Yes, NYU is out due to cost. We’ve heard how stingy they are with aid, so never seriously considered it. Ran the NPC this morning just for fun and it’ll cost over 60K!
Both Syracuse and Drexel were on her list until recently. It doesn’t seem that either will offer enough merit to make them affordable. I think she prefers Pitt to both anyway, even if the costs were comparable.
She doesn’t really want to go to Temple because it’s close to home and a lot of kids from her high school go there, so she definitely prefers Pitt for in-state. She will probably end up applying to Temple just because admission + honors college/merit seems much more likely there compared to Pitt.
Will look more closely at UMDCP. I actually mentioned it to her yesterday. Didn’t realize it was so close to the Metro into DC. We will add it to our planned visits this summer.
We’ll also check out Duquesne while in Pittsburgh. She originally nixed it due to its religious affiliation.
We’ve gone back and forth about Fordham. I think it’s worth consideration. Hopefully her love of NYC, and decent chance at merit there, will prevail over her aversion to religious schools.
@Lynnski She likes the city because things are walkable and easily accessible by public transportation. She does not have her license and has no desire to get one anytime soon. She plans to live in a city forever. She hates living in the suburbs because you have to drive to get anywhere.
@samsmom20 - my D had similar requirements to yours: urban school, no religious affiliation, zero interest in sports, NE location and she had the additional requirement of performing arts as a major. Money wasn’t an issue but NYC was the city of choice. If she considers Fordham she should also look at the schools in the Tri-state area because taking a train 45 minutes into Penn Station vs taking a shuttle 30 minutes to Lincoln Center probably isn’t a deal-breaker. My D looked at Brown, Sarah Lawrence and Vassar and applied to BU, Wesleyan and Rutgers. Also, if she’s willing to consider schools with religious affiliation Boston College might be a great fit.
Given that public transportation is key, you might want to consider communities with a high walkability index. For instance, UMass Amherst, Amherst college, Smith and Mt Holyoke all have a free bus that connects with other campuses, shopping, restaurants, etc. Except for mt Holyoke they’re also on a nice bicycle path. No car required… but it’s far from urban. Very high grooviness quotient. Good luck
My D19 got merit from Fordham with hmmm a fair bit lower GPA than yours and a slightly lower ACT-equivalent , so especially if yours breaks 1500 on SAT I’d think she’d get a very decent package. I’d definitely encourage her to at least apply. Although Fordham is clearly proud of being a Jesuit school it didn’t “feel like” a “religious school”, if that makes sense. (Also agree if you bend the rules then looking at BC is worth it. Might as well throw Georgetown in the mix too then! )
The city surrounding one side of Tufts (Somerville) is very high density, (16th highest in the country) but “low rise” (i.e. no sky scrapers). It is a classic, turn of the century, street car suburb organized around lots of squares. It has an interesting history of crime (Whitey Bulger) but these days it has gentrified and along with Medford (on the other side of Tufts) so it is now one of the hottest real estate markets in the state.
There is no explicit forensics major at Tufts, or criminology department, but they did invent the most popular gene sequencing equipment and there is very unique program where you can take a course in an actual prison along with the inmates. https://tischcollege.tufts.edu/tufts-university-prison-initiative-tisch-college
It is probably not a good idea to assume Tufts is a “match” in the admissions sense since your SAT scores are below the median (751M, 726E) and the admit rate for women is about 13%. Admissions are very holistic and community service extra-curriculars are highly valued - so that would help.
UMBC checks a lot of boxes for you - STEMcentric, non-party, urban (minutes to Inner Harbor attractions of Baltimore). Given your stats, I would check out the Meyerhoff Scholarship program https://meyerhoff.umbc.edu/
Overlooked the out-of-state status, I suppose CUNY is a better deal for NY or even city residents because of tuition and the housing costs. Nevertheless Sophy Davis, https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/csom/admissions could be of interest for bio/premed. I think also the SUNY schools give merit aid to strong out of state students which can bring the price down to in-state level, but Stony Brook is not really that close to NYC. As for Boston I would look at Northeastern for its urban setting and overall solid academics.