Smaller school with merit aid for Jewish girl B+/A- premed [really 3.95 unweighted HS GPA]

Like I said - it’s worth the hail mary because it does have a possiblity.

You need one assured - which you think is UMD.

Others you know will give strong merit - and then some that are a hail mary - because if you got the $34K, you’d make it work and it’s not impossible but simply improbable.

The fact that you said she’s starting with so many college credits - I assume that’d reduce the years from four?

This is why you need to be open minded - it may be larger (although not super large) but the campus isn’t that big. We first went to Denison - the population is small but we found the campus large.

Bottom line, there are no absolutes.

PS - since you’re concerned with class size or teaching quality, note that Elon was #1 and UMBC #6 - for what that’s worth - in US News - that’s pretty impressive though I’m unsure of the criteria.

2022 Best Undergraduate Teaching Programs at National Universities | US News Rankings

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Do you mean ranking in Most Innovative? I would not count on that. It has Arizona #1, GaState #2, MIT #3, GaTech #4, Carnegie #5, UMBC #6 and Elon#9. Let me laugh at this as a person who attended GA State, and Ga Tech in the past… I would not pay attention to that. If Ga State is #2 and MIT #3, I have no comments. I am sorry, but we are not running to Ga State or any other school due to that ranking. This is like Wooster running around with their ranking in Senior Capstone or Northeastern with their coop. At their presentation Northeastern admin could not give me simple answer to why Northeastern should be chosen? I simply asked him what are the benefits of the school. He was repeating COOP, COOP, COOP like a mantra. But COOP is not part of school, it just built into curriculum. So DD never applied… I would look at US News rankings very critically.

No - I put the link in the email above. Quality of teaching.

ASU is Most Innovative - not Arizona - and I believe it - the Chancellor Michael Crow is genius - and they’ve got quality throughout - the Honors College, leaders is business disciplines such as Supply Chain, near tops in journalism, etc. - they are legit.

But this is quality of teaching. Here is the methodology - Miami, btw, is listed in many rankings for high quality of teaching. Obviously, one has to go there to truly know - but i think because they’re not a PHD machine, perhaps profs focus on students and not research - is the sort of underlying opinion.

In the spring and summer of 2021, U.S. News & World Report asked top academics to name the schools they believe have faculty with an unusually strong commitment to undergraduate teaching.

The rankings for Best Undergraduate Teaching focus on schools whose faculty and administrators are committed to teaching undergraduate students in a high-quality manner. College presidents, provosts and admissions deans who participated in the annual U.S. News peer assessment survey were asked to nominate up to 15 schools in their Best Colleges ranking category that have a strength in undergraduate teaching.

The Best Undergraduate Teaching rankings are based solely on the responses to this separate section of the 2021 peer assessment survey.

These rankings focus on one very important part of the undergraduate academic experience that is not always directly measured in a college’s regular peer assessment survey results or in its overall rank.

The lists, organized by U.S. News ranking categories, include the colleges that received the most nominations. They are ranked in descending order based on the number of top-15 nominations they received. Schools had to receive seven or more nominations to be ranked.

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Sorry, Ga State is #2 in Best Undergraduate teaching too… But it ends up #239 in ranking…I guess to be good in teaching is not enough in US News ranking. Sorry for being so sarcastic, but you get what I am saying… I am curious how many out of state students (not foreign students) will shell their money for Ga State for good teaching. Maybe some will come from nearby states for Insurance or Management Information Systems, but I do not expect long lines from California or NY. Those lines will be for UGA or GaTech that are not ranked high in teaching apparently.

Because they are PHD schools.

Don’t confuse high rated schools and students going to them…with better teaching. At universities, and this is just a generic statement because I’m sure all schools have good and bad profs…but the profs are in part rated on research and other things - and not teaching. Anyway, it was data I thought might be of interest - because UMD, while higher rated than UMBC may be worse from a pre-med POV in regards to professors focusing on the student…something to open your mind to and look at anyway…again, you want a deal and pre-med, you have to open your mind a bit.

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Another colleague’s son attended Ohio Wesleyan. The website says most of the merit scholarships start at $20,000.

