Well most of what I know about the strength of SUNYs for CS come from the rankings which put them pretty low, however, I’ll take another look at them. I do want to note though that I’m terms of fit and such I like the other schools on my list more
In terms of CUNYs im applying to City College but I’d really rather not go to school in nyc
I understand you like your other schools more but be reminded you need a 4 year plan on how to pay for college and your financial plan seems a little shaky. An admission without adequate means to pay is still a rejection.
Unfortunately we see way too many times students not attending college because parents say don’t worry about money then money becomes and issue. Keep in mind College is a moral and social obligation. Even though the state has child support orders in place until you are 21 they are not going make your non custodial pay for for private college.
What rankings are you looking at and what is the basis of these rankings
I know that the NYC CA4A strongly recommends that every nyc for student applies to cuny (in fact schools are tracked on this measure).
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I have checked the NPCs for the schools I’m applying to and for the majority of them, the cost will be affordable. Those that may not be I am reconsidering.
That’s good news that many of your schools look affordable. But, and this is critical, are you including your non-custodial parent’s 2021 income and current assets (in addition to yours and your custodial parent’s) when you run the NPCs?
Yes, of course. From what I understand you are supposed to calculate separately and add, so that is what I did.
It sounds like you are going to sit down and review your parents finances which is crucial to finding out if schools will be affordable to you. Then you can run the net price calculators to see if those schools are going to fit your budget.
A word of caution if you base your affordability on super reach schools this may skew the results. When I run the net price calculator on Williams College for our D23 it comes out the cheapest by a long shot. Our income is high enough that we will not qualify for much aid at some schools but not at schools like Williams were the large majority of students come from a very affluent background.
For my D23 this is her absolute stretch of a reach but she still plans to apply. Schools in that category are a reach for almost everyone now.
If you seek out a top 50 school and they offer merit do not base it on the highest merit available. Look on this site for the average merit awards people will post them and base your affordability on that.
For us the only true safeties are guaranteed admission and affordability. Based on our net price calculator we will probably be full pay at UMASS and we would be willing to go up a little more for a private admission so roughly around $35,000. We can no longer count on UMASS as a safety so she will add in two more state universities. Keep in mind it is not what you are willing to pay it is what your EFC determines you can pay.
My advice is to seek out schools where your stats and scores will put you well above the CDS for the most aid. Don’t get too caught up in rankings or prestige. My husband worked in college Admissions for over 20 years and he always says there are good students at every school.
Still do your research on the schools and see where those students go from there. You will surprised how many great students come out of lower ranked schools.
As far as some suggestions that may offer good aid for women and would be a match look at some of the engineering schools like WPI, RPI, and Rose Hulman.
I wish you the best. We are on a similar path with our D23 albeit different interests for a major.
If you know all the info for both custodial and non-custodial parent (and sounds like you do) you should input all of that at the same time.
For example, when you run separate NPCs the separate need based grants can’t be added together to approximate what you would get when both parents and your income and assets are combined. Does that make sense?
Obviously, you also would only be able to get one Pell grant, and take one $5.5K loan and have one work-study job (assuming each separate NPC estimate includes both of those items).
Did you share these results with your dad. Is he comfortable paying.
Do you have a stepparent? If yes, their income and assets must also be included.
I know I keep hearing about all of these kids who’ve been accepted by schools they can’t afford. But, can someone please point out a particular thread where this was in the subject line?
First of all, congrats on what looks like excellent high school achievement. You mentioned applying to fly-in programs. Are you an URM? Are you first gen to college? Are you low-income? These factors all would increase your chances, possibly, and are relevant for recommendations as to likelihood of acceptance.
Was just going to ask this question. Also, being URM means the possibility of applying for some excellent full ride scholarships, such as the Morrill at Ohio State MSP-About | Office of Diversity and Inclusion, The Ohio State University While tOSU is a large school, the community that comes with the scholarship is smaller and full of high-achieving and socially-active students. Your extensive volunteerism could make you a good candidate. And OSU has a stellar GIS program with a whole undergraduate major in GIS available, as well as a minor that could augment other majors. And receiving a named full-ride scholarship like the Morrill (and there are others at other schools) stands out on your resume just as much as attending a “prestige” school.
Don’t know any threads where schools not being affordable was in the title, but there have been many posters accepted to schools which weren’t affordable, or who dropped schools from the list due to an unaffordable NPC estimate.
Just in this thread, there is one student who was accepted to schools that weren’t affordable, and same for a dad whose D’s friend encountered this situation.
There is a not insignificant proportion of families who can’t afford their family contribution as calculated by colleges, and meet full need schools don’t work for these students. If OP is in that situation best to know that now.
Well, I forget what college it was (one of the LACs I think) that said in their instructions to calculate separately and add the costs (not the grants)
I am half Asian(so I guess at some schools I wouldn’t really count, though for the fly in programs they list Asian as an URM) and I qualify as low income
@aquapt, you mentioned on this thread that Emory doesn’t look at freshman grades. Does anyone know of any other colleges with this policy? Also overall how much will my freshman grades hurt me?
Yes, I found the two replies you are referring to:
And this one which ended with:
Still not sure why they weren’t sufficient to make the point.
What I see far more frequently are parents or the children of parents who were okay with their NPC results until crunch time came and they began to compare what they were about to pay for Prestige College X with how much they might be saving at State University Y.
And, that’s fine. Every family is different. It’s not our job to play Soupy Sales*.
Here’s a thought: Only apply to need-aware colleges. That way, you know right away if they really want you.
*Reference is to a boomer era children’s show host who famously advised his young viewers to sneak open their parents wallets and change purses and mail “the little green pieces of paper” to the show’s address.
Emory is the only full-need-met school I can think of that recalculates GPA without freshman grades. The others would not be affordable: The U of California system, and the Canadian universities. There may be others that I don’t know about, though.
I don’t think it will make a huge difference for you - even the majority of schools that consider freshman grades are also looking at improving trends and the consistency you’ve shown since that time. I don’t think there will be many colleges that would otherwise have admitted you, that will be like, nope, we loved her but those B’s when she was 14 ruined it! But it’s still a point in Emory’s favor that they don’t consider those grades at all.
Asian or Eurasian isn’t a hook at most schools, unfortunately. I believe it still is at Lehigh. Lehigh has improved their no-loan aid for low-income students, and they have some interesting interdisciplinary options Interdisciplinary Studies | Lehigh University - might be worth considering as a less-reachy school that’s still generous with need-based aid.
If you are ok with NorthEastern, you might consider applying to one of their Early Decision rounds (they have two). They accept almost 50% of those applicants. That said, ED and financial aid tend to not work together because you’re committing before you know if you can afford it. Maybe you can find some ED rounds that you could afford without Fin-aid. While being a girl will definitely help you with the CS part of things since schools often try to gender balance, CS is also EXTREMELY competitive. If you are a minority, that will help a lot, but if not, you’ll want to apply to twice as many schools as you might otherwise apply to.
Another option is to apply to schools for humanities and then add CS later. You will want to check for each school what the requirements are for transferring into CS. For some schools, it’s nearly impossible because you can’t get the required classes, for others, it’s simply high GPA.
Obviously, that is what you should do that for that specific college.
This may not be the case for other colleges. If in doubt, you may want to ask the college directly.
I was thinking of applying for humanities(at least for schools that want essays on why you chose that major, for others I may just put undecided), especially at schools like the LACs and ivies where you can pretty much declare any major you want once you’re there. Of course for places where I need to be admitted to the engineering school I’ll put CS(sounds like too much of a hassle to do an internal transfer in most schools and I also don’t like the uncertainty of that).