Ok, I’m going to throw out the names of two more schools. I’ve shown the math so people can verify that I’m calculating this correctly. And both made the USNWR list for the quality of undergraduate teaching, should anyone care.
Otterbein: Private college with about 2300 undergrads. It’s probably a bit more than a 6-hr drive from your location, just outside of Columbus, OH. Based on this chart, your daughter would likely qualify for the President’s Scholarship of $17-18k. The cost to your family would be about $21,696, so within budget.
$33,674 tuition & fees
$17,000 merit aid (subtracted)
$16,674 balance of tuition
$6669 40% discount from employer (subtracted)
$10,004 remainder of tuition for family to pay
$11,692 room & board
$21,696.40 Family Cost
Baldwin Wallace: Private college with about 2900 undergrads. It’s probably about a 5.5 hour drive from your location and is just outside of Cleveland. Based on this chart your D would receive a $21,000 scholarship. The cost to your family would be just over $21k, so again, within budget.
$35,366 tuition & fees
$21,000 merit aid (subtracted)
$14,366 tuition after aid
$5,746.40 employer discount (subtracted)
$8,619 tuition balance for family
$12,424 room & board
$21,043 Family Cost
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Oh, darn. I guess I misunderstood. Sorry for the bad info. I’ll edit my previous post to correct.
I don’t get the “public Ivy” thing. Don’t know what that means. Ivy League is just a conference. And I don’t think you can compare Miami to any Ivy League school. It’s completely different as are each of the Ivies from each other. I just think it’s odd that any college calls itself a “public Ivy”. Miami is a great school for lots of kids. I just don’t get the comparison!
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Public universities like College of Charleston and Miami Ohio really are viewed by many as public LACs…because that is more like how they operate.
These are campuses worthy of visits because it’s very hard to describe them in a post. Students and parents need to see for themselves…and hear what these schools have to offer.
I’ve been at both colleges. Really…visiting is the only way to know!
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I’m sure the phrase “public ivy” was coined by some college consultant at some point in time. I believe it refers to public universities with a reputation for academic excellence and it sounded catchy to refer to the Ivies. I also bet the list of public ivies morphs from year to year and could be up for debate just like rankings.
The public ivy tag was brought up in a Miami-OH info session when my D was looking at schools a couple years ago. I referenced here simply to emphasize its positive academic reputation.
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For clarity, are you only wanting schools with no religious affiliation? Or are schools with religious affiliations that have no required religion courses, no required chapel attendance, and are open and accepting to all faiths (and that would have a Jewish population, as part of your other requirements) okay? Before it seemed that liberal-minded, diverse religious institutions were okay, but now it seems that it may not be.
It’s an easy in - if you hit the GPA bucket, you’ll get one of the amounts.
On the 2026 page, I see three amounts listed by posters: $19K, $22K, and $34K. So those would all be in that top bucket. In theory, the lower of those 3 amounts, the higher the frequency.
For 2025, there were similar - like 3 awards - most got the $21K.
There are also additional scholarships ($1-2K) above - the Podesse. Miami is the type of school, if you don’t apply for Honors (it’s more work) that it’s a very easy app from Common App - but it’s the kind of school that even if it doesn’t make the final list, it’s worth a shot gun because the $34K isn’t impossible if the student is top shelf (without test score).
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I guess it’s marketing.
We have seen schools that call themselves a “public Ivy” and I really didn’t care. We already knew they were excellent schools.
One of my kids attended a school that they called a “public LAC” and I didn’t pay attention to that either…we knew it was a good fit regardless of what it was called.
I was looking at WPI before. Redditt posts (with grain of salt) said not to use WPI for premed… Anyone with premed experience at WPI?
Did they happen to mention why? As I’ve said before…the required courses for medical school applicants are challenging everywhere…not just at WPI.
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I just read a few comments and they were very positive. What were the issues that you read about and found concerning?
Premed is a lot of work. Med school is even more work.
I would not send my kid to St Olaf as a Jewish parent. Besides the fact that there are a number of other peer schools with no religious affiliation, there does not seem to be an active Jewish community, and no synagogues reasonably close to the campus. So that was a part of the criteria we looked for in our search also whether the school had an active Hillel.
Earlier in the thread, a question was raised about Furman being a good school for a Jewish student. Even though the Jewish population is not significant at the school. Greenville has a very active and relatively good size Jewish community with several synagogues, and Furman has a small but seemingly active Hillel. So Furman would have been in consideration for us, but St Olaf would not have been.
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I think I looked at one of non-religious (formally religious) school. Do not remember from the top of my head what it was (I think somewhere in NY). All was great until I saw the picture that on convocation they light candles and to celebrate all milestones they attend local church… That would not fly for any money for us… No offence to anyone.
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I think it was nothing specific to support premed students since school focus on engineering. That is why we are avoiding schools with primary engineering focus. DD is not engineering material… I understand that you can major in Biology in any school but we had already family member who ruined his medical career because of such wrong choice. ( I would not provide any further details but we are not going that route).
And I am on the fence with Furman too. We need to visit.
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Did you think Furman would provide substantial merit aid for some reason to your student?
And this is why I have a lot of concern about Wooster. Daughter loved everything but location. As someone mentioned also even though Hillel technically exists there, it is not very active and depends heavily on students enrolled. So in some years it can be pretty much “dead”. Same story with St.Mary’s - geographically isolated, no Hillel. I am sure all kids would be nice, but DD will feel a bit isolated.
It is all lottery as you know. Some people suggested to put it on the list because people had success.
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I agree with this strategy. I do think an engineering focused school will have a set of relatively stronger and/or more competitive math students as classmates. Of course, pre-med is tough anywhere, but no need to make it harder than it needs to be.
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I am not sure where you’ve got liberal-minded. We are more conservative (with some orthodox extended family) than liberal and very much independent in all views (kids were taught to think about particular issues by themselves and not marching with any group without thinking.) Very liberal Oberlin did not fly. We need at least 100 Jewish students on campus of 2000 students and active Hillel.
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