<p>Hi,
My first daughter is senior and planning to apply her top 3 choices: 1) MIT 2) CalTech and 3) Cornell U. She is doing fairly well academically with 4.6 (out of 5) GPA and all her SAT(Math/CR/Writing) and SAT Subject Tests scores in 730-770 range. Her EC is (nothing special like team lead nor captain though) school swimming team and marching band members throughout the high-school years. And she volunteers at local community library and part-time work as lifeguard at YMCA during the summers.
My question is:
1) Does she has chance to MIT, CalTech and Cornell U? Or should she aim for something less competitive?
2) It is OK to apply MIT(EA), CalTech(EA) and Cornell(ED). Right?
3) How does the financial aid package work out with the EA/ED application? I have 5 kids (every 2 years apart) that I can't spend all my savings just sending my first daughter to college! Financial aid package will be a big factor for which college to go.
4) For the best scenario if all 3 (MIT, CalTech and Cornell U) offers her in Dec, does it mean that she MUST go to Cornell U because ED is binding? I assume that all 3 EA/ED offer decisions in Dec will come with financial aid package. Right? Assuming that the Cornell U's financial aid package is not as good as MIT/CalTech, can my daughter legally reject Cornell U's on the financial ground and accept the MIT/CalTech offers instead?
Thanks for your help/tips/advice in advance!</p>
<p>She would have a decent shot at Cornell (more so if going for engineering) but she really has no chance at MIT and caltech, just not competitive enough stats and ECs to compete with the other applicants.</p>
<p>She can apply EA to MIT and Caltech and ED to Cornell. With Cornell you are also required to submit certain financial information so she can get a financial aid estimate near time of acceptance. With EA at MIT and Caltech, it is non-binding and you don’t have to respond until May 1, and financial aid follows the same process and timeline as regular admission applicants and you won’t get any estimate in Dec if admitted EA. If financial aid is a real concern that usually means one should not be applying ED because it is binding and not likening what you get is not supposed to be a reason to reneg but often if th epackage is insufficient the school will let you escape ED.</p>
<p>As to whether she has a chance at those colleges, her test scores and grades are in range but no higher than most for those schools and on the lower side of the middle 50% for Caltech and MIT. No one should ever assume that those schools are anything but a reach no matter what your stats since they take a low percentage of applicants. She should have other colleges, including potentially your state college,to apply to that have higher admission rates.</p>
<p>If money is an issue, pop over to the Financial Aid Forum and read the threads on guaranteed merit-based scholarships. She is well in the range for some of those, and may be in range for some of the full rides.</p>
<p>All too often, students find that the aid they receive in the spring after the FAFSA and CSS Profile have been filed is significantly different from the estimated aid that they were told the could receive when they were admitted in the ED round. This can leave them without many good options, or force them to take an unplanned Gap Year because the ED institution is not affordable for their family. Since your family will need to compare aid packages, your daughter should not apply anywhere ED. She should leave Cornell for the RD round. Her other early applications should be going to places where the best merit aid has early cut-offs such as U of Alabama. Have her read through these two threads for ideas:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=automatic[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html?highlight=automatic</a></p>
<p>Your daughter needs to understand that while the FAFSA determines eligibility for federal aid, that federal aid doesn’t go very far. With an EFC of 0, it would come to only about $10,000 and half of that would be loans. The colleges and universities that are the most generous with need-based aid use the CSS Profile and/or their own financial aid applications to determine what they think the families can afford. This means that what the institution believes your family can afford may be significantly more than what your family truly is ready, willing, and able to pay. Talk with your daughter about what you can pay out of current income, what you can pay out of college savings (if you have any), and whether or not you are willing to take on any debt for her education. Make certain that she understands how much you expect her to pay from her own summer and school-year income and how you feel about her taking student loans for herself. If both of you (and any other parents/family members who are helping pay for her education) can all be on the same page about the financial issues, everyone will be much happier with the decisions that may need to be taken over the course of this year.</p>
<p>Wishing you all the best!</p>
<p>Thanks for all the quick responses! They are very helpful and surely I will post my follow-up financial aid question (with my family income situation to get a rough idea what my daughter may get) at the correct Financial Aid Forum then.
