<p>My daughter is an above average junior in high school (3.7 GPA, 27 ACT with plans to re-take) looking to major in journalism. She desperately wants to attend college OOS despite the fact that we have a good journalism school in-state (Michigan State.) </p>
<p>We have made it clear that we will not pay more than the cost to attend Michigan State but understand her desire to go to school OOS - and have encouraged her to research OOS schools that may offer scholarships and/or offer lower OOS tuition.</p>
<p>There are some great journalism schools that do not offer guaranteed scholarships but might have some competitive scholarships available such as Univ. of Missouri, Univ. of Indiana and Syracuse. There is also the possibility of additional outside/local scholarships - but I think it would be difficult to bring the cost down to what we can reasonably afford.</p>
<p>I think there is value in comparing and contrasting different schools/journalism programs, but I don't want to have her fall in love with a school that we may not ultimately be able to afford. Do we avoid visiting these schools because they are outside of our reach or will seeing them motivate her to excel in her studies and study more for her ACTs/SATs?</p>
<p>I want her to have the opportunity to attend a school she loves but want to keep expectations realistic.</p>
<p>I can only tell you what our family is doing --</p>
<p>We did not visit financial reach schools that were OOS and costly to see. We have tabled that until after acceptances and aid.</p>
<p>We DID visit 1 financial reach school summer of junior year. It was near other schools we were visiting and at the time it was not as large a financial reach as it is now. I regret it. It wasn’t only son who feel in love with it. I will have a great amount of guilt if he is accepted the cost is just too much. He is well aware of the financial constraints, but it will still hurt as the fit was perfect.</p>
<p>I personally think it is too early to be visiting financial reach schools until she brings up both her ACT and GPA or gets a score on the PSAT that would qualify her for National Merit status. Right now she is a first semester junior, it is not too early at all to start thinking about colleges, but the picture is far from complete. You will have a much better idea of how likely she is to get merit aid later in the year, maybe even after spring semester. You are smart to be afraid that she will fall in love with a school that you cannot financially swing, and you do not want to mortgage her future (or your retirement) with loans should she decide to go there anyway.<br>
If you haven’t yet, run some calculators to figure out if she will be eligible for financial aid or will need to have some merit aid to go out of state.<br>
Good luck!</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, we visited the Mizzou last spring after my daughter was admitted and at the Admission office info session (your standard college visit type session) they passed around a flyer with a step-by-step guide to obtaining Missouri residency for tuition purposes after your first year. My daughter decided on another school, so I didn’t pay too much attention, but I don’t remember the process being particularly onerous. The admissions office my be willing to e-mail you the information so that your D can decide if she would be interested in pursuing it.</p>
<p>Also, depending on your D’s class rank, she may qualify for the Mark Twain Scholarship which will discount tuition further.</p>
<p>The J-School visit was well worth doing and Mizzou jumped several notches on my D’s list, and landed right at the top of my husband’s (we’re in NJ and the full OOS tuition was comparable to Rutgers (not even on D’s radar) and well less than the private schools D applied to). Ultimately she ended up somewhere else, but I wouldn’t necessarily write the school off as too expensive without further research.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t visit a school that you KNOW you won’t pay to send her to UNLESS there is a reasonable expectation that she could raise her stats to the point of qualifying for a virtually automatic financial award that makes it affordable for you. In that case, a visit could be motivational. Otherwise, it is just asking for trouble.</p>
<p>The Mark Twain scholarship mentioned above at Mizzou requires that the student be in the top 50% of their class, with a higher award for kids in the top 25%. Her current ACT qualifies for the lower award of up to $4000, depending on rank. If she achieved a really big jump in her ACT, and is in the top 25%, she could get as much as $5,500. That would reduce the OOS cost of Mizzou to about $30K. MSU is about $21K. If there is NO WAY you would come up with the difference, I don’t see the point in visiting. IMHO, $9K is too much to expect a kid to cover in outside scholarships and jobs. And keep in mind that the scholarship can be lost if the college GPA falls below a certain level. This one isn’t particularly onerous, but any kid can have a really bad semester.</p>
<p>Mizzou is certainly more affordable than most privates, even with merit money from the latter.</p>
<p>Edited to add: If there is a reach school where the FA policy is such that IF she were accepted you could afford to send her, and IF the improvement in her stats required to be a viable candidate is within the bounds of probability, then I might visit. I do not think, for example, that a student with an ACT of 27 has a reasonable chance of raising it to 34.</p>
