<p>For the net price calculators, can the student run them himself with sufficient knowledge of the family finances?</p>
<p>If the net price calculator does not ask for the student’s academic stats, it is giving an estimate based purely on financial need. If it does ask for the student’s academic stats, it is including estimates of merit scholarships (though not necessarily all of those which are available).</p>
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Note that my post mentioned that I chose Stanford as an example I am familiar with. It is far from the only college with generous financial aid (in grants) for low income students. The link in my post has a table listing financial aid policies for other colleges. That said, the colleges with best financial aid tend to be highly selective.</p>
<p>Hmmmm… could this situation be eligible for Questbridge?</p>
<p>Scubasue — I would suggest Marquette. Don’t know how much $ they wuold give him but he would definitely be in the running for merit w/his stats and they have a co-op program.</p>
<p>UCB…this kid doesn’t have sufficient access to the family financials to run the NPCs now. He <em>thinks</em> they will file FAFSA this winter. He has an older sibling in school which is how he knows the family contribution–though it sounds like it will be higher this year than last. </p>
<p>CM…I though QB was something students had to sign up for early in high school? This student is a senior. </p>
<p>I’ll check out Marquette.</p>
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<p>If family finances and/or family’s ability and willingness to contribute is uncertain, he should have one or more of the huge automatic scholarship* schools with his desired engineering major on his list as a safety in case nothing is affordable on need-based aid, or the actual family contribution over four years is too uncertain to count on.</p>
<p>*The ones with residual cost within his ability to self-contribute with direct loans and/or work earnings.</p>
<p>Frankly there isn’t a ton of differentiation with undergraduate engineering degrees and starting salaries with the exception of places like Cal and MIT. In the addition to looking in his region like I suggested earlier he could also look at places like Michigan Tech, Hope College and other smaller midwest engineering colleges where he would likely get merit for his scores and his geographic diversity. There’s a couple in the east that could go on the list. I don’t see the list being much larger than maybe 8 colleges, carefully selected for merit potential and worry “less” about where they rank. GVSU has an up and coming engineering program as done Western Michigan and I’m sure there are similar places in Illinois and Wisconsin. This student has bigger issues (financial) and should be seeking colleges that will yield transparent $$ if he wants an undergraduate engineering degree. Look for ABET accreditation and look for where graduates are working before he worries about the “name.” I agree with looking at Marquette and possibly University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, the cost of travel from Washington State should be carefully considered if he’s going to go outside the region. Early research will be this kid’s best friend and his application should be highly targeted rather than random.</p>
<p>These crazy parents are not going to contribute anything to this kid’s education and I know for sure they can afford to contribute more even than their EFC would suggest. It’s heartbreaking. I’m afraid that they may even pull the plug on filling out the FAFSA at all. </p>
<p>Last night I got out the list of schools with competitive full tuition or full ride scholarships and crossed referenced that with a list of 300 schools ranked in order by their 75th %ile SAT scores and put the list of big-merit scholarship schools in order from lowest 75th %ile scores to highest. Then I figured out which of those has engineering programs to further winnow the list of possibilities. That left maybe 12-14 possibilities for which his combined CR+M score puts him at least in the top quartile SAT score wise. I hope that means he will be a competitive applicant for the big merit awards. I gave him that list and told him to do some checking/researching of his own to see if he can target a few of those schools. Hopefully there will be a handful that he’s interested in.</p>
<p>The competitive big merit schools would be match/reach schools in addition to the automatic big merit schools as safeties, right?</p>
<p>Yes, but the only auto-merit schools that are on the list right now are UA and Louisiana Tech. And Prarie View. I asked him about Howard. He’s not interested. </p>
<p>He would like very much to NOT live in the south. </p>
<p>Did I miss any auto-merit schools that have engineering programs?</p>
<p>I got so caught up in researching the full tuition/full ride possibilities that I didn’t have time to spend looking into some of the other suggestions on this thread, but I will do that next week. </p>
<p>I did find out that there are a couple of full tuition possibilities at the in-state schools so that was good news.</p>
<p>Michigan Tech has some big ones for OSS but there is also full tuition, room, board + $1000 for expenses you need to apply. That one has an October 15 deadline.</p>
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<p>Some non-south schools from <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-19.html#post16145676[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-19.html#post16145676</a> , but their residual cost may be on the high side for self-funding, or there may be limited choices of engineering majors:</p>
<p>Indiana-Purdue - Fort Wayne
Northern Illinois (needs to retry SAT or ACT for slightly higher score to get the scholarship)
Western Illinois (general engineering only)
Southeast Missouri State (engineering physics only; higher SAT or ACT gets a better scholarship)
Ohio
Temple
Utah State
Utah Valley</p>
<p>It looks like QB won’t help op… program is closed for this year’s seniors.
