I recently posted this in the Binghamton forum. You might find it relevant. http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/t/research-and-honors-programs-at-binghamton
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Pitt just asked for EFC, and UConn just asked for an income bracket (which I asked my mother about and she knew). Others require information on tax returns that I don’t know and neither of my parents remember off the top of their heads.
I’m not sure how OOS you’d get low 30s Pitt. I assume they are including the $5500 student loan (all these schools). In that case it’s $5500 more than they say (they discount the cost they share with you by that amount) and that’s all you can borrow. Your dad can borrow more but you can’t.
Unless you are a pell qualifying student, I’m not sure how you can get to the $ you displayed.
Can you provide more context ?
I really think you have to focus on SUNY or aggressive schools like Bama, Ms State. Bama would be all in low 20s for you. For a school within your desired distance (well similar to Pitt), run the NPC for WVU.
Hofstra is a fine school but living at home, you won’t experience college. Is that ok for you ?
I agree with this. If the OP decides to commute, Stony Brook with its instate tuition is a better choice.
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I would agree with others who have suggested SUNY options and specifically Binghamton, Stony Brook or Albany all of which are at the large size of your criteria and check many of your other boxes.
Given your desire for fit along with a criteria of 5-16k students, small class size, no heavy drinking Greek life, and no more than 5-7 hours from Long Island I would not waste effort considering large southern state schools with major sports and notoriously Greek cultures. It just doesn’t sound like the comfort level you are looking for.
Your best combo of academic, social and financial fit will likely be in the SUNY system. Good luck.
I don’t know about Pitt, but UConn uses one of those really terrible NPCs that only asks for bands for your income, and the highest one is “over $100,000.” in my spreadsheet, UConn is listed as “impossible to tell actual cost.“
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Please understand…the more robust the net price calculator, the more likely it will give you an accurate or close to accurate net cost. In other words, the UConn one doesn’t really ask enough questions for a decent guestimate.
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Are you in thetop 10% in your class? If yes, have you considered the STEM scholarship at SUNY, which would provide you with free tuition (2.5 gpa required to keep your scholarship).
this way you can toss a an application at Bing, UB Stony Brook and Albany.
You can also look at Brockport, Geneseo, Oswego (which may toss you some merit $$).
Look into SUNY ESF (which a lot of people sleep on), they have amazing facilities- you can cross-register for up to 15 credits at Syracuse, which is next door) and look at classes at SUNY Upstate med, which is across the street.
https://www.suny.edu/attend/find-a-suny-program/undergraduate/
That would just leave you with room and board (less than 20k) making it one of your most affordable options.
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How about “some schools where the COA are less costly, or offer significant merit aid”.
This student has cast a pretty broad net. They also clarified that the $70,000 total is not a hard and firm number. They are simply looking for some additional options to send applications.
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You can consider some of these colleges, which offer pre-reads on merit aid and overall costs.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/t/financial-pre-reads-including-merit-merit-ed
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with OP’s budget, she essentially will need full tuition in order to meet the family budget without loans
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Whoa! That is a good deal. I will also note that some of the SUNYs belong to National Student Exchange. NSE is an exchange consortium of ~200 schools across N. America. You can attend any of the other schools for up to a year, your credits transfer automatically, and best of all you only pay for tuition what you are already paying at your home school (and your scholarships apply.) Some really fun schools belong, including ones that check a lot of OP’s boxes. https://www.nse.org/exchange/colleges-universities/alpha-location/
ETA: For example, OP could start off at Stony Brook (maybe even with a full tuition STEM scholarship), and then spend up to a year at an LAC like St. Olaf --amazing music programs, terrific science, tons of research opportunities, super supportive and happy students, no Greeks or heavy partying. No, not within a 7 hour drive, but a 3 hour flight away, and maybe at a certain point OP will be ready to travel farther…
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My school doesn’t rank, but I am on track to graduate Summa from my hs, which is typically about 15 students (out of ~220 in my grad class). I’m fairly sure that would unofficially put me in the top 10%, but would my school not ranking interfere with getting the scholarship?
Northeastern definitely checks the co-op/internship box as students complete at least one 6 month long co-op in place of classes for a semester. While on the more expensive side of colleges, they do offer merit and need based scholarships and while on co-op you do get paid so that helps with the cost as well. I am a freshman Northeastern, and while I did join a sorority, it is not a huge greek life school at all. Definitely no pressure to be a part of a greek life and it will not make or break your social life. You can still go to parties if you want but there is so much to do in Boston which is really nice to be able to find things other than partying every weekend. I also looked at BU and agreed on not liking the lack of a physical campus. Northeastern has a much more prominent campus while still being in the city which was important to me because you still get that sense of community. The class sizes are also small here which is a plus because I also came from a small high school environment. I would recommend looking more into it because it seems to fit a lot of the characteristics you are looking for!
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Hi @jaclyn1 ,
It has been my experience that schools that normally do not rank will rank for scholarship consideration
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“Not ranking” means they don’t tell you your rank or post it publicly. They will still report what percentile you are in to colleges when asked.
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