So I will put in another vote for Clark. I’m local to the area. We just toured Clark last week with my D23 and we were quite impressed. If you are looking for research opportunities than Worcester is a great place to be. It is home to a number of Universities within a 5 mile radius of Clark including the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. In addition to a number of Biotechnology firms. Also, look into WPI just down the road from Clark. They have been quite generous with aid with women as of late. I suspect Clark has a lower rating because of it’s location. It is a very urban campus and not the best part of Worcester. Though Worcester has improved considerably in the last 10 years. WPI on the other hand is on the edge of the nicest area of town.

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I’m from Ohio…and the rest of my family still lives there.

Miami (Ohio) has long been viewed as the public LAC of Ohio. Programs are strong. It’s one of the smaller public universities in Ohio, and attracts many many very strong instate applicants. I agree…this is worth looking at.

I’ll mention Ohio University again. It’s in a very small college town, Athens. But it has terrific allied health professions and also a DO school on the campus. Not sure if this is still the case, but they used to have fixed tuition for four years. You would need to check that.

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It seems that the OP and/or the student has a strong dislike for public colleges, and I am not sure why because the reasons were never stated. Many of these schools check all the boxes, including small size. I suggested 3 that have less than 7000 students.

Both of my kids attended public schools for undergrad, and they both had a very successful college experience with all kinds of opportunities. One attended, the other will be attending …very strong programs for grad school (well known schools with merit).

I really think that omitting/ignoring these schools will put this student at a disadvantage. When you need merit and affordability…you need to look at who offers it.

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Ohio U sent us an app waiver - so OP could get on their info list…as they should many.

Request More Information | Ohio University

And Ohio University has the Ohio Guarantee…

https://www.ohio.edu/financial-aid/cost

OP, I loved it when you said your daughter loves horses and would attend that school just because of that opportunity. It feels like the first time in this entire thread I heard her voice. Seems like most of her opinions are influenced by outside sources and are not truly her own. I look forward to hopefully hearing more about her after some more visits!

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Reading between the lines, I don’t think the OP necessarily has a dislike of public colleges. After all the older D is at GATech (granted a prestigious public for her area of study). It does seem for the student in question, they prefer a small-mid college, which by definition rules out many publics.

That said, I agree with many here suggesting “smaller publics” and “public LACs” for the safety/likely list. Other than distance, College of Charleston seems the closest to checking all the boxes. Miami-OH is another…beautiful campus, one of the public ivies, well-respected academically. Plus Miami-OH has merit based on GPA only (no test requirement). The kids we know at those schools are very happy.

The OP and D have a lot of information from this thread and many schools to research. They also have more campus visits coming up that may influence both the wish list and potential application list. Plenty of time over the next few months for fine-tuning.

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Yes but there have been several small publics mentioned- that’s what I don’t really understand.

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Please provide a link for this auto merit. I looked and couldn’t find one.

This is what I found. It offers a range of merit based on GPA, rather than a set amount. If this student receives the higher end of the range, I believe it could be in budget (with the employer paid tuition).

Miami offers merit scholarships to qualified high school students who enroll full time on Miami’s Oxford campus beginning in the fall semester. Students will be considered based on scholarship availability at the time they apply. December 1 is the priority application deadline to be considered for Miami’s merit scholarships. Miami does not require the submission of ACT or SAT test scores for first-year students applying for 2022 enrollment.

To be considered for a scholarship, students must complete their application (including transcript and recommendation) by the priority deadline and meet the minimum academic criteria. No separate scholarship application is necessary to be considered for the awards listed in the following table. Scholarships are not guaranteed and are based on academic credentials provided at the time of application. (See Additional Scholarships for awards with additional criteria.)

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Right…but no guaranteed awards.

Miami also fixes costs for all four years. That is another good incentive.

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Oh? Then I must be misunderstanding the grid?

image

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From what I read…it’s a range of money…and students are considered for this with their application for admission only. I didn’t see that it was guaranteed for all.

But if this student received $10,000 off of the OOS cost…plus the employer reduction…I think this would be very close to budget.

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