<p>My son has realized that some of the big public schools are a bit too big for him.</p>
<p>We are realizing that the privates may be too expensive for us. We don't want him to visit one and fall in love, only to realize we just can't afford it.</p>
<p>I'm sure lots of you have been down this path. What did you do? Are there reasonably priced but strong colleges that aren't as big as most of the publics? Do we let him apply to the privates in the hope of getting some merit or other aid? (I don't think we will qualify for need-based grants.)</p>
<p>I am not sure where you live, but what is “big” here? Have you exhausted all in state publics in terms of their size? </p>
<p>I personally took my D to look at some really small colleges, the ones in 40 Colleges That Change Lives, schools with 1100 - 2000 kids, and frankly, aside from their teetering budgets, I got the feeling that it would be claustrophic and a bit like high school. </p>
<p>An honors program or a dedicated housing option (French House, Wellness Floor, what have you) might give your child a sense of community within a larger school. My D is going to attend a public university of about 4000 students and was accepted into the Honors program which has its own dorm and its own classes. She will, hopefully, have the best of both worlds.</p>
<p>I had heard for years that some private schools offer so much merit aid that the cost comes in below some public schools. I didn’t believe it until a good private made such an offer to my son (who had good SATs and not so great grades.) </p>
<p>Here’s my advice: Make a large list of private schools that meet your son’s criteria. Go to a website like Princeton Review (can I say that here?) and check out the 25-75 %ile scores for each school. Focus on the schools where your son’s scores are above the top 25% of the applicants. Study those school’s web sites. Many will have charts that say if a student is in this percentile of his class, with these scores, he will get $x.</p>
<p>Some schools are very generous…here’s the school that my son was considering: With an unweighted 3.0 GPA and an SAT between 1280-1600, the student is offered $19,000 per year in merit aid, when tuition is only $23,000. </p>
<p>What you can’t do with this method is apply to a bunch of reaches. The trick is to find the school where your child will be at the* top *of the heap, rather than in the middle.</p>
<p>We are in Connecticut, so we have been looking at the publics that aren’t terribly far away. Student body size ranges from 15,000 (UConn) to 30,000 plus (Indiana). Actually, though, it was the physical space that was overwhelming…the idea that it could take you 20 minutes to walk from one class to the next was not appealing to him…maybe it’s not even the number of kids. I don’t know what size is appropriate, but you are right that the really small sizes that you mentioned would be way too small…</p>
<p>Missy…my son is in a similar situation, with great SATs and so-so grades. Which schools did you look at and which private made you that nice offer?</p>
<p>There are smaller publics. The SUNYs have some small publics that are still reasonably priced. Mary Washington, UNC Asheville, College Charleston, St Mary’s are some public schools that are small. If you look at schools like Butler U, Denver U and some Catholic schools, you may find a size that is good. My son really liked the Catholic schools because many of them have a very enclosed campus, fenced in and feeling very secure. He loved Fairfield which is not far from you.</p>
<p>All were in Texas and Oklahoma…probably not schools you’d be interested in unless you are looking for warmer weather. Check the Class of 2013 acceptance thread for the list of schools.</p>
<p>The sites like Princeton Review also give the number of acres in the campus. The differences can be amazing - two schools, same student population - one on 70 acres; the other on 700.</p>
<p>Ready, my D received a nice merit/FA offer from Northeastern in Boston, a mid-size private (undergrad is I think around 9,000.) It brought the cost down to what we would have been paying ar our state U. I’m not specifically recommending Northeastern because it offers a somewhat different type of college experience - I’m just an example of someone who is getting smaller classes/private customer service at the price of a large public.</p>
<p>What about Trinity College? It’s a good LAC and they do offer merit scholarship if your son qualifies. There are good privates out there that do offer merit aid. If you can’t pay full fare and are not eligible for FA, then you’ll need t cross out all need based schools, and most of them are top tier schools.</p>
<p>I took such a long time typing my reply that you have gotten a lot of the same advice already. But here goes in case some of it helps: </p>
<p>I have a senior who recently received all of her college decisions back. I think our case is similar to yours in that we aren’t rich but we have too much money to qualify for need-based aid. My D applied to mostly selective/reach schools and got into a few. But she wasn’t offered any merit-based aid at these schools. I think it was because she was qualified but not at the top of their applicant pool. She was offered about a 3/4 tuitition scholarship by a school she regarded as her safety where her stats were pretty far above the average. In our case my H has received a lot of stock options from the company where he has worked for many years and we have sold those and have cash to pay for school. However, I know most people are not in this situation and even most of his co-workers cashed out their options long ago to buy houses and cars and such. </p>
<p>What I would suggest based on our experience is:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Run your income and assets through an online financial aid calculator to get a definitive answer on whether you will qualify for need-based aid. I think there is a nice calculator one on the Princeton website. </p></li>
<li><p>Decide how much money you can realistically pay each year toward your child’s college education and then tell your son this number. For example, my D’s friend’s parents gave him a flat figure of $8,000 that they can pay each year. A lot of parents seem to withhold this information from their kids and then it causes problems later. </p></li>
