Cognitive science may be called neuroscience, neuropsychology, human cognition, etc in different departments.
@jym626 Thank you, I’ll check out what the focus of each of those departments are if I find them offered at schools without the cogsci name, hopefully I’ll find similar programs!
Apply to the schools you want to go to. If your family’s EFC is $60k, then their income is relatively high. Let your parents tell you they cannot afford it. You can take out modest loans but don’t do more than $10k over 4 years. Harvard and other top schools give financial aid for families with incomes over $150k in some circumstances. Talk to the financial aid office at your desired schools before giving up the idea.
There are merit options at privates and public options as well. But I think you should apply wherever you want and see what happens. It sounds to me as if your parents are well off.
I second the opinion that you sound very mature and are very articulate as well. No matter where you land you will do well, but you deserve to at least have a conversation with financial aid at your desired schools, and with your parents afterward- about affordability with special circumstances.
I don’t recomend applying to a bunch of schools you can’t afford. It’s a waste of application money ($100+ per school) and possibly greater disappointment if accepted.
Have you run the NPC on HPY? They will be most generous. If you are getting $60,000 Net Price there, I would not expect aid anywhere.
Outside scholarships offset aid, not parent’s contribution.
@twogirls Thank you so much! I really appreciate your advice (:
The field of neuroscience is new-ish, but not all that new. I’ve been in it for decades, and as an aside, there are lots of routes to your end goal. It doe not need to be from an elite school. Don’t start life out with lots of debt.
@Sportsman88 So there isn’t a way to get the total amount of offered financial aid + outside scholarships? I ran the NPC on Harvard and Yale and still got around 60k. I’ll double check it later to see if I did anything wrong, and I’ll probably contact someone to make sure that I’m handling all of their assets the right way. Thank you!
@compmom I think my parents are well off on paper, but it’s a really complicated situation. Even though part of me wants to just apply and leave it up to chance, I wouldn’t be able to shake the personal responsibility if it turned out that they couldn’t afford it and felt the need to go to extreme measures to make it work, especially considering the constant stress they’re under paying for a substantial portion of my sister’s tuition and my little brothers expenses. Even though I want to go to these places, it seems like it would negatively affect too many of my loved ones for me to justify pursuing what I want. You made a really good point though, I’ll try sitting down with my parents again later and having an honest conversation about what’s possible for us without breaking the bank so that we’re on the same page
Guess what- there are a lot of fields which are meritocracies.
Did I miss it- what are your in-state options???
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I have a few safety schools that I could attend with full ride merit scholarships <<
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OK, what schools are these? that would help us see the full picture.
if you are asking if it was worth it to struggle and work so hard to do so well in high school, there’s your answer. yes it was. you have some full-ride options and that is something that millions of students can only dream about and would take in a heartbeat.
the end game is not to go to a dream school, it is to lay the foundation for a successful future and rewarding life, and a school that is offering you a full ride can help you achieve those goals.
You have to talk to your parents and find out from them how much exactly they afford (or want to spend). How well do you know their financial situation? A lot of kids think they do but they don’t really. It is different to hear your parents talk and different to actually see their financial picture. That goes both ways: Parents that are in trouble yet hide that from their kids or parents that make their kids believe they have less. Some times I tell my kids that this month we run out of money but what I really mean is that we run out of discretionary spending. That’s not the same.
Once you find that out then you can have an actual strategy. It will be a different list of schools if they afford none, 10K or 30K.
My brainiac kid got full rides to A, B, C, and D, and full tuition plus paid summer internships at E and F, is not such a bad sentence for your parents to roll around in their heads. Think of your options that way. All of your hard work in high school is going to pay off!
@zahmata
An EFC of 60000 means they make more than 150 K; may be around 200 K; If they have medical expanses, those are tax deductible after certain threshold, do not your patents have health insurance for family? Pre existing conditions are gone so why not have insurance,
HYP will not cover your EFC, your best bet is high merit schaorship; It seems from other thread that you are living in a boarding school, who pays for there, I could be mistaken
Ask your counselor for colleges where you can apply for merit aid
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1965213-rate-my-ecs-chance-me-nyu-vanderbilt-yale-stanford.html#latest
I thought you are a junior at residence STEM highschool
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1995707-how-to-improve-application-chances-for-ivies-and-stanford.html#latest
Your parents are currently paying for your boarding school and your sister education with 200k income, ivy college will give you similar break, your efc is still very high
You have gotten good advice and I will not repeat the advice here. I have one thing to add and that is that you should still include some reach schools on your list. I know there are some schools that are looking for qualified URM and you may qualify for some of those specialized scholarships. You should still include some financial safeties but I don’t. think it hurts to apply to some other schools especially if you can find some that have specialized scholarships.
Another thing to consider is that your parents may have invested in a college fund for your sister and not for you but it is possible that they intend to fund your college out of current savings/income. This may be the case because they know they won’t have to in the future. Try being more specific when you talk to your parents about this issue. They may have a plan.
You are a good, kind child to worry about these things. You will do fine no matter what school you attend.