For now, apparently I should talk her out of Cornell U (ED, instead of regular admission) and may be MIT&CalTech are too long shot for her too. Personally, I prefer her not to go to MIT&CalTech anyway because she is very nerdy & Tomboy already. Out of her top 3 choices, Cornell U appears to be comparatively better balanced env. I don’t want my girl getting so nerdy that she can just make a good living but cannot live a good life (or find a husband!) down the road. </p>
<p>Yes, my daughter is aiming for computer science/engineering major. I am not growing up in US and a calculator was a luxury when I were in college back then! So, I have little clue which US colleges are good for computer science at all. Here are the school list that she plans to apply regular admission: Brown U, Yale U, JohnsHopkins U, CarnegieMellon U and Rice U. They all sound to be very famous. Are they too aggressive for her?</p>
<p>Personally, I’d like her to stay closer to home for those colleges (which I heard are good in computer science too) like U of Chicago, UI-UrbanaChampaign, UM-AnnArbor and UW-Madison. But as a typical teenager that she wants to go far away from home (East/West/South, but not stay in Heartland) to see the world. Sigh! I wonder if she may have better shot/chance for these closer-to-home colleges as I am trying to convince her to apply them as ‘safety net’.
Any comment or advice is highly appreciated!
- 5KidsDad</p>
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<p>There are plenty of boys who like smart (and even nerdy, tomboy) girls. And going to a more-selective or more tech-focused school won’t make her smarter or more tech-focused - but might give her a wider pool of smart boys who like techy girls to choose from.</p>
<p>I cannot help with overcoming nerdiness since it is a quality I strive for. I also do not believe it is a factor that should be considered at all when determining whether to apply to MIT or Caltech, the premier engineering and science colleges in the nation. Her stats might indicate a low chance but they don’t indicate no chance and thus the issue is simply one of whether you can pay the application cost to find out. </p>
<p>As to other colleges, her list is one of schools all having fairly low admission rates and very high tuition cost. What she needs to avoid is the risk of getting no admissions (low risk but possible when choosing only colleges with low admission rates) and, just as bad, getting admitted to a few and learning the financial aid provided is far short of what is needed or is so larded with loans rather than grants that it would be unwise to accept it. She really needs to also apply to some places that have high (above 50%) admission rates where she has a very good chance of admission and cost won’t necessarily break the bank – UIUC would be one (has she ever been there, a visit can sometimes help), and it is ranked by USNews number 5 for engineering, but even it does not amount to a sure admission. </p>
<p>UChicago is another that has both low admission rate and high tuition. Also, though it has computer science, it does not have any engineering. The high cost, high ranked, lower admission rate alternative locally for UChicago would be Northwestern which does have engineering. Wisconsin is also very good with a high admission rate but you have to pay OOS tuition. Michigan is no shoo in for any OOS applicant and it has very high OOS tuition. Purdue, another high ranked engineering college, could be worth a look becausae despite OOS tution it is more generous than others with partial scholarships for OOS. Another possible that is nearby is Rose-Hulman, a private engineering college that USNews ranks no.1 in engineering among colleges that do not have grad programs. Her stats give her a good chance for scholarship money there.</p>
<p><a href=“https://cornell.studentaidcalculator.com/survey.aspx[/url]”>Unknown Address; </p>
<p>This is very accurate if filled out correctly. </p>
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<p>Yes- those schools are all reach schools (depending on your daughters GPa/class rank and SAT score, CMu and rice could be close to match). She needs some real safety and match schools and schools where she may win some merit scholarships. Also check out the financial aid calculator for those schools. </p>
<p>Also keep in mind the travel costs of where she may go to school- can you afford round trip airfare for breaks and visits if she goes away far?</p>
<p>If you are an Illinois resident, then you have to have her apply to the Univ of IL-Urbana. Apply to both the Engineering and Liberal Arts colleges. I believe the Liberal Arts college also offers computer science.</p>
<p>Check out University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa as another safety school. They offer awesome merit financial aid. Go to the Univ of Alabama forum, and the people there talk up the University. Even though it is ranked 75-100 range, it seems to have a good reputation. Financial Aid is a separate application due Dec 1, and there is a separate application for the Honors Program.</p>
<p>Regarding ED to Cornell:
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<p>If you are accepted, you are suppose to withdraw your application to all other colleges. If you do not get enough financial aid, you can always reject, but then you will not have any other options (had to withdraw your application from other schools). The schools claim they check with each other about ED students, and that would look very bad if a school like MIT found out that you were admitted ED and did not withdraw your application. That would even taint applying in future years.</p>
<p>BTW: Don’t worry about being too nerdy at MIT and CalTech. They also know how to enjoy life.</p>
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<p>I am admittedly not a Chancing expert, but I’m not sure I’d consider CMU close to a match given the discipline the OPs D is interested in.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone’s helpful comments & tips! Especially the Cornell Student Aid Calculator link that it really helps!
Now I need to have some serious talk with my daughter to reconsider
- applying a few ‘cheaper & safer’ (better $$ aid and higher admission rate) colleges as safety-net, and
- applying Cornell regular admission (instead of ED)
so that we may have great flexibility in term of $$ consideration then.
Thanks again! - 5KidsDad</p>