Research help...

Paying for College
1

<p>Thank you in advance for your help. All of you have been extremely helpful to date.</p>

<p>Summary: My S will need Merit-based aid to attend any out-of-state school. Our EFC is around $10K, which is doable. His GPA is 3.5 (predominantly honors and AP), ACT is 33, SAT 690 math/680 reading/630 writing (retaking in a few weeks) and SAT Subject scores of 700 literature, 730 mathematics and 740 US History.</p>

<p>First, I've read in both the Parents and Financial Aid forums that many schools offer more/additional aid to out of state kids. How in the world do you know which schools these are?</p>

<p>Next, when looking at the common data set, how do I determine which schools are the most generous with their aid (so as to compare one with another)?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

2

<p>States in the Mississippi delta region (Miss, Alabama, Louisiana) tend to offer merit aid for stats like that. In the CDS you can get an idea of average merit and financial aid offers. Section H. Unfortunately for public schools that data won’t show how much went to in vs out of state students.</p>

3

<p>“many schools offer more/additional aid to out of state kids”</p>

<p>Actually, for public schools, it’s harder for OOS students to get merit aid and financial aid in general than it is for in-state students since the public schools are mainly supported by their state taxpayers.</p>

<p>Private schools, however, may favor giving merit aid to students from underrepresented states.</p>

4

<p>There are some schools that are trying to boost their OOS enrollments and do offer merit aid to OOS students who are high achievers and who they are trying to lure to their schools. </p>

<p>I know U of South Carolina has a few scholarships for OOS students (McNair, Cooper, McKissick). The McNair is by special application. The others are awarded based on the strength of your application. The McNair is a full ride award. The Cooper and McKissick are $4000 and $2000 respectively BUT they also offer a tuition reduction to the instate rate for all recipients.</p>

<p>U of North Texas offers instate tuition to students who receive merit scholarships from them in excess of $1000.</p>

<p>Agreed…look at the schools in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.</p>

5

<p>Here is a source for some analysis of the percentage of non-need, non-athletic, merit aid given by various colleges:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/696637-merit-aid-percentage-common-data-set.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/696637-merit-aid-percentage-common-data-set.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>If the college in which you’re interested isn’t listed, you can use the instructions on the thread to figure out the percentages.</p>

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<p>The SUNY schools tend to offer higher merit awards for OOS students.</p>

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<p>My son and I are working on a list of evaluation criteria in order to finalize his application list. Beyond the subjective criteria (website review, positive/negative comments online, word of mouth fr families and friends), here is what I thought the objective criteria should be:</p>

<p>Rank in the Top 25 % or higher of ACT/SAT
Rank in the Top 25 % or higher for GPA
Higher % of Merit aid awarded
More women than men
Out of state</p>

<p>Any other criteria?</p>

8

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<p>I’m not sure how you’re determining this one. If it’s using averages via the CDS, my advice is to go a step further and check the websites of those schools that look like good merit possibilities. Merit comes in all shapes and forms: are there just a few full rides that are highly competitive, lots of smaller scholarships that won’t fill your financial gap, only for URMs or in-state students, etc.? </p>

<p>And depending on the cohort that qualifies for scholarships (all applicants, certain groups, gpa & test thresholds, etc.), a student may have to be closer to the top 5-10% of applicants to have a good shot.</p>

<p>Research is the key and the more the better. Also check on individual school forums to try and get some idea of the level of students that qualify for various scholarships.</p>

9

<p>I would only send the ACT scores to schools. The ACT score is much higher than the SAT. Your son’s SAT was 1370. The ACT score, however, of 33 is comparable to an SAT score of 1460, according to the ACT-SAT Concordance.</p>

<p>Does your son have a weighted gpa? 3.5 isn’t all that good for merit aid, such that it exists, for OOS students.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.act.org/aap/concordance/pdf/reference.pdf[/url]”>http://www.act.org/aap/concordance/pdf/reference.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Actually, all Texas schools give you instate tuition if you get merit aid of $1k or above.</p>

<p>South Dakota has low out of state rates, though the yearly COA would be closer to $15k than $10k.</p>

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<p>Really? We have a friend whose child is at UT-Austin. He got a $1000 departmental scholarship but does NOT have instate tuition.</p>

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<p>UT-Austin may be a special case for undergrads (though I know that rule applies for GRAD students at UT-Austin). But the rule applies for both undergrads and grads at A&M, UNT, Texas State Texas Tech, etc. </p>

<p>Most have sometimes very well-hidden verbage, such as the following:</p>

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<p>ETA: UT-Austin DOES have something like this for undergrads, though it has the additional verbage of “limited number” (not defined) <a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/student/registrar/schedules/download/waivers2010spr.pdf[/url]”>http://www.utexas.edu/student/registrar/schedules/download/waivers2010spr.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;