Beating UMD in terms of cost is impossible… It was not a goal.
FWIW my D22 got $35K in merit at Ursinus and $30K at Rhodes. Ursinus has smaller additional scholarships that are competitive and some of them stack. Parlee fellows might be especially interesting if your D is premed.
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No I was saying 50% off is impossible at your reaches and GW short of W&L via Johnson and Weinstein so while you put a lot of time into your list, if you absolutely won’t go if you don’t get 50%, you might look to refine the reaches. .
@trops shows your matches and safeties can get you there. So that’s good.!!!
I can’t find the UMD 2026 stats but someone posted. They are insane. Not a safety for anyone anymore.
It’s great you are well ahead of most people so you’ll be in great shape for summer/fall.
Did u ever look at Charleston ? Easy grading. My daughters friend turned down Penn, Vandy abd rice to go there. He’s pre med. strong Jewish life.
Looking at Ursinus’ Common Data Set, everyone receives financial aid (433 incoming freshmen, 334 of whom received financial aid, and 99 received merit aid). The average merit aid package is $33,247. If your daughter were to receive the average merit aid package, would your family be willing and able to pay for it?
Also, were you ever able to get your daughter to look at St. Mary’s College of Maryland? Small classes, smaller school, in-state public price all seem to make it a strong contender to add here.
Would your daughter be happy to attend any one of the institutions on this list (including her safety)? If there are any colleges she would not be happy to attend, then they should be removed and replaced, or just removed.
Also, I think it is highly unlikely that your daughter (or most strong applicants) would receive half-tuition scholarships at the reach schools. Thus, I would save the time, money, and aggravation and forego those.
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Yep. I suspect 50% at reaches will be a challenge but we will see. We need to put some reaches on the list at least for fun (my oldest at least proudly can say that she was accepted to her several reaches that were not affordable…) I am particularly curious about GW, since DD can be a commuter there… We actually need to visit and verify that. So it can work theoretically with less than half. Only time will tell. I know with acceptances and scholarships it is totally unpredictable these days.
Admissions told us during visit that DD qualify for Zacharias at Ursinus. Frankly it will not be her first choice, since it is way too small. She is also a bit ambitious and does not feel that school with 80% acceptance will be best fit. It is truly safety for her. DD would have to think hard and compare her options. I do not think that DD will be happy at St. Mary’s (let me not explain.) We will keep as matches only schools that DD will be willing to attend.
Will she attend Ursinus if she doesn’t get accepted to/ get money from her matches? If she isn’t happy, she needs another affordable safety.
If she gets into a match are you able to pay full cost?
I would add more affordable safeties.
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Bluntly, 50% merit (off tuition) at reaches is an impossibility.
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Does ursinus still have the Gateway for $35,000 that’s guaranteed if you have certain stats? D21 got that plus another small award plus financial aid. There were other stackable scholarships she could have applied to.
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If she thinks Ursinus is too small, the same will apply to Rhodes. I think they are about the same in size, though Rhodes is higher rated. Rhodes attracts pretty high caliber candidates from my neck of the woods.
This student needs 2 affordable safeties that she would attend. Right now she has a safety that she doesn’t like.
I would not count on significant merit to the matches. The way things are now, it’s possible she won’t get accepted to some (based on what I am seeing).
Significant merit to schools like GW is given to students who get into much higher ranking schools. My relative received a lot of money to GW, but she was accepted to single digit schools.
Is this family willing to be full pay at the match schools? What if she gets $20,000… is that enough for a school that could be close to 80?
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What continues to confuse me is the need to get “half tuition” because different colleges have different tuition. If you can afford half tuition at a more expensive college, why can’t you manage “two-thirds” tuition at a less expensive college if the end result is the same?
Or are you using “half-tuition” as a stand in for something else?
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Because we have outside scholarship from work that gives us another half tuition (minus fees), but we get it after taxes (not direct payment to college). That is effectively 1/3 of tuition. We will have to pay in that case left tuition plus room and board.
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Her second safety is UMD. She has guaranteed transfer from CC where she does dual enrollment now to UMD with her stats… DD will have to choose UMD vs Ursinus. So far she says Ursinus.
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If GW will give her 20K and allow her to be commuter (we live within 25 miles) with our outside 1/3 tuition scholarship we will be able to afford it.
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She said she would choose Ursinus over UMD, yet she doesn’t like Ursinus? To me this means she needs another safety.
What happens if your daughter does not get any merit from her match schools? That could happen. There’s also the possibility that she will get waitlisted, etc.
I would feel better knowing that I had affordable options that my child liked. I would find it very unsettling to have no acceptable safeties, and to have match schools that were only affordable with merit, which is not guaranteed.
Well, as I said her other safety is UMD. She will have to choose between two. Any other safety will not be safety. Putting another school on the list that she will not attend (like St. Mary’s) will do nothing but extra application and fees. In my opinion she has two good real safeties. She is lucky. Not all kids have such option.
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I agree that the two schools are excellent, but she doesn’t like them. This means they are not excellent for her.
If I were you/your daughter I would add a safety that she likes…. In case the other schools are not affordable…. Or she is waitlisted.
The safety is often the hardest to find… and the most important.
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But if she would choose Ursinus over UMD and she doesn’t really like Ursinus, it seems like they are your definition of safety but perhaps not hers.
I think what people here are suggesting is finding two schools that meet your cost estimate without half tuition merit and that she would be happy to attend. It doesn’t sound like that’s the case here.
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