@zahmata I looked at a previous post of yours, and noticed that you also have a great background in graphic design. There is a huge new and very promising field that combines all of your interests; computer science, cognitive science and design. User Experience Design (also called UX Design). I’m going to ramble a bit, because I have a lot of empathy for you, and want you to know that you have options.
I’m linking to a few different UX Design/similar programs so you can see what I mean about this major combining your interests:
http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/undergraduate-study/major/design/
https://www.hcii.cmu.edu/academics/hci-undergraduate . - this program is at Carnegie Mellon, which is ranked 24 Nationally, so has an excellent reputation.
https://www.rit.edu/programs/new-media-design-bfa . - RIT is a top design school (ranked 10th in the World.)
(top students graduating with this major make $120,000 a year - this is a co-op school.)
https://www.fastcodesign.com/3062640/google-has-a-solution-for-the-ux-design-education-gap-google
I realize that you are concerned about your finances - I do know that RIT gives fairly good merit aid, and as a co-op school, you should know that earnings for a student co-op in the New Media Design major top out at $45 an hour. This is before graduating. https://www.rit.edu/emcs/oce/employer/salary
You could use your co-op earnings to help pay for college.
I understand how disappointing this must be for you, thinking of not going to an Ivy - my first choice was Brown - I didn’t get in, but ended up loving Hamilton College, and credit my education there with my success now. If I had attended Brown, I wouldn’t have met my husband, had my two marvelous kids, have the job I love, live in my home near the coast, etc.
Our son chose his college not because it was the most competitive one he was accepted to, but because he would graduate with much smaller debt. Because it cost him less to go to his college, he was also able to take an unpaid internship for a summer, which was instrumental in helping him truly understand what he wanted to do when he graduated. He worked hard throughout college (two jobs every term) and is now working hard in a job he LOVES, learning the ropes to become an analyst in tech. He has a VERY bright future ahead of him. Many of his friends who went to “better” schools are currently working as au pairs, and in other jobs not related to the fields that they wanted to go into.
Our daughter chose her design school because it gave excellent financial aid as well as showcases excellent outcomes for its students. She is currently working at a GREAT design co-op, and is being paid well. She will have stellar references, and will be a leg up on her competition when she graduates. She is currently co-op -ing with someone who is attending Harvard majoring in UX Design.
I would have been proud of my children no matter where they went, because they work hard and will have great futures in fields that they are both happy working in.
No matter what you end up majoring in, I recommend throwing a wide net, applying to a variety of schools and seeing what types of financial aid packages that you are offered. The merit scholarships my children received varied widely.
The Net Price Calculators helped, but didn’t tell the whole story that was seen in the financial aid packages. Definitely apply to the merit full-tuition schools, but don’t forget to take into account lots of the different variables through your entire time at the different schools. For example, there may be significant differences in housing costs between schools after the first year. What costs us $4,800 for housing per year at my daughter’s school cost us $10,000 per year at my son’s school, and would have cost my daughter over $15,000 a year for a room in a shared apartment in a not-so-great part of Boston. Over the course of 3 years, that is a $30,600 difference in her education costs, just for a place to sleep. Also, the fees vary greatly depending on major (watch out for “Honors” designations at different colleges - that may cost you extra $ for special dorms or programs that you are required to participate in.) Or, if you went to a co-op school, what the earnings are projected to be for different majors while on co-op. That could greatly reduce costs to your family while you are in college, as well as increase your ability to be hired in your field of choice right out of college. I’ve heard from parents at RIT talking about the co-ops that their kids have - at least two recently said that their students have job offers in hand from their co-op experiences as they enter their senior year. (Important to note: co-op earnings do not count on FAFSA/against financial aid - summer job earnings do.)
Definitely appeal financial aid offers - you will need documentation of your brother’s medical and other expenses. Different schools will approach this in different ways.
Last, we are paying/paid less for each of our kids to go to private schools than to the flagship university in our state. I hope that I have helped you in some way. Best of luck!
Is the 60K EFC calculated with 2 in college? If so, then their income must be pretty substantial.
That was my point. Of course at Harvard an EFC of $60k means an income of $600k.
If there are special circumstances, it can be beneficial to talk to an actual financial aid officer, in an appointment by phone or in person. I did that and a school we thought would be impossible became possible.
It also depends on your field. One of my kids is in CS and made quite a bit of money during the year and the summers. The artists in the family, on the other hand, pay for their opportunities!
I don’t think you should get ahead of your parents here. You are trying to protect them, I understand, but first talk to them because it may not be as onerous as it seems for them.
And check with the Ivies or other schools you were interested in, because their financial aid can be quite personalized. If the EFC comes from their NPC then your parents really are quite well off.
@zahmata NOT TRUE – your hard work has you set up to have multiple possibilities for significant merit aid. Mosty students have to make these types of choices.
I know you don’t want your parents to find out how you’re feeling, but in this situation I think that might be the best course of action. Tell your parents that you don’t really qualify for any financial aid, and work through the NPCs with them. Ask them how much they actually can contribute, and ask for their opinions on your situation. You’re going to college, but they’re paying for it, so you should work through it together.