@txstella I should explain the $10,000 per year that we can afford. There used to be a program in TX called the Texas Tomorrow Fund (now Texas Guaranteed Tuition Plan). It allowed you to prepaid for college at the current rate, so we purchased 4 years of public college when D was a baby. She can use it to pay for 4 years at any TX public to cover all tuition and fees. If she goes OOS or to a private, it will cover about $295 per credit hour (varies slightly each year). This is how I estimated the $10,000 per year.
We have done NPC for various schools (privates and OOS publics) and we seldom quality for any need based aid, or very little.
Our fall back school is UT Austin, but she really does want to explore other possibilities.
We have the Texas Tomorrow Plan, too. You do get the most bang for your buck by attending UT or A&M.
UT is opening a new medical school very soon. I have no idea if they will have a PA program eventually, but a growing medical complex should provide opportunities here in Austin for clinical hours. UT does have honors programs programs and the Plan II. Your DD should definitely apply for those opportunities as she is a very strong candidate.
Look at Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC; they can be very generous with merit awards if you are chosen as a Wofford Scholar, and your daughter’s statistics likely would get her in the merit award conversation there. Wofford also has a pre-health concentration of studies.
The full ride scholarship to Davidson previously referred to is the Belk Scholarship, for which a student must be nominated by a school.
Even with a 35 ACT, the chances of merit aid at Davidson, Duke and Rice are remote.
Trinity U, Rhodes, Tulane, Southwestern, and Elon are all generous with Merit and are privates, but even so getting it down to $10K is going to be very tough.
UT would seem to be your best bet as it stands, with the in-state program you have already invested in.
I’ve started researching the schools y’all mentioned, in particular the merit awards that they offer as well as the programs that would fit my daughter’s plan to be a physician assistant.
I agree that UT Austin is looking like our best option with auto admit (top 8% rule in Texas and our prepaid tuition plan) unless D is fortunate enough to receive generous merit aid from one of the privates.
She has SMU and Baylor on her radar, but she will likely add some of the ones mentioned here.
re Rice: http://futureowls.rice.edu/uploadedFiles/Future_Owls/FreshmanAppInstructions.pdf
“Rice admits students under a need-blind admission process and meets
100% of demonstrated financial need for admitted U.S. citizens and
permanent residents. Rice also awards merit-based scholarships
and offers a variety of financing strategies for families regardless
of financial aid eligibility”
We just visited Rice & UT Austin - the universities are very different in many ways - so perhaps give thought to what’s important if she gets in. Both are fabulous but student life at each would be different - am sure other schools too would provide contrasts. I’d say find 5-10 schools she would like based on her intended area(s) of study and other interests & think about what you can possibly manage with aid/scholarships. Once you have acceptances you can compare and plead for more perhaps, if needed. Huge congrats to her on her accomplishments!!
I would probably apply to UT and then pick one to three schools from the list of full rides - the Bellingrath at Rhodes is a possibility and you might also take a look at the Johnson Scholarship at Washington and Lee.
@CA1543 Thank you! D’s ranking of the schools she has visited…
Baylor
SMU
TCU
UT Austin
UT Dallas
A&M (technically off the list because she really really didn’t care for it)
There’s an obvious huge difference in size between the privates and UT Austin, D’s hope is that admittance to the honors college could make up for that if she were to go to UT Austin.
She has a few friends who are going to Rice next year. Could you compare it to UT Austin for me?
Thank you for the suggestions @midatlmom Yes,we are hoping to only apply to about 4 other than UT Austin since it’s an auto-admit safety.
Thank you for your suggestions @ColdinMinny D has said that her absolute dream would be to go to Duke, but she is convinced that she would never be admitted let alone be fortunate enough to receive merit aid, so it’s off her wish list. We will look into the others you have listed.
@nw2this@CorpusChristi The Texas cutoff prediction thread offers some very interesting and well thought out analysis. While we hope that D’s 217 score will be high enough and she will take the March SAT just in case, we are otherwise proceeding with the expectation that it is not.
@ColdinMinny@Petunia1999 I tried out the net calculators for Baylor, a few others in Texas and Rice, and Rice was by far the most generous for a middle income family, although i realize those are just estimates. On the other hand you don’t want to waste the texas tomorrow fund and Plan II at UT sounds like a great possibility. My D is also a junior at a Texas high school and in a somewhat similar situation but we did not do the Texas Tomorrow Fund unfortunately.
Rice is a great school. Love the residential college system. Academics are elite. However, given your statement that your family will not likely qualify for FA, it is a long shot to get it down to net $10K per year, your stated requirement.
When we attended the Rice admissions sessions, the staff stressed the importance of running the NPC and stated that the NPC is accurate. For my family, we were close to / at full pay. I’m a Rice alum and it is a great school.
There are some merit scholarships, but they are limited. Check out the Rice Common Data Set (section H). Common Data Sets are available for all schools and can be quite revealing about financial vs merit aid.
She would be absolutely a the top of the class in terms of aptitude at TCU or SMU.