Seeking college recommendations

College Search & Selection
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I’m trying to get a general sense of schools to look into so we can start looking at net price calculators.

UW GPA is 3.89
1 AP score of 5
Rising junior
No SAT scores yet but did well on PSAT.

School does not allow AP until sophomore year and has a limited number available. This is not a school where kid can take 10 AP classes.

Prefers to be close to a city. A rural location like Oberlin would not be a fit.

Would like to play soccer but is not at a D1 level. Uncertain if D3 will be possible.

EFC is 45K.

Prefer east of Mississippi River.

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Saying did well on psat isn’t giving a lot of guidance. Do you think it will be a 1200 or 1400, etc.

I would start getting in touch with coaches - because you may not get into a school regularly but you may as an athlete. D3 soccer is super competitive getting on board.
Assuming, since you mention Oberlin, that you want an LAC - so schools that come to mind - Trinity, Macalester, Occidental, Connecticut College, Coe, Rhodes - these are D3 and in city like areas.

If you are trying to hit a cost, like everyone you’ll need to look at Arizona, Arizona State, Alabama, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Florida State (will need test score - 31 ACT gets out an OOS waiver but even full pay you can afford), College of Charleston, u of SC…and a host of others. Most of these are rural but the schools themselves are so big they are cities - but in that sense you can eliminate the two MS…or you can add UAH and UAB. At a larger school, he can join the Honors College to shrink the size and then join club soccer.

For $45K, you can definitely find a school. If you want it to be small liberal arts school, there are options. Some, like Hendrix, will match your state flagship’s tuition. A school like Bradley and Hofstra will tell you up front how much merit you will get.

It’s hard to find LACs in “society”.

The other thing is - if your EFC is $45K and you hit the schools that meet need, you’ll likely come within a range of there - but many/most of these are not going to be in the city. Still you can maybe look at a Lafayette, Franklin & Marshall, Union, Kalamazoo…and more in addition to the ones I mentined above.

You might take a list such as this, and school by school - starting at about #30, go and see which are city like vs. rural. Just know, the lower you go, the better chance of decent aid. But again, at the high point on the list, many of those schools will meet need.

Hope that gives you an early guide.

One other thing - set up an email for your child - just for college. Like first namehighschoolname@gmail or something like that. Request info from schools - i.e. get on their email lists. You’ll learn more, demonstrate interest which is what they want, and get app fee waivers. We started with like 100 - obviously didn’t apply to that many - only 21 (yes, that’s a lot but I actually don’t think so).

It’s a great way to organize and narrow down because at some point, the soccer will come in focus - will it work or not. And school size and greek life and all that stuff too.

Good luck

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Thank you. This is generous of you to write and so useful.

I’m glad you mentioned Kalamazoo (safety) and Franklin and Marshall (match). Those are on our list.

Spouse is a professor, and we can get some kind of big discount to certain schools. F&M is one of them.

To be honest, I’m not sure D3 will be in play. Kiddo was maybe D1 and good chance with D3 before the pandemic but the loss of skills from the pandemic year are apparent.

I think coaches are looking at juniors now to fill their rosters in 2023. Yikes.

I need to research what would be options if not D3, because soccer makes the kid happy.

I have those PSAT scores somewhere. Does anyone know if those are useful to enter as data as a placeholder for the SAT?

I will add those schools you mentioned to my list and set up that email address. I used my email address for kid’s PSAT in 8th grade and now I’m getting slammed with college emails.

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OP, I’m not sure what kind of school you are looking for from your post; or, broadly, what you might be looking for in terms of academics (e.g., STEM vs. humanities emphasis), or how important the ability to play soccer is compared with academics (i.e., is playing collegiate soccer the sine qua non of the college experience, or is it something that would be nice to be able to do if you can). If you are looking as LACs and SLACs, then here are some additional suggestions:

Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, AL. BSC redid its tuition/fee structure a couple of years ago, and according to the BSC website the 2021-22 COA is about $34,000; this is before any scholarship awards,here: Types of Aid Available. I know several kids who have attended/are attending there, and I hear good things from their parents about the experience.

Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC. I also know several kids who have attended/are attending, and they seem to have had a good overall experience there (according to their parents, at least). Wofford has been creative in providing merit/other scholarship money to some of these kids, also: Wofford College | Scholarships

Maryville College in Maryville, TN (spitting distance from Knoxville, TN). MC has 2021-22 costs of around $49,000, here: Tuition and Fees - Maryville College; but MC can also provide some good financial assistance: Scholarships & Awards for First-Year Students - Maryville College

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I referenced this but failed to provide. Good luck

https://www.niche.com/colleges/search/best-liberal-arts-colleges/

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D20 settled on SLACs very early on and we visited an extensive list of them in PA/NY/NE area. I think your first hurdle is going to be deciding how much you want to focus on the Tuition Exchange program, if that is what you have. It might be worth working through those to check on how competitive they are for TE students first so you can get a sense if specific schools are realistic. DH worked for a while at a TE school and had coworkers with kids that were choosing between “better” schools or “discounts” because of the limited number of spots available. This thread has some good information. Tuition Exchange - for Class of 2025 - #2 by bgtwinmom2021

ETA: it’s not exactly “better” vs “discounts” but more that they were admitted to schools they liked better but waitlisted for TE or granted TE at schools they liked less. In the end, most ended up going to the schools they liked better without getting the TE benefit.

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Assuming you are not a soccer coach, I would ask your son’s club coach to assess what level your son can play at. D3 spans a range, from schools that play at a low d1 level on down. E.g. Sarah Lawrence, I believe, is at the lower end of d3.

As a rule of thumb, d1 players are in the top 2% of all soccer players, and d3 players are top 5%.

In any case, targeting the right level soccer program is critical in order to be successful. (Understanding that soccer is just one of many pieces).

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Thank you for your answers, everyone. Some answers are still fuzzy. We don’t know what major, and the soccer level remains to be seen.

Kiddo has not told us much about preferences. Yesterday, we were told “not a small school.” However, I’m not sure what constitutes “small” in their mind. My idea of “medium” may be big enough for all I know.
I think larger universities tend to have D1 - D3 soccer. At those places, perhaps club is the answer?

Yesterday, I opened a new gmail for college-related emails. I also input suggestions from here and elsewhere using CollegeVine and projected how many honors and AP classes are likely to be taken by end of senior year.

Yes, it’s TE. I added some of those schools to our list for further exploration. I never wanted to rely on TE due to the uncertainty. I think there won’t be much competition within spouse’s school for the spots, but maybe that doesn’t matter as much as I think. I’ll go look at the thread mentioned above.

Kiddo has anxiety, and it negatively affects soccer. I’m looking for assistance with that and I know this topic of colleges adds to the overall anxiousness. I hope we can resolve it so that this process can be exciting and not just stressful for them. This is all to explain why I don’t have a lot of preferences figured out yet.

Thank you for your help!

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Those percentages are really helpful. I appreciate it.

I had not thought about asking the club coach. I will do that. Thank you!

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Unfortunately the college process has become stressful and in many ways it’s so unnecessary. There are thousands of colleges, mostly wonderful, and many will be a great fit for you son. Many don’t require essays or recommendations even. But all the marketing (ie rankings) that are out there have made this an arms race. Even at lesser known schools many become successful. At the top schools, many struggle.

It’s more about us as individuals.

Remind him that he can reach and he may or may not get in. But that you’ll find great schools as safeties, where he’ll excel at. So in that sense, there’s nothing to worry about.

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The college spouse teaches at not an option?

It will be worth visiting a couple of schools to nail down what “near a city” means to your son. There’s Brandeis- sits on a hill, a suburb of Boston, but sort of set apart, or BC, which has some parts of the campus actually in Boston, some in Chestnut Hill (a leafy, very expensive suburb) with very good public transportation to the heart of downtown, or Drexel/Temple smack dab in the middle of Philadelphia vs. Haverford which is in a close-in suburb of Philly.

Some kids just want a “college town” vibe- fun restaurants walking distance to the dorms, a used bookstore, a vintage clothing store, good coffee shop, but they don’t actually need a real city. Get some clarity on that by visiting, even if the college itself is not of interest.

My kids spent an hour at Dartmouth (for example) and that was enough. Everyone on the tour (guide, other prospective students) talked skiing, skiing and more skiing. An occasional aside to reference snowboarding. But it was clear that the cute stores and gorgeous campus would not be enough for kids with zero interest in winter sports (i.e. mine!). Sometimes visiting schools which aren’t of serious interest can help pare down the list pretty quickly.

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If you feel like you can play D3 soccer, if you are identified as a recruit by the coach, it will give you a leg up on the competition with respect to your grades and test scores. You will still have to be in the ballpark of regular applying students who are accepted, but in many D3 schools it can ease your way into schools that you might think you wouldn’t otherwise qualify for. To do this angle, you should be highlight clips from your games and actively selling yourself to the coaches, and there are websites that will help you in this process if you don’t want to do it by yourself from scratch. You have strong grades and that is a good start.

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Thank you! Time to make a video!