<p>Those which are completely out-of-reach are not worth bothering with at all.</p>
<p>If the school is a financial reach, it can be put in the bucket with all of the other reach schools, as long as everyone involved realizes that admission without enough financial aid or scholarships is equivalent to a rejection. I.e. the student is not trying merely to get admitted, but trying to get enough financial aid or scholarships.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback. It does make sense to revisit the situation in the spring and see where she is with grades/test scores. Re: financial aid…we didn’t qualify with S1 - who is now at UA on the Presidential Scholarship (thus D’s desire to go OOS - but without the stats to do so) - and don’t expect we will qualify for FA with D.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t visit a school that you cannot/will not pay for. D is also pursuing Journalism and we have visited some of the schools you mentioned. </p>
<p>You can get a feel for Indiana affordabilty now before you visit. They have automatic scholarships that are documented on their website. I think the most is $11,000 instate tuition. If the math makes that less that what you would pay instate then you may want to avoid it. My D is smitten with Indiana. </p>
<p>Syracuse is a great school (I wish D was more enthusiastic about it). Based on other students we know with similar stats to D, we estimated how much of a “scholarship” she may receive. </p>
<p>So I guess, I would do the math first on these schools. If you get the max scholarships, will it still be something you can’t swing?- Then don’t visit.</p>
<p>I have several friends with kids at Mizzou and poster upthread who mentioned the school handing out information about becoming a Missouri resident is correct. I belive you need to stay on campus summer after freshman year and get a job and earn at least $2k. You can then qualify for in-state tuition sophomore year ( or the next year if you wait to do this). This may bring the cost in line with MSU.</p>
<p>From IU’s website:
Non-Resident Criteria
IU Distinction - $44,000 ($11,000 per year)
■Minimum SAT score of 1350 or minimum ACT of 31
■Minimum GPA of 3.80 on a 4.0 scale
IU Prestige - $20,000 ($5,000 per year)
■Minimum SAT score of 1250 or minimum ACT of 28
■Minimum GPA of 3.70 on a 4.0 scale</p>
<p>So if she can bring her ACT up by just 1 point, she’ll qualify for $5000/year. Not sure if that makes it more in-reach. And IU does superscore the ACT for admissions and scholarships, so raising the ACT score by 1 point should be pretty easy.</p>
<p>Too bad this thread wasn’t opened a month ago. This month we DID visit what I call a financial “extreme reach” with D (HS senior) and we all fell in love with it. Luckily (?) it is also an admissions “reach” school, but if she does get accepted we will have some very tough decisions to make in the spring – settle for one of the other schools on her list that were perfectly fine until we visited this one? or mortgage our future to send her to the perfect school? I’ll let you know how it goes :)</p>
<p>Michigan is part of the Midwest Student Exchange program so many out of state schools may be at or LESS than your instate. With this program you pay 150% of instate tuition at the accepting institution, so Mich. State at total costs of about $23,900 is more than what Missouri would cost. Your tuition costs would be roughly $9000, rounding up for the potential increase with a total cost at Missouri in the $21,000 range. Public school is in IL, IN, NE, ND, MN, KS, WI also participate in this program. It’s worth looking into.</p>
<p>You know your D better than we do. If she’s the kind of kid who can look and tour and ask questions and know that if the money doesn’t align she won’t be going there, then visiting may be both a motivator and a spur to finding more schools which appeal – potentially at a better price.</p>
<p>If she’s going to be in agony at the prospect of having to turn down the “dream school” then it’s not worth it.</p>
<p>Some kids can cheerfully reflect on “what might have been” but be realistic; others won’t be able to go to plan B or C.</p>
<p>RTRMom2 - For the J-School at Mizzou admission requirements as an incoming Freshman are as follows. I suggest researching admissions if she doesn’t meet the requirements because she would then have to apply in her second semeter sophomore year.</p>
<p>We visited the J-School and I was very impressed with their program. Good luck to your D! </p>
<p>1.Directly Admitted Students. A freshman applicant will be directly admitted to the School of Journalism if he or she meets standard MU admissions requirements and any one of the following three criteria: ◦Ranks in the top 10 percent of his or her high school class.
◦Scores 29 or higher on the ACT Composite.
◦Scores 1290 or higher on the math-verbal portions of the SAT. Note: The University of Missouri does not use the relatively new SAT or ACT essay examinations in its admissions process.</p>
<p>2.Pre-Journalism A&S Students. Students accepted by MU who do not meet one of the criteria for direct admission are admitted as pre-journalism students in the College of Arts and Science. Pre-journalism students apply for admission to the School of Journalism as they complete the fourth journalism course, which is either JOURN 2000, Cross-Cultural Journalism, JOURN 2100, News, or JOURN 2150 Multimedia Reporting. That usually occurs in the second semester of the sophomore year as the student is completing 60 credits and all other requirements.</p>