Do not merely focus on finances. While they are important she needs to be with her academic peer group at a school that is intellectually and socially comfortable for her. The overall campus culture needs to be a good fit. She needs to look at the courses available, required et al in a prospective major(s). She needs to look at the Honors Program/College to see if it if will give her the courses she wants.
Sometimes schools give a lot of merit aid to attract top students to enrich their campus when other schools don’t need to.
A top tier school to look at is Washington U in St Louis. From relatives’ experiences your D likely would get merit aid.
kandcsmom,
"can you clarify “she was his ticket” about your child’s guidance counselor? "- isn’t #1 ranked kid a GC’s bragging point about placing graduates into Ivy? Specifically, at D’s school, it looked like tradition that #1 went to Harvard. Sorry, GC, lost this with my D. She never listened to professional advises in regard to where to apply, not to college, not to Med. School, not to residency. I had very hard time convincing her to go to a HS of MY choice, she badged and thanked me many times for that. Mom always knows the best. That is why she trusted MY list of colleges to apply and ask me to compile a list of Med. Schools to apply, and again, it did not include many recommended by her pre-med advisor, story repeats over and over.
@MiamiDAP I had no idea that that was a GC bragging point. I would imagine placing any kid into an Ivy would be one then, right? Thank you for sharing that and good for your child to picking the school that was best for them.
It’s one thing for a parent to weigh in on HS and college choices- but residencies? Momma knows best???
Medical residents make life or death decisions every day for their patients. I’d hope they’d be taking the advice of their advisers and other professionals when deciding where to get their clinical training.
@newhavenmom - she should check out Duke - the AB Duke and Robertson scholarships are very selective, but I believe both are full-ride scholarships.
With your stated income, she should definitely apply to HYPS, as they will provide substantial aid - for a family incoming of 125K, the Harvard net price calculator (https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator) shows a 50K scholarship with a 10K parental contribution. Princeton is likely to be at least as generous, Yale and Stanford perhaps a little less so.
’ but residencies? Momma knows best" - nope, this list was the simplest of them all, applied to practically every program in a country with elimination of few, but again, she did not listen to professional advice, so you missed the most important point. If she did, she could be still OK, but she did much much better listening to her own common sense.
OP, figure out what you and your ex can pay and then go from there. Net Price Calculators are not always accurate, though, particularly when the parents are divorced (or never married) so if a school is a “meets full need” school within the affordability range give or take $5-$10K, I would not rule it out. However, your D needs to know what your limit is and that an acceptance only means she can go if the money comes through also.
Schools like Duke, WashU, Notre Dame, Boston College and Vanderbilt (help me out with some others, folks) do have some great merit awards, but they are incredibly competitive.
Tulane has some nice full-tuition merit scholarships.
@madison85- there are not new spouses with income, so it is just that amount. @bldrdad- she will definitely apply to Yale, she may get a slight advantage from being a legacy, and hopefully she will apply to Harvard. I can’t tell about where Brown falls in terms of need based aid amounts. Obviously I should get in there and do some of the calculators! thank you everyone for the advice thus far.
@newhavenmom - I use Harvard as an example because their NPC is so user-friendly, and because I’m familiar with their financial aid program. I’ve heard that Harvard and Princeton are often more generous to middle-income families than Yale, hence my suggestion she consider them . I suspect all of HYP are more generous than Brown. Best of luck to you and your daughter!
Temple U in Philly fits the big-city bill as well as offering guaranteed full tuition plus stipends for your D’s grades and scores. My D was very impressed with it and it made a wonderful option that we knew would be affordable, and knew it early on.
She wasn’t interested in being in the south for UA so Temple was a better option for her.
Is it safe to assume that she will apply to Yale SCEA, in order to take advantage of legacy?
The University of Rochester is a good school with a lot of merit scholarships. The top ones are worth about $30K, IIRC. The kids I have known with your kid’s kind of stats have gotten amounts in the range of $7K-10K per year, though. I think the big one may have a heavy diversity and/or service component, and also require demonstrated interest.
University of Richmond wouldn’t be such a gamble admission for her as Brown and the likes. They meet full needs financially and give 45 full tuition merit scholarships in each class (some will get room and board as well… just being a semi-finalist also gets you 15K merit.) The school pays up to 4K for a summer internship/fellowship for every student. No idea if it would meet you D’s own criteria but something to look at maybe.
The University of Richmond in VA, a highly ranked LAC, might be a good choice for your daughter. D1, a senior this year, had similar stats, NMF, etc. and is attending UR on a full-ride scholarship plus a small NMF scholarship which covers the cost of books. She has had paid summer internships, does research in a lab, has excellent advising, fantastic professors, is challenged academically, and she spent this past spring semester at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, all paid for with her scholarship funds, and extra stipends to cover travel expenses, etc. D2, a sophomore this year, with slightly lower stats, attend UR with a full tuition scholarship,
The campus is beautiful, in suburban Richmond, but only 10 minutes from downtown, with lots to see and do, and good opportunities for community service and internships.
They offer 45 full tuition/full ride scholarships(Richmond Scholars program) each year and are financially healthy, with a $2.3 billion endowment. Buildings and campus well-maintained with new construction on-going and also renovations of older buildings/dorms. They also meet 100% of financial need, so the student body is pretty diverse financially. They also have approx. 3,000 undergrads and 10% international students.