[QuestBridge</a> Home](<a href=“http://www.questbridge.org/]QuestBridge”>http://www.questbridge.org/)</p>
<p>But the hint may help other folks reading this for future. CC has a special section for Questbridge - I’m sure this is tons of info there.</p>
<p>Montana State has automatic scholarships on their website. Boise State (forgot to mention that one earlier) has a scholarship calculator on their website (based on test scores, GPA and state)</p>
<p>Here is a searchable database of ABET accredited engineering programs. You could look at particular states then cross-reference against posted scholarships for GPA/test scores.</p>
<p>[Accredited</a> Program Search](<a href=“http://main.abet.org/aps/Accreditedprogramsearch.aspx]Accredited”>http://main.abet.org/aps/Accreditedprogramsearch.aspx)</p>
<p>For good, cheap Engineering schools look into South Dakota School of Mines and Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Look into Olin (run the NPCs)
An alternative to consider might be looking into a BS in Computer Science from a Liberal Arts College. This would open more possibilities. Among those that meet 100% need there would be quite a few for the boy you’re helping.</p>
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<p>However, the parents’ AFC will be zero, while the EFC will be non-zero, according to post #48. So it is likely that a “meet 100% need” school will not provide sufficient financial aid.</p>
<p>Small schools also need to be evaluated carefully in terms of CS, some some (including some with considerable general prestige) have small limited CS departments.</p>
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<p>While relatively low cost, their out-of-state list prices are unlikely to be in range of student self-funding. Merit scholarships would need to be investigated.</p>
<p>I don’t know why I didn’t think of this option before. New Mexico Tech [New</a> Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology](<a href=“http://www.nmt.edu/index.php]New”>Science | Engineering | Research Institution: New Mexico Tech). </p>
<p>When my S applied years ago I thought you could get in state tuition when you qualified for certain scholarships. I can’t find that they are still doing this which is too bad because it was a tremendous deal. </p>
<p>Good school.</p>
<p>I second recommending South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, a small school with a great reputation among employers like Boeing and 3M. Don’t know much about financial aid at SDSM&T, but the tuition is nevertheless quite low, relatively speaking. SDSM&T attracts lots of kids from Washington. One problem that a non-local student may encounter with the school is that the dorms close during the major breaks, so travel costs to and from home must be addressed. Though I suspect some accommodation is possible, since SDSM&T has a number of international students.</p>
<p>I’ve know a young woman from Seattle whom got great financial aid from U of Rochester. WPI has a great STEM program is is 10 grand less that rival RPI. Closer to home, I’d look at Boise State, U of San Diego and U of Portland. </p>
<p>Also, I would counsel this young man not to be so quick to dismiss matriculating at a college in the south, not when places like Alabama-Tuscaloosa, Louisiana Tech and Texas Christian U, North Carolina A&T and Florida A&M might toss some cash your way.</p>
<p>Thank you all so much for all of your suggestions! I have passed on almost all of them. I’ll be interested to hear which ideas he’s interested in. </p>
<p>I think he’s a little overwhelmed right now. And, I am too! Trying to figure out which schools are financial safeties in his case is a challenge which is compounded by the fact that he’s just starting this whole process.</p>
<p>I haven’t seen Lafayette mentioned. LAC with good merit money.</p>