<li><p>Look for schools where your child has a good chance of getting merit aid. For example, a private school where your S’s stats are comfortably above the average scores and grades for the school. If you look at the college information on the College Board website it shows the average amount of merit aid awarded to students. On some school websites they also have some specific information about the SAT scores and grades needed to get certain scholarships. That is nice as you can get some idea in advance as to what your child qualifies for. I think Southwestern University has this information and for Texas Lutheran University you can plug the information into a calculator on their website to determine how much merit aid your S would likely get. I am more familiar with the Texas schools but some students I know were offered merit aid at every Texas private school they applied to. </p></li>
<li><p>Put the responsiblity on your S to apply for scholarships to meet the financial “gap” for schools he really wants to apply to. Many of the scholarships have early deadlines and require essays and teacher recommendations so my D complained a lot about filling out more applications. However, her friend with the $8,000 parent contribution limit has been pretty successful in obtaining scholarships and aid money to meet his gap. </p></li>
<li><p>If your S qualifies for something special like National Merit Finalist then you can look at the lists of schools offering full-ride scholarships. Two NMF’s I know are getting full-ride scholarships to Tulsa and U of Houston. There are also some excellent threads on CC with specific information about colleges offering merit aid. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I hope this helps a little. I’m sure other parents will have more advice for you. Good luck with the journey.</p>
<p>I have this theory (based soley on my son’s experience) that the schools that give free rides to NMF’s offer less merit aid to everybody else. It makes perfect sense - there is only so much money and some schools choose to devote most of it to attracting NMFs. Son got his two lowest merit aid offers from schools that give NMF’s free rides. He got $6000-$10000 more from the schools that only give a token $1000-$2000 to NMFs. </p>
<p>So - if you child is a NMF, go for the free rides. If not, make sure the list includes plenty of schools that don’t offer free rides to NMFs.</p>
<p>Our deal is, you can apply to pricey private schools, but your attendance there is contingent on getting major scholarship money. In other words, we’ll let you apply, but don’t get your heart set on it.</p>
<p>As time has gone on, ds is wondering whether those small CTCL LACs are for him. Good news financially for us. </p>
<p>Rice is the perfect college to him (about 5,000); unfortunately, it’s a reach (for just about everyone). UTulsa appeals to him based on size alone (about 4,000). Tulane is about 11K, grad and undergrad. Still expensive schools, even if they aren’t tiny LACs.</p>
<p>Well, from reading the FA threads here, I would not bet the farm on lots of merit aids. FIND THE SAFETY first. An affordable school with rolling admissions is your first concern. Then you can pursue the LACS and merit aid and such. </p>
<p>We found my D’s safety early on (right after her sophmore year) and she wound up applying and being accepted there – it made a world of difference. Some of the FA offers from other schools were just not what we had been led to believe would be offered.</p>
<p>So, SAFETY first – affordable and one that he can easily gain acceptance – . </p>
<p>The rest is gravy. I told my D that at her safety, I could write a check for the tuition and FA would not be an issue. But in the end, they offered her a nice FA package and she actually just received a scholarship from an organization her dad was involved in (relates to the military and veterans of a certain conflict), but we did not count on any of this funding.</p>
<p>Last week I started a thread asking for schools with tuition under $30,000, in cities serviced by Southwest Airlines. I got a bit of criticism, but I received so many great suggestions. You might want to post a similar question - “Please suggest non-Jesuit rural schools of between 3000 & 10000 Students within 500 miles of ___” Whatever criteria you have. I bet people will suggest good schools you’ve never thought of, then that will give you a list of schools to research. Just remember, the very top tier schools are not going to award merit aid.</p>
<p>Sounds like you are looking for what we call “mid-size” schools. We found several privates that gave lots of merit and “Community based” aid for D1. The schools we looked at, however, are here in the midwest. University of St. Thomas gave D1 a great package! She passed it up for another smaller private in Iowa with a great package. At the time Augustana in South Dakota guaranteed a $10,000 scholarship for anyone with an ACT at 27 and then increased with higher ACT. University of Iowa was also generous with aid and this has a smaller campus feel to it. Luther College in Iowa is a small private (rural) that also gives fabulous merit aid.</p>
<p>I guess my point is the same as those above. You CAN find a place that meets your needs but it takes some research! Good Luck R2R!!!</p>
<p>You’ve got to find schools that want what your child has…gender, ethnicity, musical talent, SAT scores, class rank, GPA…Just last week someone posted that University of Evansville gives a large scholarship - I think $13,000 a year - to Eagle Scouts. Before that, I was only aware of schools that gave token ($500) scholarships.</p>
<p>Well the fact is the safeties are most likely to provide the merit offers. mathson got merit offers from both his safe schools (WPI and RPI). If you are looking for merit aid you need to find a bunch of safeties, not just one. </p>
<p>My son is looking for big LACs or small univerisities - he hasn’t really decided which way he wants to go yet, but he know that he doesn’t want either too big or too small. I’d recommend Brandeis, but unfortunately their response to the financial crisis has been to increase need based aid and reduce merit aid.</p>