride programs and shuttles (like Uber) that help, but if the school is in a city, there’s only so much they can control. In some ways I feel that learning those life skills are valuable and necessary if they plan on moving to one after they graduate.
@laralei , 95.6 is a 4.0 = solid A for 99% of schools.
Some colleges DO remove the non-core classes, some do not.
Some colleges take the weighted GPA, some do not. You can make yourself a little crazy with it all.
I remember when my oldest was going thru the process and looking at schools with an average GPA of 3.9, but SAT scores closer to the 50% range. I then learned one of the southern states, South Carolina maybe, has some kind of crazy state standard of 6.0 scale for high school. The California schools also have a crazy system of eliminating 9th grade.
A 95 is top grades. With my HS 2013 kid, he applied heavily OOS and wound up 900 miles away because he needed to follow the money. The mid-west and southern schools were very generous.
Have you looked at Susquehanna (Snyder County), Rosemont (Montgomery County) or Arcadia? They are generous to students with a good GPA
She took the PSAT freshman year and got an 1180. High reading, low math. Took it again this year, as school pays for it, so I am waiting to see what that score will be. My son hated testing, so one and done for him. She said she would be willing to take SAT/ACT more than once. I plan on having her take the SAT in December after seeing the areas where she needs work, and have her practice before hand on the those areas. I think with that, we will have a better idea of where she stands going forward.
We have had an EFC of around $1500 these past couple of years, so “generous” isn’t usually enough.
Although I am not intentionally promoting Bloomsburg…I saw another high rating…from the Bloomsburg website.
BU ranks among “Best Bang for the Buck”
Academic Quad
Bloomsburg University was recently named among the top of Washington Monthly’s list for Best Bang for the Buck in the Northeast.
BU ranked at 125 out of 386 colleges and universities on the list, and was the second highest PASSHE school. Washington Monthly ranked their list based on best overall graduation rate, Pell Grant performance, First-generation student performance, earnings performance, and net price in the Northeast schools. Making it the best education for the best price.
BU ranked ahead of Millersville, Shippensburg, East Stroudsburg and Slippery Rock. BU was also listed higher than Temple University, Philadelphia University, Johns Hopkins University, Drexel University, and University of Connecticut. The complete list of rankings are available on Washington Monthly.
Daughter received official notification that she was accepted into Bloomsburg and West Chester today. Along with those two she has heard that she has been accepted into Canisius, John Carroll and IUP. It is a good start. She did receive a letter from Duquesne stating that the major she had applied to has been placed on probation and that they hope to clarify the situation in the near future.
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Maybe because it is smaller, the results are different? The costs should be comparable, except as I mentioned earlier where the “new” dorms at some PASSHE schools seem to throw the numbers off.
We received a letter today from Canisius College stating that effective immediately they have a program that will match the tuition of any out of state flagship. I think it is great for many states but we are residents of PA which allow for a discount but I would prefer to be a resident of WV at the moment.
