Hi. First time parent involved in college search. My kid does well but not valedictorian well. Will graduate in 2023.
3 season athlete but not a star, a lot of community service but hasn’t cured a disease or started a business. A great kid but a kid if you know what I mean.
Loves history so will study something related
US citizen
New York resident
Pretty good public high school on Long Island
Intended Major: History, PolySci, Public Policy, Education
Unweighted HS GPA: 4.0 (95%)
Rank: Unknown but estimated within top 10%
ACT/SAT Scores: 1360 SAT so far
Honors and AP classes: about 10 AP classes
So the SUNYs are a possibility but we’d like to expand our search.
Money is a big issue. We will not get need based aid. Income looks higher but we’re not in position to go over a SUNY price out of pocket. And not looking for the kid to take out loans if they can avoid in any way.
Do we have a chance at merit aid at any smaller school( 2-10000 students) within 8-9 hours? Won’t go any further so some of the southern flagships that give automatic merit are out. I guess any northeast state plus Penn, Ohio, Md, Del, DC and Virginia? Willing to go someplace with lower avg scores if we can get better deal. Is this even possible?
Will apply to Bing, Geneseo, Buffalo, Albany but not particularly excited by any of them yet.
Suggestions of colleges would be appreciated. Not sure if all these conditions can be met!
Try looking at Hobart, Union, Connecticut College. Maybe St. Lawrence. Don’t know the merit situation at Hartwick in Oneonta, but thats one that’s rarely mentioned on CC.
For big merit aid, which is what you need to get close to the cost of a SUNY, you will definitely have to drop down a tier or two, where your son’s stats are in the very top of the accepted students’ pool.
Thanks cinnamon! I will check these out! Not familiar with them at all really. I’m a graduate of Binghamton so I know the SUNY system a little. We think dropping down a level or two might be worth it if the financials can match up. Thanks again.
There is no formula that is disclosed for merit aid at most schools but some schools that can be generous are St. Lawrence, Ithaca College, McDaniel College (MD), Clark (MA) and Denison (OH). Some small schools really like demonstrated interest. Elon (NC) offers $7500/year in merit aid but their tuition is cheaper than other private colleges and your child could get additional merit aid and other perks if he qualifies for their Fellows program. I know someone who got full tuition at St. Lawrence (up near Canada).
Don’t cross off a school at this point for having Greek life! Most kids, usually the large majority, do not belong to fraternities or sororities at these schools. Later on you might decide the school’s not a great fit, but at this, very preliminary stage, it’s too early to discard them.
2-10k within 8 or 9 hours. You know you can fly places faster than that. For example UAH which is 10k kids and you’d be cheap with your scores. . So if you eliminate the south and west…we’ll that’s where the $ are. U of Maine may match SUNY tuition.
Western Carolina is inexpensive on its own. Some of the PA publics could work like Indiana u of Pa, Kutztown, stroudsburg, Millersville etc.
Allegheny. Christopher Newport with merit. Wooster. Radford. Frostburg State. Ursinsus or any # of LACs but won’t likely get you to SUNY.
They are bigger but you’d be $3k at Arizona and could join the Honors College to be smaller. Excellent at policy. The trade off is yes it’s farther but not really as it’s far but less than 8-9 hours by flight. You’d be out the door at $18k with room and board.
You can make any large school smaller and even a GREEK or party schools there are many that don’t.
Seconding Hobart. Also check out Bard. I absolutely think a strong merit aid package is a possibility. Wheaton in MA offered my son a pretty strong merit aid. Also, being a top student at some of these schools may have the possibility of additional offers. After my son received his acceptances and then scholarship offers, some of the schools offered other options or recommended he apply to certain scholarships.
Allegheny
Ohio Wesleyan
Gettysburg
Many of these were coming in around the $20k mark with merit for my son.
You mentioned education as a possibility - that might be a reason to stay in NY, if he might want to get a credential there.
I know Albany often isn’t as big of a draw as some other SUNY’s, but I’ve heard good things about the Honors College there, and being in the state capitol could be a plus for public policy involvement. Robust education programs too. Honors not only has its own housing and many of its own, smaller classes, but also confers priority registration which is a huge perk at any public university. If you dig into the opportunities here, you may find more than you expect to get excited about.
For OOS affordability, there’s always U of Maine’s Flagship Match program; it’s also a smaller flagship, with under 10K students.
Gettysburg is good for your areas of interest, and the top merit awards would get it down to cost parity with SUNY, I believe. Quinnippiac is good for education, among other fields. He’d probably get good merit at Miami of Ohio - might have more Greek life than you prefer, but with 30% participating, there are still more than twice as many non-Greek students as Greek.
Farther from home but guaranteed to be cheaper than SUNY, look at Truman State in MO and U of Minnesota Morris. Both are public liberal arts colleges that are strong academically but very affordable.
I’d take a look at these schools. They are in the designated area and have graduation rates of at least 70%. The net price for families earning at least $110k were anywhere from about $23-37k, but depending on how much higher you’re your child’s stats are than the university’s typical stats, merit money may well be improved. Some of the schools’ net price calculators (NPCs) will give an estimate of merit aid, at least on the minimum end. I would also look at the scholarship pages to see if any of them have named scholarships with more specific stats. I would, however, make sure and do a financial check on institutions that you’re more interested in to make sure that they’re on financially strong footing. I suspect that most of these would be likely or extremely like for admittance.
• College of New Jersey
• Grove City (PA )
• Saint Michael’s (VT)
• Ursinus (PA )
• Siena (NY)
• Clark (MA)
• Messiah (PA )
• Christopher Newport (VA)
• Juniata (PA )
• Lebanon Valley (PA )
• Saint Anselm (NH)
• Cedarville (OH)
• Houghton (NY)
• Merrimack (MA)
• St. John Fisher (NY)
• Washington & Jefferson (PA )
• Wheaton (MA)
• Allegheny (PA )
• Le Moyne (NY)
• Molloy (NY)
• St. Bonaventure (NY)
• Adelphi (NY)
• Canisius (NY)
• Monmouth (NJ)
• Niagara (NY)
• Seton Hall (NJ)
• St. Francis (PA )
• Catholic (D.C.)
• Geneva (PA )
• Ramapo (NJ)
• Susquehanna (PA )
• Nazareth (NY)
• Ohio Northern
• Assumption (MA)
• Chatham (PA )
• Salisbury (MD)
• Wagner (NY)
• Westminster (PA )